RUSH: Now, I got a note from a friend who heard the first hour of the program, and I’m gonna share elements of the note. “Everybody knows, Rush, that Trump sometimes says things that are counterproductive to getting his good message out. But, then again, none of us have been the target for 19 months by a fantastic prosecutor or 92% negative press coverage.
“The point is that there is a visual microscope on Trump virtually 24/7. Virtually anything Trump says or does is reported, commented upon, amplified, broadcast around the world. There’s not a one of us who could survive this kind of scrutiny and this kind of attention, and the purpose of it is destruction. The point as I see it, Rush, is we have to deal with reality, and the reality is that Donald Trump and no one else — by sheer force of personality and guts — has saved us from corrupt socialism that Hillary Clinton would have ushered in.”
His point is, this is all worth it. The alternative to Donald Trump was unacceptable. Hillary Clinton and the continuation of the Obama agenda and the dilution of the United States of America as a sovereign nation and a continuation of its becoming a member of the global conglomerate — where there wouldn’t be any debate about climate change; we would just pay up. Where there wouldn’t be any debate about open borders; we would just keep them open. Where there wouldn’t be any debate about whatever American culture or society is.
It would be whatever the socialists said it was gonna be. And then he injects something personal. The friend says, “I know that much of your success has been handling nuts and haters with humor or parody. I can’t remember you losing your temper more than once or twice in over 30 years. You never tweet, and you don’t goad Trump, and you don’t hold grudges — even when you should, given the stuff that’s thrown at you. You don’t even cut off the occasional madman phone caller. You let them rant their way into oblivion. That’s why even leftists listen to you.
“Trump does not have the ability to let it go. Although when he’s funny, he’s really funny. But the lack of Trump’s ability to just let this stuff go — the lack of Trump’s ability to not lose his temper, to not push back — does not mean that his presidency is not vital at this 11th hour and that his energy and resilience are amazing, given the hatred he incurs. He deserves our respect for doing what 99% cannot do, and that’s get up to hatred every morning, wake up to hatred every morning and try to save the country,” and let me tell you something, folks.
That is undeniable. I even said (I don’t know how many times I’ve said it), “There is nobody I know in or out of politics who could put up with what Donald Trump puts up with and stay focused.” I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t be reduced to tears at the loss of their reputation or why everybody hates them or, “Why can’t they just leave me alone. What did I do to these people!” I can hear all the complaints. There’s not a single person that could put up with what he’s putting up with.
And the fact that he’s putting up with it to essentially save this country? We ought to be grateful! People ought to be grateful. But there are people starting to weaken. There are people starting to go wobbly here. “Trump’s tweeting too much. Trump’s embarrassing me with what he says about Tillerson. Trump’s doing this…” It all boils down to whether or not you think the country’s at a crisis point, whether or not you think that we actually are on the cusp of losing our founding and being overrun officially with socialism and worse.
The guy that sent me the note says, “You know, I get uncomfortable sometimes for a nanosecond with Trump’s blasts. But mostly his furor sometimes overshadows his great record, which has already bested both Bushes. But that’s about 1% of my worries, given without him, by October 2016, we were doomed for a disastrous 2009 to 2024 medieval age.”
So this guy literally believes that Trump’s election staved off an absolute crisis and disaster that would have meant the end, eventually, of this country’s founding. And therefore keep in perspective why all these assaults and who’s behind them. By the way, I would venture to say that a significant portion of the official elected Republican population does not see it this way at all. You and I know this.
This is why it it’s been so frustrating voting for Republicans. They’ve said the right things on the campaign trail, but when it’s come time to fight back or even just defend themselves, they haven’t done so. And so we’ve kind of felt stranded. And it’s because they don’t see it this way at all. They don’t see immigration, illegal immigration as a threat. They don’t see climate change and what it means in terms of the ongoing socialist onslaught. They don’t see any of this.
They think those of us who do are kooks. But Trump does see it. And the thing about Trump is, despite everything, he still isn’t an ideologue. In a sense we’re kind of lucky that Trump’s instincts align with our ideology because he’s not an ideologue. I can tell you from personal firsthand experience. If you start talking to Trump in ideological terms, you lose him. The conservative view versus the liberal.
He may be a little bit more sensitive to it now, more aware of it now, but that’s not his makeup. And a lot of people aren’t ideological. As you know it’s one of my frequent complaints, that if people were more ideological and actually understood and knew the ideology of leftism, socialism, the Democrat Party today, that we wouldn’t have nearly the trouble we’re having in communicating with people.
But Trump’s instincts, which stem from what? What do they derive from? They derive from wanting a great America. And to Donald Trump, a great America is the America of our founding. An America born of individual liberty and freedom, including free market economics.
Do you realize everybody who has run for president since the beginning of the so-called energy crisis in the late sixties — let’s say every president starting with Richard Nixon going on through Jimmy Carter up to the present, every one of them has promised us energy independence. Every one of them has warned us and told us that if we do not wean ourselves from the teat of Saudi Arabian oil, that we are doomed to be dependent on an enemy.
One guy has made us energy independent. Donald Trump. We are now officially an exporter of energy. At the same time, do you know the United States CO2 emissions have been reduced more than any nation in the world? And do you know that is? It’s a real number, and it’s the real truth. For those of you in Rio Linda, the stuff that creates climate change, the stuff that creates the greenhouse effect, CO2, we have reduced ours more than any industrialized nation in the world.
