RUSH: Hey, folks, parts of this joint press conference here between Trump and Putin were comedy gold. Parts of this press conference were some of the funniest stuff that’s been on American television since Trump was elected. I mean, I have been laughing myself silly. I don’t laugh out loud much watching television anymore. It’s a sad reality, but watching TV does not make me laugh anymore. But I have been laughing out loud — uncontrollably at times — watching this joint presser. What makes it is that the United States media regularly beclowns itself, makes fools of themselves because they really have it in their heads…

I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know if they really do believe that Trump and Putin colluded to steal the election, if they’ve been reporting that for so long that they actually now believe it. Because even with Mueller, there isn’t any evidence of it. Which reminds me, Mueller’s indictment… Wait ’til you hear what the Drive-Bys are trying to do with this indictment! It is craziest thing! It is laughable, because our media has become a collective joke.

The problem with our media becoming a collective joke is that they have the ability to wreak tremendous havoc and do great damage. But these people are a laughingstock, and they do not know it. They do not have the humility or even the presence of mind to know how they are perceived — and that is a killer quality, or lack of a quality. To not know how you’re perceived when you’re in any business is death. Business death.

It’s amazing to me to watch the right-before-before-our-eyes decline of the stature, the respect, the integrity and the perceived intelligence of members of the United States White House or presidential press corps. This is just… I don’t know. I have all kinds of mixed emotions watching it. I go through the anger. But I can’t stay angry very long because I can’t stop laughing at this. For example, some AP reporter stood up, he got the last question of Trump, and he (laughing) asked Trump, “Okay. U.S. intelligence says that Russia meddled.

“Russia says they didn’t. Who do you believe?” And then the guy says to Putin, “Do you have any compromising material on President Trump and his family?” I about lost it at this point. It was a serious question. “Do you have any compromising material on President Trump and his family?” And Putin and Trump both just laughed, and Putin’s facial expression was priceless! Putin’s facial expression was over the top. You could tell that he thought this guy was an idiot.

He was trying not to bust out laughing out loud over the question, because it’s such an amateurish question. Here you’re asking a KGB agent, “Do you have compromising material on President Trump and his family?” And Putin… “Who are these people?” He’s looking at them, “I can’t believe you’re sending such idiots to ask questions of me.” So Putin goes into some answer, “Well, you know, when Trump was here supposedly with the sluts in the hotel, I didn’t even know he was here. I didn’t even know!” (laughing)

He thought he knew what the guy was asking about. He’s asking about the dossier, and Putin says, “Well, you know, I know a little bit how dossiers are made.” He’s just taunting with these people.” (chuckles) This is like a cat that was taunting with a little lizard running loose in my house. I see it every now and then when my cat catches a lizard. It just toys with it — and the cat’s not trying to kill the lizard. It’s just nature being nature. The lizard darts around and the cat follows it. It just… It was amazing. Here. Listen to this.

Grab audio sound bite No. 15. The indictment of these 12 Russians that Mueller announced… (laughing) More on that, by the way, coming up. This is one of those days where I wish I could get to everything in the first segment, but I can’t. But that indictment with Mueller. And wait ’til you hear what the Drive-Bys tried to start with this on Friday. Well, I’ll just tell you. I’ll just tell you. Mueller does not say this in the indictment and you can infer it and it leads me to believe that Mueller intended it to be inferred.

The Drive-Bys say that the Russian hacking… Are you ready for this folks? The Russian hacking of the DNC server began later on the same day Trump asked Russia to look for Hillary’s emails. They actually think that we’re gonna fall for this! Trump’s cracking a joke about, “Hey, Russia…” Everybody’s looking for Hillary’s missing 30,000 emails. Everybody knows they’re somewhere, and the media’s going nuts trying to find out where they are, what happened… Well, the media isn’t, but some people are.

