RUSH: None of this Trump-Sessions stuff makes any sense. This kind of open criticism, if it’s designed to make Sessions resign, it isn’t working. And if the objective here is to get him to resign, it means Trump wants him gone. And if he wants him gone, he could just fire him. He’s not doing that. I think one of the reasons why is if Sessions does go — however which way — Trump’s gotta find a new nominee for attorney general.
A. Who’s gonna take it?
B. How the hell are they gonna get confirmed, unless they nominate a Democrat?
It just doesn’t make sense. So because it doesn’t make sense in the way we are seeing it, it has to make sense in some other way, because none of these people are stupid. I hear all this talk, “You know, Trump is meeting with his staff. His staff is urging him to stop this.” Really? You really want us to believe that Trump’s having meetings with the staff and the staff’s saying, “Mr. President, we really think you ought to dial this down,” as though Trump is unaware of the trouble he’s causing?
And then after all these meetings with all these staffers advising Trump to dial it back, Trump goes out and doubles and triples down on it? None of this makes sense, unless something is happening here that we don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what it might be. I’ve had a couple ideas percolate in there in the cranial cavity of my head, and I’ve come up with a couple of possibilities. I don’t think it is coincidental that we had today an announcement that Sessions is going to start pursuing criminally all of these leaks.
You know, this has been a big bugaboo for the Trumpster, and this is something that has to please him. But his latest tweets on Sessions were the fact that Sessions didn’t get rid of McCabe and that McCabe’s wife was campaigning for a Senate seat and sending money to Hillary and so forth. He couldn’t possibly be fair. Why didn’t Sessions get rid of the guy? So it appears — at least the casual observer would say — that Trump is upset with Sessions ’cause Sessions is a wuss, Sessions isn’t a brawler, ’cause Sessions isn’t fighting Trump’s battles for him.
That’s what we are supposed to think here. None of this makes any sense. I’m watching the Drive-Bys analyze this as though they’re taking it literally. They’re not curious about it. The only reason they’re curious is they can’t figure out why Trump would do it. They believe it’s genuine. They think Trump is genuinely mad at Sessions, genuinely wants him gone but Sessions won’t quit. So Trump’s really doubling and tripling down trying to make him quit. They are not curious beyond this. None of this, on the surface, makes any common sense. The president can let Jeff Sessions go whenever he wants to.
Between Corn Flakes in the morning, he can call Sessions and say, “Back to Alabama, Dude. It’s not working.” But he’s not doing that, and Sessions is right there in the office saying (impression), “I’m not going back to Alabama, Corn Flakes or not.” He’s staying right where he is. Tell me this makes sense! It doesn’t. Now, I have expressed concern in recent broadcasts about Trump and his treatment of Sessions here, but I’ll tell you what. You know, I think Sessions’ role — and this is where it gets foggy for me as I’m trying to figure out what’s really going on.
This Russia thing, if I may say it again: There’s nothing here, folks. I know that it is the news of the day every day. It’s the all-day news story of every day, and the Senate and the House have their investigating committees, and they’re still looking for collusion — and there isn’t any, and they’re not gonna find any. The purpose of continuing this investigation is to paralyze Trump and to maybe hope and pray that something pops up somewhere. But there’s nothing there.
What Sessions is actually doing that is of profound importance and value is actually implementing the Trump immigration agenda. And Trump is not gonna find anybody else that’ll do that. Sessions is taking aim at sanctuary cities. Sessions is taking aim at the borders. Sessions is working with ICE and the Border Patrol, and it’s working. The number of illegal immigrants getting into the country is way, way down. The number of illegal immigrants trying to get into the country is way, way down.
It’s so way down that California farmers are openly complaining in the LA Times that they can’t find enough people to pick the strawberries and to pick the fruit, to pick the oranges, pick the vegetables, whatever it is. The cannoli! They don’t have enough people to pick it. They’re worried about having to pay higher wages. That is Sessions’ primary value to Trump. I have to think Trump knows this. None of the people that we’re talking about are stupid here.
