RUSH: I found something. TIME Magazine, October 18, 2016, this is arguably three weeks before the election last November. Headline: “Read President Obama’s Remarks Telling Donald Trump to ‘Stop Whining.'” This is the archive at TIME magazine. Katie Reilly: “President Barack Obama on Tuesday –” this is three weeks before the election, now, remember, President Barack Hussein O “on Tuesday attacked Donald Trump for making ‘unprecedented’ and ‘irresponsible’ claims about a rigged election.”
Obama was in the Rose Garden during a joint press conference with the Italian prime minister. He said, “I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes. I have never seen, in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place.
“I have never seen in my lifetime anything like this happen. It’s unprecedented. It happens to be based on no facts; every expert, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, conservative or liberal, who has ever examined these issues in a serious way, will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found, that — keep in mind, elections are run by state and local officials, which means that there are places like Florida, for example, where you’ve got a Republican governor, whose Republican appointees are going to be running and monitoring a whole bunch of these election sites.
“The notion that somehow if Mr. Trump loses Florida, it’s because of those people that you have to watch out for, that is both irresponsible and, by the way, doesn’t really show the kind of leadership and toughness that you want out of a president. If you start whining before the game’s even over, if whenever things are going badly for you and you lose, you start blaming somebody else, then you don’t have what it takes to be in this job because there are a lot of times when things don’t go our way or my way. That’s okay, you fight through it, you work through it, you try to accomplish your goals.”
And then he said — this is all Obama — “But the larger point I want to emphasize here is that there is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America’s elections, in part, because they are so decentralized and the numbers of votes involved. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past or that there are instances in which that will happen this time. And so I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.”
Three weeks before the election Obama’s excoriating Trump for claiming the election might be rigged and then telling everybody how impossible it would be, how it’s never happened, how it cannot happen in the United States.
Now, let’s go back to the Washington Post story this past Friday. At the very time Obama made these remarks, the Washington Post says that Obama is well aware the Russians are trying to tamper and that they’ve succeeded and that Obama is bravely and courageously trying to come up with a way of dealing with it. He’s talking to the CIA. They’ve got a cyber attack planned. They’re thinking about exposing what the Russians have done.
Obama has called Putin and said, “Stop it.” Obama called Putin again and said, “You better stop it or else.” And then he called Putin again and said, “Cut it out.” All at the same time Obama is excoriating Trump claiming there’s no freaking way in the world an American election could be hacked by anybody, that it’s never happened, it never will happen, the Washington Post tells us the same day, the same period that Obama knows the Russians are hacking and they’re getting away with it and he’s bravely struggling with various ways to deal.
Now, which is it, media? Which is it? Is the Obama of October 16th in TIME magazine who is quoted here; is that right, or is what the Washington Post reported to us on Friday? Which Obama is the real Obama here? Is it impossible to hack our elections or did the Russians do it and Obama knew it and didn’t have the guts to stop it? Which is it? And right in the middle of all this is the media, both protecting Obama, lampooning and making fun of Trump for claiming elections have been rigged, and now look.
The minute Trump’s elected, guess what? The election was rigged, and Trump made it happen working with Putin. Despite there’s no evidence for it, despite Trump’s never been a suspect, half this country thinks that Trump worked with Putin to steal the election from Hillary after Obama said it couldn’t happen, it’s never happened it will not happen, it’s not possible.
Every one of these people involved is a Democrat. Obama’s a Democrat and a leftist and the media’s made up of the same kind of people, and look at what they’ve been telling the American people. So Obama in October three weeks before the election, not possible to hack an election, not possible to rig an election, can’t happen, never has happened, will not happen, too complicated, too decentralized, too many Republicans run these precincts, it could never, ever happen.
Trump wins the election, guess what? The Russians stole it, Trump worked with them to make it happen, and apparently it’s easy as pie. It’s so easy to steal an election that Trump did it with the Russians while nobody was looking, and now Obama found out about it, working with the CIA and was desperately struggling to find out what to do to deal with it.
This is not the fault of the American people. This is not the fault of Donald Trump. This is not his administration. Calling them fake news is exactly right. Calling them out for their inconsistency and their obvious lack of objectivity and their attempt to destroy him is exactly right. So which is it? October 16th Obama or the December 16th Obama? Is it TIME magazine quoting Obama on October 16th, is that accurate, or the Washington Post 36 pages of drivel last Friday, what’s operative? Which is it, media? Make up your minds. And then let us know.
And, by the way, could you make it official, finally tell everybody you’ve known for six months that Trump is not a suspect in any of this? And then could you tell us that you have not a shred evidence that it’s ever happened, that all of this is made up in a futile attempt by you people to destroy a president you don’t like? Which is it?