The two greatest polluters are the ChiComs and India, and they have been exempted from the Paris accords. Do you know how we’ve done this? Natural gas. We have more natural gas than we know what to do with, and it’s resulted from the technology of fracking. Being able to drill sideways into places where nobody thought there was oil. Along the way we found pockets of natural gas out the wazoo.
We could reduce emissions even more if we were to go back and start building nuclear plants. The point is, Donald Trump has done this. Yeah, well, he tweets things that may embarrass. I’m not bothered by ’em, and I never have been. The only way I’ve been bothered by them is the ammo they give people, but in terms of souring me on Trump, they don’t.
And there’s a part of me, your former Secretary of State Tillerson is out there with Bob Schieffer, formally of CBS, and telling the world that you’re undisciplined, that you don’t read, that you’re not curious and that you’re routinely asking him to do things when he was secretary of state that violated the law. What would you do? Well, Trump fires back that he’s never met anybody stupider, that he’s never met anybody lazier, that he’s not – “Oh, my God. I can’t believe what Trump’s doing, oh, my God.”
Do you know that Tillerson started it?
“No, I didn’t hear that. But even if he did, I don’t like what Trump –” That’s the ongoing effort is to get people to essentially abandon the Trumpster.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Steve in Stamford, Connecticut. Steve, I’m glad you called. Great to have you with us, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Nice to talk to you. Longtime listener. I was just telling your call screener, I think that Mr. Trump, President Trump, is going to overcome all this. And the reason why I think he’s gonna be able to overcome all of this is because I think he’s smarter than everybody he has to deal with on the other side. I personally think that he’s 10 steps ahead of everybody. Nobody but nobody gains in life what he has gained without being smart and without the sense of how to do things the right way.
Like you said to the caller previously, the country should be grateful that he was elected at a time in our history when we were gonna go down the wrong way with socialism, like you say on the radio all the time, and this new Democratic liberalism that we’re experiencing — which, to me, is ridiculous. I live in… I’m sure you’re aware, I live in an area of the country where it’s extremely liberal.
RUSH: (chuckles) Yes, I’m very well aware. Yeah, I know exactly where Stamford is. Absolutely. Mr. [William F.] Buckley used to live there, in fact.
CALLER: Yeah. We just reelected another governor to follow [Dannel] Malloy, another liberal governor, and we have two liberal senators from the state. But all I’m trying to say to you is that I think that we should all let Mr. Trump do his thing — President Trump do his thing — because I think he’s smarter than everybody and I think he’s 10 steps ahead of all these politicians.
RUSH: Well, we’ll see. That’s a comforting thought that you’ve got.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s David in Conway, South Carolina. Nice to have you, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. As I told the screener, I think that this attempt to bring his poll numbers down has been going on for a long time. I think with the amount of 24/7 news stories negative against him, it’s almost like putting him in a room and throwing crap at him and even though he dodges and bobs and weaves it never hits him, the proximity will create a stink. And I think that’s all they can hope for, because there is no Russia collusion or any other.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: They want him to look bad no matter how they can do it, and they can always dig up a RINO that they can get on the news to kind of give their stories some collaboration.
RUSH: Well, that’s the technique. This is the technique. We’ve seen this. We’ve seen this I don’t know how many times. This is most intense application of the strategy or of the play, but this is how they get Republicans. This is how they get political enemies. They simply ruin them with a never-ending deluge of media allegations. You’re right. Then they go find a wobbly Republican to make it look like it’s bipartisan. It used to be McCain. Now it’s Jeff Flake, sometimes Bob Corker.
But up to now — and I think this is one of the things that’s frustrating — it hasn’t worked. Nothing has worked. In their minds, they should have been rid of Trump in the first three months of his term. In fact, in their minds, he shouldn’t have been elected. The stuff they threw at him, the Steele dossier, all that stuff, that should have prevented him from being elected. And he survived it, and he continued to survive this, defined by he’s still there. And he’s still getting up every day and going to work and attempting to advance his agenda.
Here’s Kay, South Bend, Indiana. Welcome. You’re next.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. They have gone and done it now. They have made this personal, and I’m angry. If I could talk to the elites in the media and the establishment, this is what I would want to say to them. You are gonna make me double down on the decision I made in the voting booth in 2016. You are not for freedom. You are not for the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, you’re not for the freedom to defend my own home and the borders. You are not for women. You do not speak for all women. You are for the women who are smart enough or enlightened enough to hold to an agenda that includes abortion, the rejection of traditional marriage, two genders, et cetera. You are not for individual ingenuity, creativity, invention, et cetera. You are not for the country that I love. I voted to reject you and your ideas and your agenda, and I voted for Donald Trump, not because I liked everything he’s done in the past or because he’s perfect.
RUSH: You weren’t electing a priest.
CALLER: Exactly. And, you know, Rush, I was thinking about this. We have never had an election in our history, and we never will where we’ll have a ticket that has two perfect infallible human beings on it. If we did, I would vote for that ticket with both hands. But, meanwhile, I will not stand by and be silent or vote for a ticket that is going to drive my country off the cliff, not while I’m alive.
RUSH: Let me tell you something. You are so right in your description of the left and of the Democrats and how they do not represent or speak for a majority of Americans. And in that regard, if they do this, if they actually do impeach Trump in the House of Representatives on this Stormy Daniels stuff, they are gonna have hell directed at them that they do not understand will be coming their way. They haven’t the slightest idea. They live under the illusion, you just said, that a majority of people support them, especially now after the midterm elections.