Some of them may be impetuous, and some of them may be, you know, not down the center of the mainstream as we would define. But I would submit to you that most people are off the center of the mainstream rather than perfectly well adjusted and normal. I mean, how many nuts do you have in your family? Everybody has at least one nut in their family, maybe more than one, right? We all do. You know who they are, and they probably know who they are.
My point is there’s a lot of nuts out there, but the Drive-By… Well, no, wait. But the Drive-By Media analyzes Trump as though he’s the only nut and everybody in America is steadfastly normal, and judging Trump to be a loose cannon nutcase, fruitcake, whatever it is. When in fact, there aren’t that many, quote-unquote “normal people.” So the vast majority of Americans does not see Trump the way the Drive-Bys think everybody sees Trump, which is the way they see Trump. I would submit to you the Drive-Bys are not normal either.
There’s a slew of nuts among those people.
Mr. Snerdley, just so you know, literally nothing of what I’ve said here did I plan to say. I had it all… This whole segment has been improv based on the stuff that arrived here within three minutes of the program open. So now I’m faced with this organizational task. I’ve mentioned all these things, but only tangentially. I need to go back and get into detail with all of them. Which I will do! There’s nobody better. I will do it. I gotta go to these audio sound bites on Sessions because the Drive-Bys are using me as the barometer to indicate how much trouble Trump is in on this Sessions stuff.
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RUSH: Tom Hagen is my nickname for Anthony Scaramucci. He was the Godfather’s consiglieri. Tom Hagen is out there to TV today. He was on Fox & Friends saying Trump is not trying to get Sessions to quit. He’s just trying to get him to be more loyal. So maybe it’s an effort to put a fire under Sessions to make him more aggressive on things like stopping the leaks and sanctuary cites.
But he’s already doing… Sessions is really kicking butt on the whole Trump immigration agenda. Look, let me go to the audio sound bites. Cookie tells me she could have added 10 more Drive-Byers to this. As it turns out, the sound bite’s 39 seconds. It is a montage of last 24 hours of the Drive-Bys trying to drive a wedge between me and the Trumpster.
SHANNON PETTYPIECE: (haltingly) …Rush Limbaugh coming to his defense.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: He’s also received some support today from Rush Limbaugh.
HALLIE JACKSON: (rotunda noise) …listening to Rush Limbaugh and to conservative media.
JEREMY PETERS: The right is starting to break from Trump. You have Rush Limbaugh, the leading indicator.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Rush Limbaugh on Jeff Sessions: “President Trump is playing with fire.”
SARI HORWITZ: Rush Limbow (sic) —
RUSH: (laughing)
SARI HOROWITZ: — said, “We like the policies Jeff Sessions.”
JOHN BERMAN: Rush Limbaugh was saying this is a little bit discomforting.
KATE BOLDUAN: You’ve got Rush Limbaugh who says it is discomforting and unseemly.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Maybe Donald Trump, uhh, should listen to Rush Limbaugh.
CHRIS JANSING: You have even Rush Limbaugh… When Rush Limbaugh says that the President essentially has gone too far, is he worried at all about losing conservative media?
RUSH: Okay, the that last one is Chris Jansing. The babe that mispronounced my name as “Limbow” is Sari Horowitz, or Sari Horowitz. I don’t know where she works. It doesn’t say here. Doesn’t matter. You see what’s going on here. But I have said I think Sessions doesn’t… Sessions the most loyal endorser that Trump had. I mean, Sessions endorsing Trump early o… We’ve been through all this. Sessions’ value to Donald Trump is incalculable, as is his loyalty to Donald Trump, as is the seriousness with which he approaches the job of attorney general and all of his government service.