We still don’t know, except we do know, and we know that you’re the ones making up stories each and every day with unnamed sources that nobody can find, that nobody can question, nobody can cross-examine, nobody can test. And in every one of these stories with every one of these leaks, there is a little paragraph or a sentence, “Despite all of this, no evidence has yet been found to confirm that” blah, blah, blah. You want to talk about the media being irresponsible and Trump making it happen? What a stretch.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One more observation here from TIME magazine, which is nothing but a long quote from Obama in a Rose Garden with the Italian prime minister. And among the many things here, let’s focus on Obama lampooning, making fun of, and chastising Trump for not having the guts to accept the outcome of the election.
“I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes. Those of us who do this have to suck it up. You can’t start blaming somebody else whenever things are going badly for you. When you lose, you start blaming somebody else, you don’t have what it takes.”
Contrast that with the behavior of Hillary Rodham Clinton in the aftermath of the election, who’s done nothing but what? Whine and complain and blame everybody else. She’s blamed the DNC. She’s blamed a thousand Russian agents in Macedonia. She’s blamed Putin. She’s blamed Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz. She has blamed fundraisers. She has blamed her cyber team. She’s blamed everybody on her team for not managing the money. She has blamed everybody.
Now, by all rights with the savior of the Democrat Party, Barack Hussein O, claiming this is unseemly behavior, “If you’re gonna do that, you may as well not even enter the fray. If you’re gonna whine and moan, if you can’t deal with the outcome of an election and you lose it, if you can’t deal without whining you better just get out of the business. I’d invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes.”
Trump wasn’t whining. He wasn’t complaining. He was alleging. It is Hillary Clinton that has perfected and may deserve a patent for whining and sniveling for months in a row now.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We went back to the archives. We actually have Obama audio from the Rose Garden ceremony he had with the Italian prime minister. This is October 18th, 2016. This is three weeks before the election that Trump won and Hillary lost.
OBAMA: I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It’s unprecedented. It happens to be based on no facts.
RUSH: Really?
OBAMA: Every expert, regardless of political party —
RUSH: Really?
OBAMA: — regardless of ideology —
RUSH: Yeah?
OBAMA: — conservative or liberal —
RUSH: Uh-huh.
OBAMA: — who’s ever examined these issues in a serious way, will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found —
RUSH: Stop the tape. Then what in the name of Sam Hill has the past six months been about? If every expert in the world will tell you this couldn’t happen, then why has it been the only news story the media’s wanted reported for six months? Every expert, conservative or liberal, who’s ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant voter fraud are not to be found.
It doesn’t really show the kind of leadership and toughness you want out of a president. You start whining already — at the time this was said the Washington Post says that Obama was aware the Russians were trying to steal the election for Trump, and he was bravely examining all options to respond to it.
So which is it: Was Obama lying here in just attacking Trump, or is that Washington Post story Friday another bunch of fake news? ‘Cause Obama sounds pretty definitive here. He doesn’t sound like a guy who is aware of a massive cyber attack being conducted by the Russians that might actually work to the point that they’re plotting revenge. It was top secret brought to him by John Brennan of the CIA. It was so secret they kept it out of the president’s daily brief, what the Russians were trying. And yet at the very moment that was going on, here’s Obama making fun of anybody who thinks the election could ever be rigged with vote fraud or anything else.
Now, which is it? And of course Trump’s being ripped to shreds here, and then Trump wins, and guess who’s been complaining and whining the election was rigged ever since? Obama and Hillary and the media. So the question, which is it? What’s the truth here? Well, we know the truth. We know the Russians did not. My friends, there’s another column here today. It’s an Eli Lake story. “Obama Choked on Russia Long Before the 2016 Election.”
What the story’s about is how Obama failed to stand up to the Russians at all for eight years, on nuclear weapons, on Syria, on Iran, that he basically was a doormat for the Russians, never stood up to ’em. But I want to read to you the opening paragraph. “‘I feel like we sort of choked.’ That is the killer quote in an extraordinary Washington Post investigation into how Barack Obama responded to intelligence last year that Russia was running a sophisticated influence operation against the 2016 elections.”
Well, Obama in October is making fun of anybody that thought that could happen. “It’s attributed to a former senior Obama administration official, but it captures the view of many Democrats and now many opportunistic Republicans. President Donald Trump got in on the action on Monday morning,” with the real story.
“But this isn’t entirely fair. To start, by the time the CIA had gathered the intelligence in August about how President Vladimir Putin himself was trying to elect Trump over –” We don’t have that proven. This just shows up in news stories now by rote! Even Eli Lake here. “By the time the CIA had gathered intelligence in August about how Putin himself was trying to elect Trump over –” we don’t have any evidence of this. We don’t have a shred of evidence that Trump was Putin’s chosen candidate. None! And yet look how it shows up in every story.
