RUSH: CNN, folks, it’s hilarious. It is amazing. It’s unbelievable to watch what this collection of people claiming to be journalists is doing to themselves. It’s a circular firing squad. They’re shooting themselves in the foot. They’re setting themselves on fire, and they’re doing it all with righteous indignation at a man they hate running intellectual and tactical rings around them.
So Trump is over there in Poland and in Germany and he’s doing his no-apology tour, as opposed to Obama’s, which were apology tours. You know, Trump’s not apologizing for anything. And the press, “So, are you ready to admit that the Russians and you colluded? Are you ready to admit it?” And Trump says, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nobody knows for sure.” And they blow up. For the last year these people have been devoted to proving something that didn’t happen, collusion, Trump, Russia, to screw Hillary out of the presidency.
It’s nothing but lies. It’s nothing but manufactured, total BS that has now become a reality to these people. And all Trump has to say, “Well, you know, nobody really knows.” (laughing) And they blow up. And this Little Jim Acosta is literally making a fool of himself. He’s a CNN reporter, and he’s the guy that went bat nuts about two weeks ago over Trump refusing to call on him and then referring to CNN as fake news. And then the CNN mock wrestling gif. He is losing his mind. They all are at CNN.
And so today Jim Acosta accused Trump of engaging in fake news. The definition of fake news at CNN is if Trump takes a question from a conservative reporter, a friendly reporter. That is fake news. Acosta actually tweeted, “Isn’t it a fake news conference to take a question from a reporter who is essentially an ally of the White House.”
Now, in order to understand what comes next, you have to understand who Acosta is. He’s like everybody else in Washington. These are pseudointellectuals. You must understand the way they see themselves. They see themselves as better, smarter, more important, more relevant, more necessary, just generally better people than all the rest of us. They have no humility whatsoever. They do not know what they don’t know.
They have no capability of humility. They have no ability to admit that there are things that they don’t know. As such they are ripe to be made fools of. And this Acosta guy is basically putting his own bag of manure in front of himself and stepping in it every day. Trump is just assisting a little bit, but he’s not even collecting the manure. CNN’s doing that. Trump may be furnishing the bag, but these people are putting it in front of themselves and then stepping in it.
So Acosta tweets, “Isn’t it a fake news conference to take a question from a reporter who is essentially an ally of the White House?” Donald Trump Jr. responds. “So by that logic, Little Jim, every news conference for the last eight years with Obama was fake news. You would know.” But it isn’t just Donald Trump Jr. Ari Fleischer: “Jim, do you care to guess how many questions I took from reporters who went on to join the Obama White House?” Ari Fleischer was Bush’s first press secretary.
Here’s Acosta saying these conservative reporters, you know, they’re Trump’s allies, they’re supporters of Trump, these conservative people. That means it’s fake news. And Ari Fleischer is pointing out, you know, Jim, how many of your buddies who are in the press corps during the Bush administration then went on to join the actual Obama administration?
The tweets, the memes, the gifs making fun of CNN with Trump savaging them, they’re getting too many to watch, too many to count. CNN has become a laughingstock and doesn’t know it. That’s what’s funny about it. They don’t know it. They’re aware of all of this, but because they have no humility and because they have no sense of their true place in the universe, they are incapable of actually having this register in terms of its reality.
So Trump’s press conference is in Poland — oh, by the way, let me tell you about this. There’s another thing about Poland. The Drive-By Media today, a couple different places, reported that Trump is so unpopular in Poland. This is a flat-out lie. I mean, this is just total flat-out fake news. They reported Trump as so unpopular in Poland that they had to bus in the few supporters in the country they could find that would cheer Trump.
That’s not at all what happened.
Trump is so popular the Polish government had to organize the numbers of people and they sponsored bus trips to facilitate traffic management and logistics and all that. There were so many people that wanted to see Trump that they found a way to bus them in and keep it somewhat organized.