He’s the exact kind of guy Trump needs there. I just have to think Trump knows this. Something about all of this is just off, folks, and we have Tom Hagen out there on Fox today saying, “Nuh nuh nuh nah. He doesn’t wanna get rid of him. He’s just trying to get Sessions to be more loyal.” Maybe it’s just akin to Sessions needs some Red Bull. Give him a little caffeine out there; perk him up. Who knows? But it’s obviously not what it appears to be, or Sessions would be gone already.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s stick with Sessions. Hang on. We’ll get back to the transgender stuff here in just sec and everything else that’s out there. Trump’s rally in Youngstown last night. The contents of the speech and the rally and what that means and how I think some people misinterpreting him, misunderstanding that.
Here’s Nicolle Wallace.
You know, she was in the Bush White House. She got married in some lavish wedding ceremony in the Greek isles, I think, and I don’t know why I remember that. I’ve never met her. But I’m well aware of her career in the Bush White House. She had a novel she wrote, a mystery novel after her time there. Anyway, she was the woman that was assigned to work with Sarah Palin during the 2008 McCain presidential campaign and melted down over it. So primarily, she’s a mainstream media Republican analyst. She was on the Today show today talking with Savannah Guthrie, and the question: “If the president wants Sessions gone why not just can him?”
WALLACE: We have to sort of hit pause and really look at what’s happening. Our president is cyberbullying, public-shaming a sitting member of his own cabinet. That has never happened before. The fight that he’s having with Sessions is so different with all of his fights with the media, his fights with establishment Republicans, his fights with the former president and his former opponents. Because this was someone who was as popular as he is with that solid Trump base. This is someone who’s more popular than he is with folks like Rush Limbaugh and the hard-core talk radio audience, and this is someone who has more trust and deeper friendships in the Senate than he does. So this is a fight where I don’t think Sessions has any motivation to blink first. A game of chicken. I think that’s exactly what’s happening.
RUSH: I just can’t… That’s too simple, and it’s too obvious, and it doesn’t make any sense. The only way it makes sense — and it would to a lot of the Drive-Bys and people on the left — is if you think Trump is insane. If you think is unbalanced, if you think Trump is — you know, elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. If you think that Trump’s an order of fries short of a Happy Meal, then this might make sense to you. But Trump is neither of those things. He’s not off kilter, not a wacko. He’s deeply strategic.
He’s been thinking about all of this for a long, long time. There’s something else that’s going on here. I don’t claim to know what it is. I’m just telling you that, to me, none of it makes sense. There’s no reason for this. In addition to that… There may be reasons for it, but we don’t know what they are. There’s always more behind the scenes to every event than we will ever know. So trying to make substantive analysis and judgments of this with limited information and bias or prejudice about who Trump is, I think, can lead people astray, which it is.
I think Nicolle Wallace here misunderstands something else. We had a caller on the program yesterday from a devoted Trump voter. And I’ve talked to a lot of them, and, believe me, there is nobody else in the Trump administration operation, apparatus, that they hold in deeper regard. And I think this is something else that bugs the opponents of Donald Trump. This bond that he has with his base, his voters — this connection — is something that they envy and at the same time very resent it. They don’t understand it.
We had a guy on the phone yesterday (there have been two or three others) saying if Trump appears mad with Sessions, then Trump’s voters are going to be mad with Sessions. They’re not gonna be mad with Trump. They’re going to think that Sessions is maybe not loyal enough to Trump. Trump’s base… What she said here, “This is someone…” She means Sessions. “This is someone who’s more popular than Trump is with folks like Rush Limbaugh and the hard-core talk radio audience.” What is the hard-core talk radio audience?
Do we talk about the hard-core NBC audience? We don’t. But I don’t look at this way. I’m not sitting here thinking, “You know, Sessions? He’s much more important to me than Trump, much more valuable than Trump.” I don’t look at anything that way, not in this circumstance. I don’t look at it that way. I told you how I’m looking at it. I think it’d be disastrous to get rid of Sessions because of how great he’s behaving on immigration — which, believe me, is the number one reason Trump got elected! The wall, immigration, what all of that means, illegal immigration.