But here again, we’re talking here now about August. And it’s widely assumed that Putin personally wants Trump elected and is doing undermining things in our election to make it happen. And there’s Obama two months later in the Rose Garden saying it’s just not possible, while he supposedly has been told that — Do you realize what a crock all of this is? Do you realize what a totally manufactured hoax all of this is, and it results specifically from the Democrats losing the election and their desire not to have to take any blame or be accountable for it. There is no evidence.
Now, there may be evidence the Russians are trying to tamper with elections. The Russians are trying to infiltrate everything we do, and they’ve succeeded. They’ve infiltrated Hollywood, they’ve infiltrated our universities, probably try to infiltrate elections by who knows what. But the idea that there is evidence that Putin was actively trying to elect Trump, there isn’t a morsel of evidence for that, yet it shows up. The truth of the matter is that Putin doesn’t care who runs the United States. It doesn’t matter to him.
He’s still going to treat us as the number one enemy of Russia no matter who ends up leading this country. You want to talk about doing damage to our elections and damaging our stature, to have it just thought and stated repeatedly that the strongman of Russia can pick an American presidential candidate and get him or her elected? Do you think if Hillary had won and the Republicans had tried this line that Putin chose her, do you think that would have gotten past a day in the Drive-By Media? They wouldn’t have even taken the story. They’d laughed at it, sloughed it off, and you’d-a never heard about it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Bill in St. Louis. I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have you here on the program. How are you?
CALLER: Doing good, Rush. I just wanted to ask you what you thought about this idea, and that is that all this phony baloney about the Russia situation — as far as Brennan’s secret report to the White House and Comey’s using the dossier — was all perhaps just making a little record that would justify all that unmasking and surveillance that they were doing.
RUSH: Oh, I think you’re right. Let me tell you something about that. This dossier… You mentioned the dossier. The dossier has been established as totally false. This is the golden showers dossier, folks, that served as the basis for all this. It has been established out there, Bill, as totally false. So you might ask, “Well, then how is it in the news?” It’s very simple. When the intelligence people presented it to Trump, for whatever reason, it became news. That’s how they got it in the news cycle. They showed it to Trump, and then they can say whatever they want about it. So that became an excuse for using it as a basis and keeping it in the news. Your point is that talking about all this potential hackery and so forth is what the Regime used as their excuse to start spying on Americans and unmasking them, right?
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: I think there’s a lot to that. But whatever. Even in your theory… Your theory does, I think, put an exclamation point behind the fact that this is all made-up stuff, they’re all trying to create news out of these events that did not happen. So, you know, you have Obama making the speech in the Rose Garden saying it’s silly to think this could happen, it’s outrageous, Trump’s a whining little bully. At the same time, we’re told that Obama’s bravely struggling with how to deal with the Russian hackery and so forth. And then this leads to all the spying, domestic spying, FISA warrants — perhaps — and the unmasking of people, which all began after Trump wins the election. Well, the possibility was set up. They didn’t start implementing it ’til Trump won. None of this ever would have happened if Hillary had won, is the point.
CALLER: Exactly. But I’m wondering if it went back even further.
RUSH: Well, I do. I do. As I mentioned earlier this week, you know, we still don’t know about these FISA warrants. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That acronym is F-I-S-C or FISC. So the agents have to go to court to get their warrant, and the threshold for getting a warrant is very low. All you have to do, basically, is say, “The suspect is breathing.” “Really? Here’s your warrant!” And we’re told the first warrant mentioning Trump was thrown out. We still don’t know for sure. But what I think?
I think that these FISA warrants that were ostensibly to surveil Russian actors like the ambassador… Look, I can’t prove it, but I’m just telling you that if I were to learn — if we were to learn — that all of this was a pretext for spying on Trump starting in the summertime, I would believe it. All this talk, “Rush, don’t get all upset here. It’s just a counterintelligence investigation. There’s nothing criminal going on.” Yeah, right. So you ask for a warrant for a counterintel?
That’s easy to get, and then you use that warrant to start spying on Trump, and nobody would know because it’s really, really hard to get… We still don’t know whether there actually were warrants or not, sought or granted. But, yeah, I think it’s been going on a long time. I mean, against Trump. And I’ll betcha before time’s up… I’m gonna go out on a limb here. But I’ll bet you at some point… Remember when Trump alluded to the fact that Obama was “tapping the wires” at Trump Tower? In the generic sense, what’s that mean?
That Trump was being spied on. That he thinks the Obama administration was spying on him. He said “tapping the wires” at Trump Tower. Well, they’ve investigated that, and there weren’t any wires at Trump Tower, but I’m not gonna be surprised if somewhere down the line we learn that this entire intel apparatus was conducting intelligence operations on Trump while he was a candidate. I would be surprised at all. We can’t say that it happened, and we’re not gonna be like the media and go on and on and on and on and try to make you think that it happened. But I’m just telling you, I wouldn’t be surprised.