So Trump… I think he was at a press conference in Miami, if I’m not mistaken, but doesn’t matter where he was. But in typical Trumpian humor fashion (impression), “Russia! Hey, Russia, if you’re listening, maybe you can find the missing 33,000 Hillary emails that everybody’s looking for.” This indictment claims that the Russian hacking began on that very day. So it’s left for the Drive-Bys to infer that Mueller is reporting that Trump’s request of Russia to look for the emails was seen as a green light by Russia to start hacking! (laughing)

Now, I know some people say, “Rush, you’re not taking this seriously enough. I mean, the Russians…” The Russians have been meddling in America since before I was born, folks. It isn’t news. It isn’t worthy of a special counsel doing a counterintelligence investigation. None of this has been necessary. Everybody knows the Russians are trying to infiltrate everything. I would maintain to you that the Russians have done a bang-up job of infiltrating American education already! The fact that Russia tampers in elections?

Putin also said, “Look, hey, you know you guys tamper too! We’re both democracies and you guys are tampering. So if you want my people to participate in your investigation of me, I want to be able to come to America and participate in my investigation of you.” The reporters are looking at each other, “What? What?” Because in this scenario Putin is the evil bad guy and Trump is the evil bad guy and it just… These two people, Trump and Putin, were so way over the heads of the journalist here that, as I say, they beclown themselves and they don’t even understand it.

But here’s Putin’s answer. He’s being asked… Putin even brought up Concord Management. Let me remind you what this is — and I’m sorry to be hopscotching all over, but I wanted to make sure I mentioned all of this. I didn’t get a chance to write it all down. All of this happened in the last 15 minutes before the program began. So the media is asking questions about Russians and how much Putin knew and did Putin authorize it — and Putin brings up Concord Management.

Now, Concord Management. He called ’em “the Concord company,” and he said they are not part of the Russian state government, meaning he’s got nothing to do with it. They’re one of the 13 Russian troll farms that Mueller indicted, and those indictments were also (like these that were announced on Friday) never intended to see the inside of a courtroom! Except Concord Management showed up, they got a lawyer and they showed up in American court and they demanded to see the evidence that Mueller was using to charge them with all of this collusion.

Well, tampering.

Mueller wasn’t prepared for anybody to be extradited or to come to the United States and stand trial. These were purely politically announced indictments so the world could see that Mueller is finding the Russians doing something. Concord Management pulled one off over on Mueller by showing up with an American law firm and pleading not guilty and demanding to see the evidence. Of course, Mueller doesn’t have any evidence because these are all PR indictments. So Mueller is saying, “Well, I can’t provide the evidence, Judge, because they’re still doing it!”

Which would have been like saying, “Well, we can’t show you what we got on Gotti ’cause Gotti’s still doing it.” What does that have to do with anything? And then Mueller said, “Well, we can’t show them the evidence because they haven’t been served properly.” The judge said, “What do you mean haven’t been served properly? They’re here! They’re here and they’re pleading not guilty. They have accepted your service.” Mueller never expected ’em to show up. So Putin is addressing all of this today, calling it the Concord company.

He knows what’s going on, and he’s doing his best here to put what is happening in the proper frame of light for people. Believe me, these indictments — even these 12 or 13 announcements that were announced on Friday. Those were never intended to go anywhere, folks. In fact, Mueller is not even gonna supervise that case. He handed it off to the division of the Department of Justice where these kinds of the cases go to die. These Russians are never gonna be extradited, and I don’t even think Putin was asked about it.

Maybe he was and I missed it. But as all of this is being discussed, a reporter stands up and asks about the Mueller indictment on Friday, and these 12 Russians, and whether or not Putin is going to extradite them and send them back to the United States for trial. Listen to what Putin said.

PUTIN: I get back to the issue of these 12 alleged intelligence officers of Russia. I don’t know the full extent of the situation, but President Trump mentioned this issue, and I will look into it.

RUSH: I about fell off the chair. (imitating Putin) “President Trump mentioned this issue, and I will look into it.” And the media’s sitting there and you can just tell they’re getting ticked and ticked, because you have to understand, the media looked at this press conference as the day they’re gonna nail Trump. I’m telling you, I’m sure this is how they went into it. This was the day they were gonna nail Trump. They were gonna nail Trump. They were gonna get Putin to help them nail Trump.