What it was meaning for the country, for the economy, for our culture, that’s it! And that’s what Sessions is having roaring success on. This Russia thing had nothing to do with the campaign, and yet it’s become the number one news item every day, all day, for now seven or eight months approaching a year. But the Trump voters are tuning that out. They don’t care. They don’t think there’s anything to it. It not gonna matter if there is anything to it.
Fixing the country, saving the country is vastly much more important than any of that as far as they’re concerned. So Sessions’ value to Trump is not nearly as important in this Russia thing as it is on the immigration side. Trump has to know this. I’m thinking he has to know it. Now, Trump also could be the kind of guy who thinks that Sessions is having nothing to do with the border, that Trump is the guy making all that happen.
You know Trump made a joke last night in his rally about being up on Mount Trumpmore. Well, he didn’t call it that. Mount Rushmore. And he told them… He said (paraphrased), “I’m joking, but you won’t get it. I’m joking. I’m telling a joke about me on Mount Rushmore, but you won’t get it,” and he’s right. They’re running stories today about how Trump’s ego was out of control last night. He thinks he deserves to be on Mount Rushmore more than anybody else. There’s a cartoon… (laughing)
Somebody ran an editorial cartoon today with Trump standing looking at Mount Rushmore after his face has been carved in it with the sculptor, and Trump is saying to the sculptor, “Look, you made me way too fat and lose the other guys. Get rid of those other guys. Just leave me up there.” (laughing) That’s all from a joke about Trump eventually being on Mount Rushmore. “Lose the other guys.” (laughing) “You’ve got me looking too fat, too big hair — and lose the other guys.”
Here is Trump from… Let’s see. This is the Rose Garden yesterday, joint press conference with the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri. No, it’s Hariri. During the program, Margaret Talev (or Talev, I don’t know how she pronounces it) of Bloomberg said (impression), “Talk to us a little bit about whether you’ve lost confidence in Jeff Sessions — whether you want him to resign on his own, whether you’re prepared to fire him if he doesn’t — and why you’re sort of letting him twist in the wind rather than making the call for him.”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t think I am doing that. But I am disappointed in the attorney general. He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office and I would have quite simply picked somebody else. So I think that’s a bad thing, not for the president, but for the presidency. I think it’s unfair to the presidency, and that’s the way I feel.
RUSH: And I think he means that. I don’t have any doubt he means that. I have no doubt he was angry over Sessions recusing. Hell, so are we, folks. We didn’t think it was necessary. We thought whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what’s this?
Here is the next bite, another question from Blake Burman at the Fox Business Network. He said, “The American people, I think, would like to know, do you feel that the attorney general should indeed stay or should he resign? Do you intend to fire him? Why should he remain as the attorney general, given all that you’re doing?”
THE PRESIDENT: I want the attorney general to be much tougher on the leaks from intelligence agencies, which are leaking like rarely have they ever leaked before, at a very important level. These are intelligence agencies. We cannot have that happen. You know many of my views in addition to that, but I think that’s one of the very important things that they have to get on with.
RUSH: Right.
THE PRESIDENT: I told you before, I’m very disappointed with the attorney general, but we will see what happens. Time will tell. Time will tell.
RUSH: It’s too obvious. “I’m disappointed with the attorney general.” Now, do you think it’s a coincidence that today Sessions announces a brand-new investigation into the very thing Trump is complaining about there? Sessions today announced an FBI, DOJ investigation into all of the leaking, the day after the Trumpster says, “I want the attorney general to be much tougher on the leaks from intelligence agencies.”
I’m sorry, folks. This is too big a coincidence. This makes it look like Sessions has seen the light and overnight decided to get back on board. Trump calls for an investigation into leaks one day, and the next day Sessions announces it. Man, has that Trump got power. Man, does Trump call the shots, is the perhaps hoped-for reaction.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The Rasmussen Reports has a survey out saying that Jeff Sessions is more popular than Eric Holder ever was and Loretta Lynch. And, believe me, they know that at the White House. Here’s a little blurb. This is a Washington Post story. “Current and former [anonymous] Justice Department officials said they hope Sessions holds out, refusing to resign as a means of defending the department’s independence. One [anonymous] former Justice Department official said the president’s anger seems to stem from a misunderstanding about how the department actually works. The White House, he said, should not be interfering with criminal investigations.”
