RUSH: So President Trump and the first lady, Melania, just boarded Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews en route to where we live to screw things up for about three or four days. I say that affectionately and jokingly. But I got an email from somebody. “Rush, I just saw the president do the rudest thing. It’s raining, and he got on board the plane before Melania. How rude is that?” You know, that’s an excellent question, and let me tell you why it happened. In official Washington protocol, no one goes through a doorway before the president. No one.
The president always goes through a doorway first. Everybody is to make way for the president. This is pre-Trump. The president, if he wants, can defer and let somebody go, but he’s not supposed to. The president is to always be first through a doorway, moving to a new room or entering a room. It’s all about the appearance of power and protocol. I imagine many of you are now running to Google to try to prove me wrong on this, but don’t doubt me. So the president was not being rude on entering Air Force One prior to the first lady.
Since that happens in public, he obviously decided to follow protocol and enter the airplane first. It is not about chivalry. It’s not about potential danger on the other side of the doorway. It’s all about the appearance of respect and power and things of this nature. And I’m sure that the vast majority of people don’t know it. And I’m sure that many of you now are doubting me, but I warn you not to. He was not being rude, is the bottom line. He doesn’t hate women. Another email: “See? This proves it! No respect for women. He’s a pig. He’s a misogynist.”
Now, normally I wouldn’t even answer those emails, but in this case I felt the need to do so.
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RUSH: In the meantime, Spokane, Washington. Chris, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I want to comment on the protocol story you did. Now, I have to admit that I missed the first part of the story. So I’m not sure what happens inside a building from room to room. But getting on an airplane or getting into a car, the highest ranking person is the last one to get in and the first one to get out. I’m Air Force retired. So I had to deal with it.
RUSH: Okay. You are making a distinction. Here’s what happened. The president and the first lady boarded Air Force One. It’s raining cats and dogs, by the way, and they had to get on with umbrellas. They didn’t park the airplane in a hangar and let people board dry. So they had to board in the rain with umbrellas. The president boarded first, and after he was safely inside, the first lady then ascended the steps. I then got emails from people pointing out that shows what a rude pig Trump is, that he doesn’t even respect his wife enough to let her — in the rain — board the plane before he did. And it proves that Trump is a misogynist and is focused only on himself. And it was that that I was reacting to.
CALLER: Oh, okay.
RUSH: And I said that there is a protocol that when the president enters a room or goes through a doorway, he is always first. You’re saying in the Air Force it’s not true?
CALLER: No. Whenever we carry generals or senators or anybody, the highest ranking person was the last one to get on.
RUSH: Is that also true if you carried the president?
CALLER: Oh, no, I didn’t deal with the president. But if there’s a general and a president, the president gets off the plane first. If there’s a general and a sergeant, the general gets off the plane first.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s true. The president always… Well, of those in the front compartment. The media and the people in the back get off at the back of the plane. Nobody sees that.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: But down the primary stairway, the primary doorway, the president is off the plane first. You’re absolutely right about that. It was Trump who told me this, folks. So that’s my source for this is Trump. Which I know many of you are gonna say, “See, Trump’s stupid! He doesn’t know anything.” Some of you leftists are out there. But that’s my source for this, and he said he was very surprised to learn it. He learned it in the White House. He was standing aside to let women enter rooms and he was taken aside by a protocol expert who said, “Mr. President, you’re supposed to enter first. The president always goes through a doorway first.” He said he still feels uncomfortable with it, but he does it because that’s what’s required.
So that’s my source.
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RUSH: President Trump, I assume, is now airborne en route to Palm Beach Florida and the winter White House known as Mar-a-Lago, and I think the ChiCom leader Xi Jinping is already here. He’s staying down at a resort (ahem), a resort in Lantana, or is it Manalapan? (interruption) it’s Manalapan. Manalapan is the area just south of Palm Beach. Palm Beach is an island, and during the season it’s 40-some-odd-thousand people who reside here. After Easter — I mean, the day after Easter — one half of that number will leave. (chuckling)
Twenty thousand. That day, they’re gone. You know why? That’s just the way it’s always been done. If Easter’s March the 14th, they leave March 15th. If Easter’s April 16th, they leave April 17th. These are the blue-bloods. These are the people inherited their money and don’t know why they do what they do other than it’s always been done that way. They clear outta here, and the place becomes much less congested.
And I now… Mar-a-Lago itself closes for the summer, usually from mid-May all the way through October. But I don’t know what’s… Trump’s got other places to go in the summertime when he wants to leave the White House. He hasn’t got Mar-a-Lagos anywhere else but he’s got numerous golf clubs and places that he can go. So the times that he will be coming here on weekends and vacations is drawing through close.