Instead, Trump’s turning the tables on ’em. He’s ripping the Democrats. He accused Hillary of taking an illegal $400 million contribution. Putin starts complaining about George Soros, says, you want to talk about interference, how about George Soros? Snerdley and I looked at each other, said, “George Soros, out of the mouth of the KGB? Vladimir Putin?” (laughing)

And then Trump, his last comments, he just destroyed Peter Strzok Smirk. The last comments he made talking about how this whole thing is still a witch hunt, a fishing expedition. But Putin, “I don’t know the full extent of the situation, but the president mentioned this issue and I will look into it.”

You know what I was hoping? I was hoping that one of these dingbat reporters stood up, I was hoping one would say, “President Trump, President Trump, did you tell Putin to stop it? Did you tell Putin we are not gonna accept his cheating and collusion anymore and his interference?”

And I was hoping that Trump said, “Yep, yep. You know what I did? I looked Putin square in the eye and I told him to cut it out.” I was so hoping Trump would scam Obama, ’cause that’s what Obama said when he was asked about this. (imitating Obama) “I told him to cut it out, that in no uncertain terms, I said cut it out.” And the media was totally satisfied with that.

Comedy gold. “I will look into it.” The facial expression Putin had when that AP reporter asked him if he had any compromising information on Trump. He kind of rolled his eyes, he looked down, he could not help starting to laugh and then caught himself. And it was not the kind of nervous laugh of somebody who’s been caught. It was the kind of laugh that somebody who thinks he’s just heard the stupidest, dumb ass question of his career.

But the AP guy, the AP reporter, he was dead serious. “Do you have any compromising information on President Trump and his family?” As if Putin’s gonna say, “Yeah, yeah.” I wish Putin would have said, “You heard about that time in the hotel when Trump hired the prostitutes? Yeah, we heard about that too. We haven’t been able to confirm it. We know about that. I know about dossiers.”

But Putin wisely did not do what I would have done. I would have fed them enough to put them on. But you can’t put ’em on because they do not get satire, they do not get sardonic, they don’t get parody. These people are loaded for bear. And I’m telling you, do not doubt — I’m watching the news media before the joint press conference today, you know what the overriding theme was? Get this. “And the journalists in the room will be able to ask questions of these two leaders. The world waits as journalists prepare to ask –”

The world is not waiting for journalists to ask questions. But the journalists think it’s all about them, which is what tells me that many of them, ’cause I think they still to this day get up every day hoping, thinking that day, this day is gonna be the day that whatever smoking gun evidence is out there is finally revealed that will allow them to get rid of Donald Trump. And I think they could at this presser today as an opportunity for that to happen.

And of course it’s not gonna happen, it wasn’t about to happen. So they try to make it happen with these embarrassingly shallow and puerile, infantile questions. And they want to tell us that they are the guardians of freedom and democracy. And these people are not even informed enough to ask substantive questions of Vladimir Putin.

What did we see on this station? When you look at this, what did you see? You look at Trump and Putin standing side by side at their podium, you see Trump at 6’3 and Putin at about 5’5 or 5’6, and he was standing on an elevated podium to boot. Putin’s a tiny guy. That’s why he runs around with no shirt sitting on a horse. The tiny guy wants to look macho to the world and the worldwide media. He’s a tiny guy. That’s the first thing you notice.

But you’re also looking at two billionaires. Donald Trump’s a billionaire, and Vladimir Putin’s a billionaire. I’m sorry, in Russia, billionaires are called oligarchs. That’s another thing, a rule in the Drive-By Media, any successful Russian is an oligarch. You know why? Because oligarch has a sinister, sinister connotation. It means oligarch, like monogarch, like it’s a garch, some kind of a garch, oligarch, it’s criminal, all powerful. So every successful Russian is an oligarch, and Putin is one, too.