What criminal investigation? There isn’t a criminal investigation! This is the whole point. The Russia thing is a counterintelligence investigation. James Comey said three different times Trump was not even a target of an investigation. There is no crime. That’s why Mueller should not have even been appointed. There is no crime. They’re looking for one. They’re hunting for one. The White House should not be interfering with criminal investigation. There isn’t one. There hasn’t been even been a crime alleged.
There has been this collusion-in-general allegation and there have been these unnamed leaks claiming that — well, none of them has gone so far as to name Trump. Flynn, Manafort, Carter Page. And it’s also a myth that the Department of Justice is independent from the executive branch. If Trump can fire the special counsel, then how the hell is the DOJ independent?
What they mean here about Trump not understanding how the department works, what they’re saying is — remember, now, their ongoing, daily assessment of Trump is that he’s insane or a variation of it, that he’s crazy. I mean, we’ve even got Susan Collins on a hot mic saying that she thinks so, that the country is endangered because Trump is crazy.
Another hot mic caught Susan Collins insulting a Republican member of the House because he’s so fat and so unattractive. Susan Collins, open mic, complaining about the unattractiveness and the size, he’s so huge, this Republican guy. He’s not in the Senate; he’s a member of the House. So they believe because they think Trump is — how to phrase this. They think Trump needs to be taken away by guys in the little white coats in the little yellow bus.
They do believe, honestly, folks, they think he’s not there. And as such they think that Trump believes that the attorney general is his personal lawyer, and they think that Trump believes that the attorney general is there to advance the president’s agenda using the Department of Justice to do so. They want you to believe, and everybody else, that Trump is a dunce, a genuine, stupid, uninformed, uneducated dunce. And that’s not an apt description of Donald Trump.
That description of Donald Trump never surfaced until the Democrats got hold of him. Just like I was never a racist or a bigot or any of the other things until the left wing media heard my radio show. Trump was never — you talk to people that worked with him, he might have been unpredictable, might be unconventional, nobody thought he’s insane and not all there, mentally, until the Drive-By Media starts examining him.
Let me squeeze a call from Las Vegas. Linda, I’m glad you called. What do you think’s going on with all of this?
CALLER: Well, Rush, so great to be on your show. Thank you. I have a theory. So, one thing that Donald Trump is, is that he’s pretty much a master at managing the media. And some would say manipulating, but I think managing. And I think what is happening is he is playing a little bit of wag the dog here and something else is going on. Sessions is — well, he made that big announcement today about criminal charges, but there’s gotta be something else going on. It may not even be about Sessions, but something that he doesn’t want the media focusing on. He’s working on something, they’re focused on this silliness. In the meantime, he’s getting something else done.
RUSH: So you think that there’s actually something that Trump is working on that he wants everybody to miss because Trump’s got ’em focused on what’s gonna happen to Sessions. So while everybody’s looking over, something we don’t know about is being hatched by Trump and his team in the White House. Well, it’s a distinct possibility.
I don’t care what the left wing or the Drive-Bys say, she’s right, Trump may be the most masterful media president we’ve had. Now, you might disagree ’cause you think the coverage he gets is negative, but I’m gonna ask you something. Every day is the news ever about anything but him? You go try that. You try to become the sole focus of the entire American journalism profession 24/7 for seven months in a row. Not anybody else could do this.
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RUSH: To Omaha. This is Joshua. I’m glad you called. It’s great to have you here. How are you doing?
CALLER: I’m very well. Hi, Rush. It’s an honor to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: I think that Trump is using his image that the media creates for him as a bully to make Sessions’ job easier.