But the Drive-By Media, including CNN, wants you to believe, they are reporting that Poland could only find 5,000 citizens in the whole country who cared to see Trump. That they don’t like Trump, that they wish Trump would go away, because Trump likes Merkel and Trump likes Putin and the Polish people hate Putin and they hate Merkel. It’s just the exact opposite. Trump is on the exact same page as Polish people via Merkel and Putin, and the Polish people know it.
I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen a professional organization of any kind become so consumed with rage and hatred and other destructive emotions that they are actually self-destructing before our eyes and unaware that that’s what they’re doing. They made the common mistake, as I continue to point out, that they believe that everybody thinks like they do, everybody out there across the fruited plain, everybody inside the Beltway. When you stand aside from this and gaze upon it, Trump is just a master at playing these people. He also got a dig in at Obama, and he ripped into American intel sources and the intel community.
And the Drive-Bys are outraged. CNN’s been running a banner all day: “Trump Blasts America on Foreign Trip.” “Trump Blasts Intel Community on Foreign Trip.” “Trump Blasts Obama.” Of course, in a sense it’s true, but they have no context. What Trump’s referring to is the intel community, weapons of mass destruction. He’s being asked by the media, “So… so do you think the intel community was right when they said 17 different agencies realized that you colluded with Russia? Do you think that’s right?” And Trump said, “Well, I don’t know that anybody really knows for sure what happened,” and they blow gaskets.
Carotid arteries are about to burst, and Trump says, “Look at weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence communities all over the world said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We get over there; we couldn’t find any.” CNN with a banner: “Trump Bashes Intel Community While in Poland on Foreign Soil.” Well, let’s not forget who led the charge in bashing the intel community over weapons of mass destruction. The Drive-By Media! The Drive-By Media not only bashed the intel community, they tried to destroy George W. Bush, whether he was on domestic soil or foreign soil.
They hate Trump. David Gelernter has a great, great piece today in the Wall Street Journal. Now, his piece is actually about why conservative intellectuals are flat-out wrong in their opposition to Trump and how they’re flat-out phony in their opposition to Trump. And in the process he describes (I think accurately( why much of the hatred for Trump inside the Beltway exists. I’ll get to it in just a moment. Like I tell you today, folks, I am sitting here overwhelmed with opportunities to share things with you. So as I think of these things the brain synapses fire.
I guarantee you, I promise you: If I reference it here, I will get the details later in the program before we wrap up today. But it’s a perfect analogy. You know, when asked for the hundredth time if he believed the intel claims… Here’s another thing. (chuckles) We’re back to Jim Acosta again. Trump today, in answering the question for the hundredth time if he believed the intelligence community claims that the Russians meddled in the election, Trump said, “Well, I don’t think it’s all 17. I think it was only three now.”
Jim Acosta ran to Twitter (paraphrased), “Trump is an idiot! Trump is a buffoon! It is 17 intelligence agencies who all agree that the Russians tampered with the election to try to benefit Trump!” Well, as you’ll remember from yesterday’s show, the New York Times and the AP had to do massive corrections and massive deletions and massive pullbacks because it isn’t 17; it was only three people — three people who agreed with James Clapper, who was Obama’s Director of National Intelligence. It was reported in January that 17 intel agencies all agreed that Russia tampered with Putin to benefit Trump.
They had to pull that back. They did the correction over the weekend. We heralded it major yesterday. Jim Acosta doesn’t know. Jim Acosta, a reporter at CNN, simply doesn’t know that the AP and the New York Times had to issue the corrections. It isn’t 17. So he’s out there tweeting what an idiot Trump is. He’s tweeting what a liar Trump is, that Trump doesn’t know, that Trump is ignorant. When in fact it’s Acosta who is the CNN reporter who — according to job description — should be on top of this stuff.