So they’re both billionaires but it’s instructive to think how each of them became a billionaire. President Trump did so by running a company that builds hotels, resorts, and golf clubs, real estate development. That’s how Donald Trump became a billionaire. Vladimir Putin became a billionaire by running a country, which is among the latest proof of something that I have pointed out for years. In a capitalist country, the rich become powerful. In a communist, socialist country, the powerful become rich.

Putin’s got more money than any of these Russian oligarchs have. It’s just he doesn’t have a giant yacht with a bunch of models on it every Fourth of July, every holiday in Monaco having endless parties with P. Diddy walking around with a manservant and the umbrella shielding from the sun. Putin doesn’t go in for any of that, but his oligarch buddies do. But he’s got all kinds of money. And he got it running a country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Trump really ticked off the media when he said (imitating Trump), “Yeah, he’s got great confidence in the U.S. intelligence community, but Putin was very powerful in his denial. Great confidence in the intel community but, you know, it’s a contest ’cause Putin was really powerful in his denial.”

Now, lest you get the wrong idea, folks, I’m well aware that there are many people who think this was not Trump’s finest hour, that Putin got away with basically dominating this whole thing and whatever Putin said stood, that Trump didn’t push back on any of it. That is a developing bit of analysis that you’re gonna find even on what you would consider to be Trump-friendly media. That Trump didn’t push back, Putin got the run to say whatever he wanted to say. Trump didn’t push back.

That may be. This all happened just mere moments ago, and I’m gonna have developing thoughts on this as I have a chance to learn about it in a nonpressurized circumstance. This is like cramming for an oral final exam with everything on the exam coming up in 15 minutes. So I’m sure by tomorrow’s show, later today, may even have a different take on this thing.

My original take or perspective on this has to do with the media and what I know they were hoping for or trying to make happen. And whatever went on between Trump and Putin, the media did not dominate Trump today, and he did not fall for any of their supposed traps or any of that.

I just think so much has been made of Russian meddling in the election. Mueller didn’t have any evidence of it. None of his indictments have to do with anything of the original charge here. And the Russians have always been trying to infiltrate us, as have every enemy that we have of superpower status. It’s not new!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is the question, this is from the Q&A, AP reporter. I didn’t get this guy’s name. “Does the Russian government have any compromising material on President Trump or his family?” And Putin bows his head and starts chuckling. He can’t control it. I wish I could show you the picture. He can’t control it. He thinks it’s the most ridiculous thing. I mean, even if they do, even if they do have information, the fact that he would answer it? The fact that they would even ask this? You know, Putin is aware what the reporter’s trying to do, and here is his answer.

PUTIN: (chuckling) I did hear these rumors that we allegedly collected compromising material on Mr. Trump when he was visiting Moscow. Distinguished colleague, I will tell you this. When President Trump visit Moscow back then, I didn’t even know that he was in Moscow. I treat President Trump with utmost respect, but back then, when he was a private individual, a businessman, nobody informed me that he was in Moscow.

Let’s take St. Petersburg economic forum, for instance. There were over 500 American businessmen, high-ranking high level ones. I don’t even remember the last name of each and every one of them. Do you think that we try to collect compromising material on each and every single one of them? Well it’s difficult to imagine a lot of nonsense on a bigger scale than this. Well, please, just disregard this issue and don’t think about this anymore again.

RUSH: (laughing) Disregard this and don’t think about it. Yes, Vladimir, we do think you can collect info on 500 people. Of course we do. You’re the KGB! You got everything. Of course we think you could. (imitating Putin) “Just disregard these issues and don’t think about this anymore. I’ll look into it. I’ll look into it and I’ll get back to you.”

Jonathan Lemire is the AP reporter. Would you, with the whole world watching, tell Putin, would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again? This is a question the AP asked Trump. Would you denounce Putin and would you tell him to cut it out and never do it again?

THE PRESIDENT: Why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I’ve been wondering that. All I can do is ask the question. My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others, they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server. But I have confidence in both parties.

I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don’t think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server, what happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC? Where are those servers? They’re missing. I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer.