RUSH: Explain that.
CALLER: Well, I think that he’s trying to make him a victim. The victim would be the strongest position in any sort of media outlet. So if Sessions is becoming the victim, then, you know, the media would try to portray him as right or better or something. You mentioned earlier that an anonymous source was starting to root for Sessions. A year ago, who would have ever been saying anything positive about Sessions?
RUSH: Well, this is an interesting take, and it dovetails with my recently evolved theorem. When Sessions endorsed Trump — let’s look at the timeline here — Democrats in the Senate had a cow. They didn’t like Sessions the work with. So they started calling him Beauregard. And they started saying, “Well, it makes sense. Trump’s a racist pig, and Sessions is a racist pig,” and Trump gets elected, and that discombobulates ’em. And then Sessions is named as attorney general, and they lost it.
They dredged up all of these old stories, took stories out of context — jokes and everything — to try to say that Sessions was an advocate of slavery. It was the same type of thing they’ve tried to do with me, in fact. Then they tried to say that he was a racist and that’s why he was not approved as a federal judge the first time when he was nominated, and they just dump all over the guy! Because he endorsed Trump and because he agreed with Trump on the wall and illegal immigration and all, just savaged him.
Then during the confirmation hearings you remember what happened. Franken and everybody tried to trip him up and just launched into this guy as an abject reprobate. And all of the notion about collegiality between senators just went out the window. There’s an unwritten rule that senators do not criticize each other, that it’s a fraternity. It’s a brotherhood-sisterhood type thing. All that went out the window, because there was so much hatred for Trump and so much disbelief that he had won, and so much inability on the part of the Democrats to think that they had lost.
So they keep hammering Sessions, and they keep hammering him. And then he ends up somehow with vague links to the Russia story ’cause he had a couple of meetings with the Soviet ambassador who went to lunch all the time. I think that’s all the guy did. Kislyak, he ate lunch all day! That’s where everybody met with the guy. He had to be eating lunch all day to meet with people as many as he met with. And, by the way, the guy looks like he ate lunch all day. At any rate, now look.
Inside of one week, guess who has been put on a pedestal and who now is the recipient of accolades and is being treated with tremendous respect? That would be Jeff Sessions. And why? Because Trump is savaging him publicly. And so all of these hypocrites, all these Democrats in the Senate and all these media people who tried to convince everybody that Sessions was unqualified to be AG ’cause he was a racist bigot — and worse — are now defending him and singing his praises because Trump’s after him.
And they’re praising his integrity, and they’re praising his independence. They perhaps inadvertently, maybe have been manipulated into doing a 180 on Jeff Sessions, and now they are busy extolling his virtues? All of this has been caused by Donald Trump’s public statements and tweets. Yesterday, Trump says one of the things he’s upset about is that Sessions hasn’t gotten rid of McCabe at the FBI because of his ties to Hillary Clinton via his wife and her running for the state Senate in Virginia, and he hasn’t looked at the Hillary emails.
He hasn’t begun the investigation into leaks, which is a big deal and he’s recused himself from Russia. So today Sessions announces… Well, it’s said that he’s gonna announce a new investigation into all of the illegal, felonious leaking that is taking place. Sessions may be… I’ll tell you what this means. He may be about to open investigations into Democrats. Stick with me on this. Hillary Clinton, Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz — and, believe me, is there ever fertile ground to investigate Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz and the DNC and her IT staffer, Imran Awan of Virginia.
He was caught trying to flee the country at Dulles International Airport yesterday, last night. Fertile ground. So I’m sure Sessions’ investigation may also include him, Imran Awan. The WikiLeaks leaks. Podesta. Russia. But not from the angle that the Democrats are interested in. If this is announced, if Sessions announces this — when he does — it will follow a week minimum, maybe two weeks, of all of these Democrats defending the honor of Jeff Sessions.
