RUSH: Now, there’s also a story that comes from a leak of the transcript of a phone call that Trump had with Theresa May of the U.K. Apparently, Trump has begged her to fix a warm welcome for his state visit.

And he says that he will not set a date for his state visit to the U.K. until he knows he’s gonna get a better reception than what he would get today if he went. “U.S. President Warns He Will Not Visit Until He Can Guarantee a Good Reception and Pleads with Theresa May to Help Influence Public.” This is the U.K. Sun. “The U.S. President made his shameless plea in a private conversation with Theresa May to plan his state visit — now postponed until next year. Two million people signed a petition calling for Mr. Trump’s proposed trip to be axed. A transcript of the chat, seen by [anonymous] senior diplomats, reveals his touchiness.

“Mr. Trump says: ‘I haven’t had great coverage out there lately, Theresa.’ She replies awkwardly: ‘Well, you know what the British press are like.’ He replies: ‘I still want to come, but I’m in no rush. ‘So, if you can fix it for me, it would make things a lot easier. ‘When I know I’m going to get a better reception, I’ll come and not before.’ A [anonymous] source said: ‘He seemed to think the PM would be able to smooth the path for him to get a warm welcome. ‘But she tried to explain she has no power to dictate how newspapers and media might decide to cover his visit. ‘After all, [said the anonymous source] we are not North Korea.'”

Now, why should we believe the reports of a Trump phone call from anonymous sources when we have been lied to so many times about them before? Remember Trump’s supposed threat to send troops to Mexico? When that was denied by the president of Mexico himself? Trump supposedly hanging up on the prime minister of Australia. That was denied by the prime minister. So a number of these transcript-related leaked conversations of phone calls have turned out to be totally untrue.

There were more Trump protests at the U.S. Women’s Open over the weekend. In fact, two stories side by side here. Reuters — again, they hate Trump there — “Anti-Trump Protests Staged at U.S. Women’s Open.” From the U.K. Daily Mail: “Trump Gets a Rapturous Reception at the US Women’s Open As He is Welcomed to His Course by Chants of ‘Make America Great Again.'” Now, what are we to do with this?

Have you heard what Carl Bernstein has said? We have the audio coming up. Let me see if I can find it real quick. Carl Bernstein, CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday morning, they were talking about the Russia investigation and the media. Bernstein is of Woodward and Bernstein Watergate fame, the Washington Post.

BERNSTEIN: We are in the midst of a cold civil war in this country, a political and cultural civil war, and all of our reporting is taking place in the context of that cold civil war. And nothing quite like that existed at the time of Watergate. And that part of the cold civil war itself is the configuration of media with Fox News, with CNN being perceived by different sets of viewers as representing different truths. Our politics has been changed inalterably by this right-wing counterforce. It is a different media universe, and it’s a cauldron taking place in this hothouse of political debate in which a fact-based debate is becoming impossible in this culture, and that’s part of the difficulty here.

RUSH: Translation: We’ve lost our monopoly! Now there’s other people out there contradicting what we say and we don’t know how to deal with it and so we have a media civil war, too.

Imagine these poor people. Put yourself in their shoes, the media. And prior to 1988 they owned it. Think of the power. Think of the cognizant, the realization every day of the power they have. They and they alone determined what the American people were told. They and they alone determined what the American people were not told. They and they alone determined who would be given puff pieces and who would be destroyed in the media. They and they alone determined the commentary, who would be allowed to say what about these so-called facts.

But since 1988 and then the second wave in the mid- to late nineties, 1996 with Fox News, that monopoly is gone. And now, because they were not reporting the facts, because they were not reporting everything, and because they were so off balance in favor of one side, it’s the market that made alternative media viable. It’s nothing else. They want to blame it on powerful, rich, wealthy donors and businessmen and industrialists creating talk radio and Fox News. It’s the market.

The Drive-By Media and their monopoly openly mocked at least half the country. Daily they made fun of them, they disregarded them, they disrespected them. And when alternatives were presented, that half of the country fled and left the mainstream media in its wake. The market dictated all this, Mr. Bernstein, not some invisible, powerful force over which you in the media had no control. You had total control over this.

The alternative media would never have happened if you people had always been what you said you were: objective, fair, straight down the middle. But you never were. You never have been. So the market made available this brand-new media, and now it’s a civil war.

Now Carl Bernstein, there’s two different media truths out there, and this is real bad. They having trouble, obviously, with the loss of their monopoly. This is 30 years, folks, and they still haven’t gotten over it. They still whine about it, moan about it, and that tells us how long they’re gonna be whining and moaning about the 2016 election too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah. So Bernstein basically admits that the Drive-Bys are at war. We’re in a civil war. It’s a civil war in the media. And they are at war with Trump and his supporters.