RUSH: This is where they think that Putin ate Trump’s lunch, that Trump didn’t push back (imitating Trump), “Oh, Putin tells me didn’t do it, and, frankly, I don’t know anybody would think Russia did it. But Putin said they didn’t do anything. He invited our investigators to come over here and meet with his meddlers to see if they can find any evidence.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s very obvious that Donald Trump has an agenda or had one in this press conference. Look, he knows that the only questions the Drive-Bys are gonna ask — the American Drive-Bys — are about collusion, meddling and all this. He knows, and I’m sure that Putin knows, and I’m sure that he and Putin strategized offstage how to deal with this. I mean, this was Abbott and Costello up there today. This was a finely honed comedy act up there.

Folks, I do not mean to say I’m being duped by anything. I come to you from the perspective that these two guys don’t like the media like no world media likes the media. But I don’t, either. I think the media is one of the greatest poisons in this country today, worse than they have ever been. I mean, just the total absence in the media of any of the good things happening in this country that could be uplifting and inspiring if people knew about them and would be reported all over the place if an Obama or Hillary were president of the United States.

It is massively transformational what Trump has meant for this country on the upside, positive way in terms of economics and security, world leadership and world dominance. We’re on the way to being reestablished as the legitimate, morally correct superpower of the world, a force for good the world over. This is such a marked contrast from the last eight years of Obama when the United States was portrayed as one of the problems in the world that needed to be apologized for, needed to cut down in size.

It is a massive, massive reversal of fortunes for this country, and even people living it don’t see any positive reinforcement of it in the media. All they see every day is that their president is illegitimate or their president’s hated or their president’s an idiot or this or that or his family is corrupt. It has an ongoing deleterious effect. Many people have just tuned the media out. Like I say, CNN and MSNBC both have an audience lower than the Food Network and the HGTV network now. You don’t count the airports because that’s controlled.

I mean, you can’t get anything but CNN in the airport. CNN International around the world is poisoning the minds of world citizens about Donald Trump. Whereas there’s a natural adversarial relationship between people in power and the media… Because in the old days, the media’s charge was to hold powerful people accountable. On paper, it’s a legitimate function. But that’s not what’s going on here. The media, in this day and age, has one objective, and that’s to get rid of a person in power they don’t like, like they did Richard Nixon.

Since they did it once, they live with the perpetual belief they can do it again or any time they want. Their objecting since election night 2016 has been to get rid of Donald Trump. Well, he knows it, and Vladimir Putin knows it. Now, who knows what Putin wants, other than the United States in chaos. That’s the best thing in the world for him. But the fact that the media is such a collection of glittering jewels today, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some yuk-yuk coordination behind the scenes in how to deal with ’em.

Putin was just classic today. I mean, Putin us… You know, he comes across as somebody who is surprised at times by questions ethics, but this guy is the KGB. This guy silences people he doesn’t like. He doesn’t waste time laughing at them. But he can’t get rid of the U.S. media. In fact, he’s become an expert, I think, at using them. If Putin’s colluding with anybody — if any American enemy is colluding with anybody — it’s the United States media. I don’t think it’s a conscious collusion.

I think it’s a taking advantage of what Putin and other world leaders know the media’s disposition toward Trump is, and they try to exploit it. If you go back to the campaign of 2016, everybody in the world thought Hillary Clinton was gonna win, and therefore it was Hillary who was the target of all of the destabilization efforts. I mean, that’s why the Russians were hacking here or doing whatever, ’cause everybody thought Hillary was gonna win. There wasn’t anything the Russians were doing to Trump until he won.

After Trump won, then the Russians began to destabilize Trump with all these massive protests this were sponsoring that CNN encouraged people to attend. So, you know, I’m able to have a different perspective. I have a distaste and a disrespect for the media and for the poisonous, destructive things they’re doing. This is not speaking truth to power or holding powerful people to account. There’s actually an ongoing effort here to get rid of Donald Trump, and since I’m a Trump supporter, I don’t want that to happen; so I push back against it.

