RUSH: Here’s David in Park Circle, South Carolina.  You’re next.  Hello, sir.

CALLER:  Hey, Rush.  So good to talk to you.

RUSH:  Thank you, sir.

CALLER:  Quick question.  I’ll get to the point.  With the explosive growth of conservative media — since you arrived about, I guess, 30 years ago — is there enough influence now to determine a narrative of what’s happening in our country?  In other words, is there the power to reveal the truth about what’s happening to help Americans see and decide what’s going on?

RUSH:  You know, this is a great question.  I’m glad you held on.  It deserves an honest answer.  The honest answer is right now, “No, sadly.”

CALLER: Mmm.

RUSH:  But it can change attitudinally.  The reason that it hasn’t changed is that it is still assumed that the New York Times sets the news agenda in the United States today — and it does.  The way that it does is that every other news outlet is influenced by what the New York Times covers and what they report and what they editorialize and what they use on their op-ed page.  The New York Times every day is what is used in newsrooms all over America to prepare local papers, to prepare guests for CNN, discussion topics on CNN and MSNBC.

To wrest that away, it’s just gonna take some time.

Now, I think conservatives set the agenda for their own media universe.  But you’ll have to acknowledge something for me. Well, just answer this question without any… There’s no wrong answer here okay?  When you turn on Fox or even this show, what is your impression of what’s happening?  Is Fox reacting to what’s in liberal media and defending it, or putting out its own version?  On this program every day, do we react to what is happening on the left and in the New York Times or the liberal media and get our own version of it out there?  Or does Fox News every day set its own agenda independent of what else is going on and their whole day is nothing but what they think is important?

CALLER:  I feel like that for the past it has been reactionary.

RUSH:  Yep.

CALLER:  My gut feeling is something has changed with this president, that now we are putting forth an agenda, a different worldview, and presenting it to people, and I think they’re starting to catch on.

RUSH:  I think you’re right.  I think the baby steps of that are happening, and it’s all related to Trump.  Trump does provide the cover and the leadership.  We haven’t had this before from any politician on our side of the aisle.  We’ve never had politician that confronts the bogus lies and the misinformation in the media.  We just haven’t had it.  We’ve had Republicans who are afraid of the media — who have, you know, gone out of their way to be friendly, gone out of their way to be friendly with the Democrats.

“I am the one to elect.  I can cross the aisle and work with the other side.  I believe in compromise.”  We’ve had our fill with that, and we have a president here who is willing to compromise, but on his terms, not theirs.  He’s willing to call them out. By the way, there’s a story in the Stack here that will, I think, serve as a nice adjunct to this.  Should I put it at the top…? Yeah.  Here it is.  The story ran in none other than — dadelut dadelut dadelut — the New York Times.

Are you ready for the headline?  “Spotting CNN on a TV Aboard Air Force One, Trump Rages Against Reality.”  Trump rages against reality?  It’s by Maggie Haberman, who is the White House and anti-Trump correspondent of the New York Times.  The first paragraph says, “On the first couple’s recent trip overseas, Melania Trump’s television aboard Air Force One was tuned to CNN. President Trump was not pleased.

“He raged at his staff for violating a rule that the White House entourage should begin each trip tuned to Fox … and caused ‘a bit of a stir’ aboard Air Force One, according to an email obtained by the New York Times,” an anonymous email, a single email.  We don’t know the name. We don’t know anything about it.  So the New York Times is making this claim without any evidence.  They didn’t publish the email.  But look at the headline:  “Spotting CNN on a TV Aboard Air Force One, Trump Rages Against Reality.”

(Gasp!) Oh.  See?

CNN is reality.

Fox News is make-believe.

Fox News is fake news.

Fox News is pretend.

CNN! That’s real.

So “Trump rages against reality.” It’s not stated in the story anywhere.  How is complaining about CNN raging against reality?  Because in truth, CNN and reality are not even in the same time zone.  CNN and reality are strangers, as evidenced by wall-to-wall coverage today of… (interruption) What is this, “Trump and White House Behavior Sparks 1984 Comparisons”?  What the hell is 1984? Orwell!  Oh, they’re now saying Trump is becoming Orwellian?  Oh, because Trump is telling people don’t believe what you see in the media.