I mean, these people, the New York Times is their bible. They should know everything in the New York Times, and it is becoming clear that people that work for CNN are among the least informed people in Washington. It’s just delicious. It is fascinating. I was reminded. I didn’t even… I had forgotten this. John Hinderaker at Power Line had posted something back in 2009 about CNN. The title of the tweet I think, I think, is, “Rush Is Out.” The post was about was how CNN knowingly broadcast fake quotes attributed to me during the period of time it had been announced that I was part of a minority ownership group to buy the St. Louis Rams.
CNN happily bannered and broadcast all of these fake quotes from me, and this post from Power Line in 2009 was among their most clicked on yesterday, and they wanted to find out why. They found it was because of a tweet from Dan Riehl and also an old tweet from Andrew Breitbart about CNN being evil. The Power Line people used it just to illustrate that the fake news business is nothing new to CNN, that they have been doing it for years. It was 2009. That’s eight years ago, and they broadcast a quote of something I never said.
It was later learned to be manufactured out of thin air by a scraggly little left-wing author who had written a book filled with fake quotes attributed to countless conservatives, most of them about me. It was about how I supported slavery. I supposedly supported slavery ’cause the streets were safer at night, and CNN ran with this quote. The Power Line post was all about how anybody who listens would know it’s BS, that CNN was behaving irresponsibly. But the context of it was that the fake news that is CNN is not exclusive to Trump, and it isn’t anything new.
It is what and who CNN has been for years.
Trump is playing them like a Stradivarius. Trump said, “I think it was Russia. I think it could have been other people. Nobody really knows for sure. I remember when I was sitting back listening about Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, how everybody was 100% sure that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump said. “Well, guess what? That led to one big mess. They were wrong, and it led to a mess.” The media is literally blowing gaskets at this. They can’t handle it. They have their meme. They have their narrative. The intel community now is unassailable. The intelligence community is universally, always 1,000% right.
And they are all agreeing (but they don’t) that Putin attempted to interfere in the American election so that Trump would win. It’s a BS pack of lies that they have now reported for so long they actually believe it. And if anybody comes along and raises questions about the veracity, the honesty, the accuracy of the intelligence community? Why, the Drive-Bys can’t handle it. This self-immolation, this meltdown is occurring in public in front of everyone’s eyes, not behind the scenes. In other words, everybody is able to watch it.
And Trump is just masterful at tweaking these people, at playing them off of each other. He knows how to push their buttons. It’s funny, because they’re sitting there in these press conferences thinking, “This is the day we’re gonna destroy Trump! This is the day we’re gonna expose Trump. This is the day we’re gonna prove that Trump is a poseur. We’re gonna prove that Trump’s a fraud.” And every day it is Trump making fools of them, except they don’t know that. They don’t have the humility or the sense of awareness to understand that they’re being made fools of. It’s fascinating to watch.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yeah, we have the sound bite coming up. Trump really ticked ’em off in Poland today at the press conference. When the media kept asking about Russia and collusion and when’s he finally gonna admit it. And Trump said, “Why didn’t Obama stop it, if he knew about it? Why didn’t he do anything about it?”
And Trump said “I know why. ‘Cause he didn’t think I was gonna win. He knew Hillary was gonna win, so he didn’t want to taint it. But Obama’s the guy that let it happen. Don’t ask me.” And they blew up at the Drive-By Media.
Here is Dana in Beacon, New York. Welcome. Great to have you with us. How are you doing?
CALLER: Professor, thank you very much. Just two points I want to make. I’d like to remind the Drive-By Media that the former president outlawed or canceled a defense missile program for Poland when he came into office. And as for the Russia unmasking or the Russia collusion situation, I think we were getting too close to the facts about Michael Flynn and Loretta Lynch and James Comey and Susan Rice, that all of a sudden the media is saying, no, pat down the Russia, pat down the Russia thing. I believe we were getting close to the kingpin of the real story that you just stated about Obama knowing more than what he’s letting up to. And I’d like to say to the Polish people, America loves you. Thank you.