Any time Trump makes fools of them, I applaud it. That’s not to say that I want Russia to succeed or anything of the sort. I shouldn’t even have to say any of this ’cause I don’t think my credentials as an American loving-patriot have ever been in doubt. But the way things are going with the media and in this country today, this effort to divide people and then tear the nation apart, all for the express purpose of overturning an election (the results of which they didn’t like) in 2016, I push back against it. Here’s one more Trump sound bite. (interruption)

No, what I mean by Trump’s agenda is, for example, here comes these questions about Russian meddling, and did you notice where Trump went with it? He went right to the Democrat National Committee and the targeting of their server. (summarized) “Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democrat National Committee? I’ve been wondering: Where is their server? The DNC didn’t want the FBI to see the server, and the FBI willingly acquiesced.

“‘Oh, okay,’ Comey said, ‘you don’t want to show us the server? Fine! We won’t look at it.” I’m convinced the reason that they didn’t want the FBI to see the server is because the… Donna Brazile told us! Donna Brazile told us that the DNC was rigging the election for Crazy Bernie. So here’s a woman who was in on that at the DNC now hired by ABC as a Sunday morning show analyst to talk about rigging elections! It’s incestuous, what’s going on in the media.

Donna Brazile ought to have been discredited as an analyst source on ABC because of the things that she has admittedly done, even though it supposedly bothered her so much that she resigned. But grab sound bite No. 21, a question from Reuters reporter Jeff Mason. “Do you hold Russia at all accountable for anything in particular?” (impression) Mr. President, is there anything they did, can you give us anything about Russia that you hate? If so, would you consider that they are responsible for anything? Would you just tell us!”

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I do. I hold both countries responsible. I do feel that we have both made some mistakes. I think that the probe is a disaster for our country. I think it’s kept us apart. It’s kept us separated. There was no collusion at all. Everybody knows it. It was a clean campaign. I beat Hillary Clinton easily — and, frankly, we beat her. And I’m not even saying from the standpoint we won that race, and it’s a shame that there can even be a little bit of a cloud over it. We won the Electoral College by a lot, 306 to 223, I believe. And that was a well-fought battle. We did a great job. We ran a brilliant campaign, and that’s why I’m president.

RUSH: So you see? The press is saying (impression), “Did you get the Russians to admit they did anything to help you win? Come on, Mr. President! Please, please, give us something.” Trump’s saying, “I won this legitimately!” Look, Donald Trump is like anybody else would be. He won the presidency. He won the presidency against all odds. He resents deeply this idea that anybody helped him, particularly the Russians! You people in the media are nuts if you think Donald Trump is gonna go along with this.

That’s not who he is. He won this race — that’s what he’s pointing out here — in the Electoral College. He won it fair and square. He won it in a shocking surprise, and he did it himself. He outworked Hillary Clinton, he worked harder than any candidate in recent memory, and he doesn’t want that taken away from him. He doesn’t want the Russians getting credit for it. He doesn’t even want Hillary getting the blame for it, even though she shares some ’cause she was so lazy. She was unable to campaign, didn’t have any energy at all, didn’t have any support, couldn’t put together 200 people at a rally. But he won this thing and he wants everybody to realize that he won it, that it wasn’t stolen.

He resents this whole line of thinking, which is entirely understandable. The guy worked his butt off in this campaign. There is nobody that’s worked harder and continues to work harder than Donald Trump. And the idea that the Russians did it or enabled Hillary’s loss or whatever offends him. And so when they ask him about it, he’s got an answer.

What happened to the DNC server? That’s where the real cheating was. That’s where things were rigged. What do you mean, the Russians helped me win? I worked hard for this. I won the Electoral College. It was fairy fought, all this kind of stuff.

How would you like it if everybody said your greatest accomplishment was something you didn’t do? Oh, I’m sorry. The Democrats already do that. “You didn’t build that. You didn’t build that business. You didn’t make that happen. We did. Government, government made it possible for you.” People are fed up about that. The denial of the achievement, the tainting of success. And believe me, Trump’s not gonna have any of it. And the longer they keep on this line, the more he’s gonna have a pushback.