Praising his integrity, talking about what a raw deal he’s been getting from Trump. But the point is, go back to the campaign, fast-forward to the transition and Sessions’ nomination to be attorney general, the confirmation hearings. “What a pig! What a racist! What an absolute joke! What a danger! This guy… Beauregard? Ha! We know what that means. The guy may as well own a plantation. He probably still has secret slaves. Beauregard? Who names their kid Beauregard?” They’re out there trying to impugn Sessions.
Now they’ve been defending him and setting him up as one of most integrity filled people of all, ’cause Trump’s going after him. He announces an investigation. Because they have spent all of these news cycles praising Sessions and defending Sessions from the evil Trump, now what do they do? Well, they’ve gotta double back. “You know, forget it, he doesn’t have any integrity. He doesn’t have any honesty. He’s not a great guy. He’s doing this investigation, he’s a sop, he’s a coward. Trump starts complaining, look what he does.”
That’s the only thing they can do. Folks, there has to be more to this than what we are seeing, because what we are seeing doesn’t make any sense. It just doesn’t. And remember in every event that happens out there, I don’t care if you’re watching a football game, there are things happening that you don’t know, in the clubhouse, on the field, on the sidelines. Same thing in politics. We don’t know what’s really going on. We don’t know what’s being said to Trump behind the scenes. We’re only being told that Trump staffers are begging him to lay off Sessions? Come on. What kind of fools do they think we are?
Let’s envision that. There’s a meeting in the Oval Office, you got Reince Priebus, you got Bannon, you have Kellyanne Conway in there, take your pick. You got Tom Hagen in there, Anthony Scaramucci, these guys in there, “Mr. President, please, please! This is not like you! It’s not helpful. Please back off Attorney General Sessions, it’s gone too far.” Five minutes later Trump’s in the Rose Garden doubling down on what a louse Sessions is. It doesn’t make sense. But this does. Manipulating these people, there’s nobody better.
Let me put it this way. I don’t think we’ve had a more media savvy president. It’s hard to say because we don’t know really how savvy the people were before we were born. But in our lifetimes there haven’t been any. This guy owns it, folks. Forget what they’re saying about it, Donald Trump is the news from the time in the morning when you get up ’til you go to bed. He has totally, totally forced the fake media to do nothing but report on him.
I know, I know, it’s all fake, and it’s largely unfair and it’s mean-spirited and he probably doesn’t like a lot of it, but to commandeer the entire industry of journalism like this? A bunch of people that hate Trump cannot help but give him never ending exposure. Now, I know some people who think Trump gets too much, they wish he would go silent, stay invisible just for two days. He can’t. The media can’t. They can’t ignore Donald Trump.
So what Trump can do is manipulate them. And it’s possible — I’m just throwing this out there as a theory. I mean, who really knows? But I think it would be a great piece de resistance, because after months and months and months of these people just ripping Jeff Sessions one side up down the other, and now here comes a week where he’s the greatest guy in the world. The media’s so easy this way, by the way. And they’re so predictable and transparent. They do this.
If I spent tomorrow’s show ripping Donald Trump, they would spend the next two days talking about how substantive I am, how serious, I’m not like the other bombastic people out there. And it would last as long as I went the other way. They’re that transparent.
I’ve told you over the years: “We’re gonna toy with the media today. I’m gonna say something, just between you and me. Don’t tell them. They’ll hear about it at Media Matters, and the headline the next day is gonna be ‘Limbaugh X.'” And it always works, does it not? Well, if I can do it, certainly Trump can. And I think that’s what’s going on. We’ll find out. It won’t be long before we find out what this really is.
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RUSH: Here is Eric in Baltimore, a noted conservative area of the country, according to the president. How are you doing, sir?
CALLER: Hello, Rush, and mega dittos from a listener since 1992.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I really appreciate that.
CALLER: Okay. Your earlier caller from Las Vegas, I believe, pretty much stole my thunder. I agree with what she said. I would just like to make note that this seeming rift between Sessions and Trump, that’s just the toilet paper in the trees. It’s what’s really going on behind the scenes, and it’s incredible to me to know that —
RUSH: That wasn’t a caller from Las Vegas. That was me.