Don’t believe… Oh, they hate that.  I’m glad you reminded me.  Trump preempting the Cohen tape.  Don’t believe what you see because they’ve edited the tape!  They’ve chopped off the tape at a specific point to make it look like Trump’s saying something he isn’t, or might not be saying.  Don’t believe what you see.  It’s simply Trump warning people that the Drive-Bys are lying about him.  But that’s become “Orwellian,” and now they’ve got an expert, or they had, on CNN discussing Trump and the taking of the country to 1984.

“At the end of the email chain,” writes Maggie Haberman, “officials confirmed that tuning the TVs to Fox would be standard operating procedure going forward.” I wonder. You know, when Barack Hussein O and Michelle (My Belle) O boarded Air Force One, do you think Fox News was on the TV monitors? (interruption) You don’t think so?  So if Obama saw let’s say Michelle was listening to Fox… Let’s say Michelle Obama wanted to pay attention to what Gretchen Carlson was saying on Fox and Obama gets on the plane and he sees that.\

(impression) “You better turn that off! Cut that out.  We don’t want that network on the TV.”  Would the headline be, “Obama Rages Against Reality”? (chuckling) No.  No.  If that circumstance had occurred, the headline would have been something like, “Should Michelle Obama have anything to do with…” No.  Ahem.  I just created the… I’m trying to think when Michelle Obama was president, who’s a female on Fox at the time she might have seen.  Gretchen Carlson, daytime, you get on a plane.  At any rate, this is typical.

So Trump’s raging against reality because Melania was watching CNN and issued a diktat that from now on all the TVs on Air Force One are tuned to Fox.  It’s probably already a diktat.  Anyway, we don’t have any corroboration. The companion story: “Newspapers Endure More Cuts, Hope for Brighter Future Online.”  New York Daily News.  I mentioned this in the update.  The New York Daily News laid off half the editorial staff.  They’ve been losing money left and right.  They are the print version of CNN in terms of out-of-control Trump hatred, and it showed.

I mean, even in liberal New York City all the hatred for Trump was driving readers away!  But the governor, Andrew Cuomo — the son of Mario the Pious — suggested maybe the state could bail out the Daily News.  The state government bailing out a privately held newspaper.  Folks, speaking of the Daily News, do you remember my story about how one of the editors there he tried to set me up back during the Clinton years?  Do you remember that story? (chuckling) Very quickly, one of editors had lunch with me.

This is in New York. I still lived there. He said, “You know what?  I was listening to you the other day.  We need you as a columnist in this paper.”  I said, “What?”  “Yeah.  We need you.  We need the other side.  We need you! Just once a week write a column.”  During the conversation, the subject of Bill and Hillary came up, and this guy said, “You know what?  You can take this to the bank.  They’re getting divorced.  Once he’s out of the White House, they’re getting divorced.  Everybody’s talking about it.

“It’s gonna happen.  She’s had her fill of the guy.”  So I then knew what the purpose of this was.  I was supposed to go back to this (tapping mic) the Golden EIB Microphone and tell you that I had a scoop that Bill and Hillary are getting divorced.  And then within hours, “Limbaugh’s off the rails again, makin’ it up! This is unreal,” and a mass movement to get me thrown off the air would have then taken place.  The whole idea of me writing column was a setup to plant that little rumor in my head.  Obviously, it didn’t work because I didn’t fall for it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  There’s one other thing these clowns at CNN and the Drive-Bys don’t get, and that is that every phony blockbuster story about Trump — every one of these things that doesn’t go anywhere, every one of these things that doesn’t get rid of Donald Trump — inoculates him from the next one. And every inoculation then lessens the credibility of the media.  All this, I think, ends up helping Trump.  They haven’t figured this out.  They still think they can get rid of Republican presidents, and they’re not gonna give up at all.