RUSH: I’m glad you called. What Dana’s referring to — that’s a good point. Obama did cancel the placement of defensive missiles in Poland that would defend them against any potential missile attack or other kind of attack from Russia or any of the Russian client states. Trump took those missiles with him and announced to Poland that they’re going to be deployed. They weren’t on the plane. I mean he took the policy with him. He reinstated what Obama had canceled.
And the media is trying to do stories today that Trump is so unpopular in Poland that the Polish government had to scour the country, could only come up with 5,000 people, had to bus them in. It is the exact opposite of what really happened. They bused people in to control the crowds, there were so many that wanted to get there. In the meantime, they will not tell you that the protests in Hamburg are bought and paid for, including transportation, people bused in and told to just raise hell, for whatever reason they want.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Trump. We have three bites here from his press conference in Poland along with the Polish president. First question, Daily Mail, U.S. political editor David Martosko said, “Since you started the whole wrestling thing with CNN, what are your thoughts about what’s happened since then? CNN went after you. They’ve threatened to expose the identity of a person they said was responsible for it, and I’d like your thoughts.”
THE PRESIDENT: I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them. As you know now, they have some pretty serious problems. They have been fake news for a long time. They’ve been covering me in a very, very dishonest way. CNN has really taken it too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly. Very, very badly. And what we want to see in the United States is honest, beautiful, free, but honest press. We want to see fair press. I think it’s a very important thing. We don’t want fake news.
RUSH: Now, stop and think of this. This is a worldwide press conference with the president of the United States standing next to the head honcho of Poland calling out, justifiably, an American news network, which many people have said needs to be done for decades. “We need to fight back. The media’s killing us. The media’s destroying us.” So here’s what it looks like when Trump fights back, and it makes some people nervous. “Gee, I didn’t think he’d do it.” I’m not talking about the tweets. I’m not talking about the gif. I’m talking about just saying things like this at a presser. “He should be above it.”
Folks, CNN has been a bad actor for I don’t know how long. You know, I don’t even quite know how to talk about this, ’cause I don’t ever want to sound like a victim. But they have reported some of the most outrageously bogus things about me over the years.
I’ve been dealing with and taking on the media since this program began. The whole media despises me, and they should. But I’m happy to see Trump doing it. He’s just got them totally off balance. And for so many wonderful reasons that are being exposed. They’re really a bunch of phony pretenders to competence, pretenders to elegance, pretenders to fairness, pretenders to journalism. It’s not even what happens anymore in what is called the American media.
Up next was the NBC chief White House correspondent. Her name is Hallie Jackson. My guess is that you’re gonna see Hallie Jackson on the Today show in about five years. There is a career path at NBC for White House correspondents. Savannah Guthrie used to be one. The only one who ended up on the Today Show who wasn’t a White House correspondent or a reporter was Katie Couric.
But Hallie Jackson, she’s got her show at PMSNBC. She’s a good little liberal. She has the act down pat. And she did this big deal on the Sunday Today Show claiming that me, talk radio, and Fox News are responsible for the acrimony in America today. The lack of unity in media is because of talk radio and Fox News and so forth. So she’s traveling around as the White House correspondent. And she said, “Once and for all, President Trump, once and for all, yes or no, definitely say that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could have been other people in other countries. It could have been a lot of people interfered. Barack Obama, when he was president, found out about this, in terms of if it were Russia, found out about it in August. Now, the election was in November. That’s a lot of time. He did nothing about it. Why did he do nothing about it? They say he choked. Well, I don’t think he choked. I think what happened is he thought Hillary Clinton was going to win the election, and he said, let’s not do anything about it. Why did he do nothing from August all the way to November 8? Why did he do nothing? His people said he choked. I don’t think he choked.
RUSH: Do you realize, folks, imagine CNN a bonfire and this answer is throwing gasoline at ’em. I mean, the tone of the question: “Okay, once and for all, yes or no, definitely say that Russia interfered in the election.” You know, we don’t know this. We literally do not know it. We have only been told. We’ve been told in an 8,000-word story in the Washington Post two Fridays ago. And there was no evidence presented. There was none. It was just allegations, a document, a phony dossier, any number of other questionable documents that John Brennan at CIA thought was so crucial and everybody took to Obama.