CALLER: — the administration strategy, the immigration strategy with no leaks.
RUSH: With no leaks?
CALLER: Yeah. Have you noticed the leakers seem to be concentrating on Trump, other things that are happening —
RUSH: Russia, primarily.
CALLER: Right. Right. And Sessions is very quietly implementing the agenda with virtually no scrutiny or —
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, this is —
CALLER: — criticism from the media.
RUSH: I agree with this. Well, the guy from Las Vegas did make this point but you have expanded on it. The thing is that Sessions’ real value to Trump in terms of his agenda is he is single-handedly moving Trump’s immigration agenda forward.
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: The Russia thing was not an agenda item, I mean, during the campaign. This whole Russia thing, there was nobody endorsing Trump because they knew the Democrats were gonna be — I mean, the true Trump agenda, the number one reason he got elected was immigration, illegal immigration, getting a handle on it, building a wall, stopping it, what that meant for the culture, what it meant for employment, what it meant for sanctity of the United States. And Jeff Sessions is leading that agenda item and doing so marvelously well. It makes no sense to get rid of him. And you’re right, there aren’t any leaks about it; it’s just happening.
CALLER: Well, you’ve also correctly identified that what Trump has done, magnificently, I think, is he’s put Sessions in the position where the media have to defend Sessions because they perceive Trump to be their mortal enemy. Now when Sessions goes ahead and does things that the media don’t like, how do they criticize him?
RUSH: Well, that won’t stop ’em. But no, that’s exactly right. If that is what has happened here, it’s pretty crafty. They hated Sessions, a racist, bigot, middle name Beauregard, probably a secret slave owner, all that stuff they were trying to imply. They hated him. They hated him. Didn’t want him to get confirmed. Now because Trump’s being so mean, he’s magically acquired all this integrity and honor, sad what Trump’s doing. Now he announces an investigation into the leaks, and they’ve gotta go back to trashing the guy.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Georgia, this is Wilton. Great to have you, Wilton. How you doing?
CALLER: Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: Wilton, what kind of phone are you using?
CALLER: I’m using an iPhone.
RUSH: Man, your call sounds clear as a bell to me. Are you making a FaceTime call or using the phone number?
CALLER: No, sir, I’m just using the phone number.
RUSH: Ah, you’ve got a good connection here that’s noticeably different.
CALLER: Well, great.
RUSH: It is good. I appreciate it.
CALLER: I want to say Attorney General Sessions has gotta go, and I’m probably gonna upset a lot of people, but coming from the Senate, you know, these 100 deliberative people who constantly look out for each other, he’s no longer in the Senate. He represents law and order. You’re either following the law or you’re not. So when sanctuary cities are still in place, in complete contradiction to what President Trump wants, it needs to be addressed immediately. When somebody is leaking, it needs to be addressed immediately. And he’s done none of those things, and certainly should have never recused himself from the Russia investigation based on what we now know, which was all false.
RUSH: On the recusal —
CALLER: Yes, sir.
RUSH: — the regulations that are established, you could make the case that he had to. It’s arguable, he probably might have been able to skate by, but legal people tell me that the regs are such that a law and order guy would recuse himself. On the immigration side I actually think Sessions is moving the ball on these things. Sanctuary cities —
CALLER: Slowly.
RUSH: I know what you’re saying. Sanctuary cities are telling him to go to hell, and what you’re saying is, he shouldn’t let them tell him to go to hell. He needs to send them to hell, he needs to respond, and if they’re gonna behave lawless, he needs to bring an action on them immediately. But he’s taking the case to them.
Now, I understand your thinking. He comes from the Senate where everything takes 10 years to get done. “It’s a deliberative body. There are many staff members and many reports are written,” and blah, blah. I get that. But I tell you, on the immigration side, Trump is not gonna be able to find anybody who could get confirmed now that will do any better. I firmly believe that.