To this day they will not turn that server over. Because on that server no doubt is evidence of how the Democrat National Committee rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders. Now, the Democrats have been wallowing and complaining and just caterwauling about Russian interference, and the media has been as well, leading the charge. Nobody has presented any evidence. I’m not talking about votes. I’m talking about any evidence that they tried to interfere beyond what the Russians are trying to do every day. Russian intelligence, ChiCom intelligence, Turkish intelligence, Israeli, everybody’s trying to penetrate various areas of our government, the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA. It’s ongoing. It’s multiple times a day.
What they’re trying to make you believe is that out of nowhere one time exclusively the Russians tried to tamper with our elections. They have offered no evidence. And they will not let that server of theirs from the DNC be forensically examined. And if there is any evidence of Russian attempts, it’s probably on that server, and that’s why they’re not letting anybody see it. My guess. My also guess is, as I say, there’s evidence that they colluded against Bernie Sanders with Hillary. Ask yourself that.
Why won’t the Democrats turn over the server? If it’s so, so important to find out whether the Russians colluded, then why won’t they help and turn over their server? Because they’ve alleged the Russians hacked it. Instead, they hired a third-party outfit, CrowdStrike, to forensically examine it. Whatever CrowdStrike says we’re supposed to accept, and that’s it.
So Trump’s answer here, this infuriates ’em, Obama knew. The Washington Post, 8,000 words, Obama knew. He knew that Russia was interfering. But Trump’s also said, “We don’t really know. We’re not sure who did.” But Obama claimed that he knew, and he didn’t do anything about it. And it wasn’t from just August to November. Obama didn’t do anything about it all the way ’til December. And in December all he did was expel 35 Russian diplomats. He didn’t do anything about it.
That Washington Post story makes it out to be one of the greatest crimes committed in international espionage history. And yet Barack Obama did nothing about it. So here’s Hallie Jackson, future hostette, Today Show, demanding from Trump once and for all whether he’ll admit it, whether he’ll admit the Russians hacked, whether they did, and what he thinks about it.
And he turns it right around on ’em and Obama and they’ve got nothing to say. Her next question was, “The follow-ups for you on that, Mr. President, you again state you think it was Russia. Your intelligence agencies have been far more definitive. They say it was Russia. Why won’t you agree and say that it was?”
THE PRESIDENT: I heard it was 17 agencies. I said, “Boy, that’s a lot. Do we even have that many intelligence agencies, right? Let’s check it.” And we did some very heavy research. It turned out to be three or four. It wasn’t 17. And many of your compatriots had to change their reporting or they had to apologize and they had to correct. Now, with that being said, mistakes have been made. I agree. I think it was Russia. But I think it was probably other people and/or countries. My big question is: Why did Obama do nothing about it from August all the way to November? He did nothing about it, and it wasn’t because he “choked.”
RUSH: So he rammed that down their throats twice. They’re the ones who have no answer for that. Trump’s answering their question. “Yeah, if you want me to say it’s Russia, it’s Russia. I don’t care. You have no proof either way. It might have been Russia, might have been somebody else. Whatever you want me to say. The real question is, Obama thinks it was happening; Obama said it was happening. The Washington Post and New York Times reported it. He did nothing to stop it. That’s where you people in the media have really gotta turn your attention.
“Why didn’t your brave, courageous president try to stop this if it was so outrageous?” And the answer is abundantly clear: You all thought Hillary Clinton was gonna win in a landslide, and you didn’t say a word about this before the election because you didn’t want her victory tainted with the allegation that the Russians had cheated against Trump because they wanted Hillary to win. You didn’t want that to be part of the story. This is so transparent. These people deserve every bit of mockery that Trump can send their way.