RUSH: Let’s go to the audio sound bites. They just can’t give this up. I think I know why. Audio sound bite No. 1, this morning on the floor of the United States Senate…
SCHUMER: Why is our country suffering self-inflicted damage? Because President Trump is using the American government as leverage in an attempt to extract taxpayer money for a border wall he promised Mexico would pay for. You know, I hear Rush Limbaugh. “He promised this in the campaign.” No, he didn’t. He promised a wall that Mexico would pay for.
RUSH: (laughing)
RUSH: He stepped in it at the end of this! Did you catch this? This is choice! “I hear Rush Limbaugh. ‘He promised this in the campaign.’ No, he didn’t. He promised a wall that Mexico would pay for.” These guys are on the thinnest of ice! Is this all they’ve got, that they’re trying to say that Trump never promised to build a wall unless Mexico would pay for it?
That’s the case they want to make now? “He never said once, that I can recall, in the campaign, ‘But if Mexico doesn’t pay for it, we’ll pay for it.'” (chuckling) “Of course, people voted for it!” Chuck You stepped in it. “Of course, people voted for it! Of course, a wall makes… Oops! Some people, some people, not that many. Aw, damn it. Can we edit that out?”
Too bad.
It was live, Chuck.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Continuing with the audio sound bites. Moving over to CNN this morning — look, I’m convinced, I don’t want anybody to misunderstand things here. I’m convinced, I mean, why does Chuck Schumer, why do these people keep mentioning my name? Why are they running out there saying that I’m the guy running the country, determining the shutdown?
Now, I will acknowledge that maybe some of them actually believe it. I have always been surprised, even though I’ve been doing this a long time, I have been surprised to learn what these people actually believe sometimes. I mean, they fall for jokes that are obviously jokes to you and me, like Trump asking Russia to find Hillary’s emails. That may have actually made some of these locoweeds in the FBI think that Trump was an Russian agent!
It was a joke! Mueller is investigating it! They might have gotten a FISA warrant in part because of that line, that joke. They don’t understand. They take literally things that people say that are satirical and in the genre of parody. And I’ve wondered, do they do this on purpose, or is this just one of their techniques to try to convince people that these jokes are what people honestly believe?
So I’m asking myself, do these people really think that Trump was ready to sign the continuing resolution until I warned him not to do it? Do they really think that? Or are they just saying they believe it for their brain-dead base because they’ve got focus group data that shows that whenever my name is used, their base sends money.
My name is a dog whistle. I think my name has become one of the premier fundraising techniques that they have. They have spent all of these years destroying my reputation, lying repeatedly about what I say and what I think and what kind of person I am, and so within a certain segment of their base, I am Satan incarnate. People that have never listened to me, people that have never taken the time to read any of my transcripts, don’t know a thing about me other than what is said in left-wing media and left-wing journalism.
So it could well be that they keep throwing my name around because it keeps their base fired up with hatred and gets their base to send in money. But then, how does that explain the media continuing to blame me for this, too? Well, the media is an adjunct of the Democrat Party and vice-versa.
But listen to this. This is CNN’s New Day today. Alisyn Camerota talking to the chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin about the impact of the government shutdown. She said, “Jeffrey, with the damage to the U.S. economy, I mean, that’s something to get Trump’s attention. Is that the game changer today, Jeffrey? Is the economic hit that we’re hearing about gonna cause Trump to cave and end the shutdown?”
RUSH: Now, folks, I’m sitting here, and I know things that Mr. Toobin apparently doesn’t, and I can tell you that’s just plain stupid. What he said there is intellectually lazy and vacant. In the first place, remember who started the shutdown. “What started the shutdown was Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.” Does he really believe this? I think he does. I think his mind is this obstructed and this clouded, that he is incapable of independent thought. While being passed off as some legal analyst, brilliant guy, he’s really a closed-minded, incurious, obedient to left-wing agenda items kind of person. Anybody in their right mind cannot possibly think that I started the shutdown. But they do.
Now, you might think I’m crazy for sitting here not taking credit for it. Oh, I’ll take all the credit in the world. I’m just fascinated by these people. And then “I don’t think Rush Limbaugh has a long-term perspective on what’s good for the country.” Mr. Toobin, for you to say that puts you at or near the top of the list of people completely, totally ignorant about who I am and my career and what this radio program is all about.
Because that’s what it is exactly all about: the long-term perspective on what’s good for the country. And that’s why I oppose you. That’s why I oppose CNN. It’s why I oppose the Democrat Party, because you and they are not good for the long-term perspective for this country. You are about reordering it. You’re about transforming it. You are about getting rid of the founding. And we have evidence today from none other than Beto O’Rourke!
Beto O’Rourke is out saying in a Washington Post interview, “I just don’t know if our founding principles serve us anymore, as intricate and complex as the world has become.” Mr. Toobin, I look at myself as doing everything I can to stop people like you precisely for the long-term good of the country. It isn’t about my constituency. I don’t have a constituency. I have an audience. I don’t have political power. I’m not involved in that. I’m probably more of an open-minded journalist type than you will ever be.
This is just mind-boggling to me. You cannot have listened to this program and think or say what Toobin said. Now, I understand their objective is to poison minds of people about me and all this. I understand all that. But, I mean, it’s embarrassingly ridiculous to claim that I — and you, by the way. Don’t forget all this criticism of me and all this criticism of Trump is literally criticism of you, for listening and for voting. That’s who they really hate when you get down to it. That’s who they really despise. Trump wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for you! They could get rid of Trump if it weren’t for you. They could get rid of me if it weren’t for you.
That’s who they really hate. The fact that they can’t control you, that they can’t influence you, that they can’t indoctrinate you, that they cannot somehow propagandize you into voting and supporting what they want to do, which is nothing about the long-term perspective on what’s good for the country. These people win, the long-term good of the country becomes entirely differently defined. And it’s not what’s good for the country. It’s what’s good for them.
And so “the president has geared his entire presidency towards my listeners.” No. Make America Great Again. What is so hard to understand about that? No more complicated than making America great again. In fact, I saw something — I wonder if I printed this out. I think I did. Some guy who wasn’t even intending to make a point about the president was talking about China trade relations since the year 2000. And this guy’s chronicling how only recently has the United States changed dramatically its posture and status in trade relations with China for the benefit of the United States.
He doesn’t even mention Trump in this. The guy is not even talking about presidential politics. The guy was lamenting how we were always on the short end of the stick in dealing with Chinese in matters of trade. And only recently has that begun to change. The guy was oblivious as to why. He was chronicling historical changes but not mentioning personalities.
It’s exactly what Trump is all about! But they don’t understand making America great again, because they think America is flawed. They think America is immoral, unjust, it does not have the moral authority to be the solution to the world’s problems because we’ve caused so many of them. They don’t understand American exceptionalism, and they continue to attack the premise of American exceptionalism and to claim that people who advocate for it are themselves racists and bigots.
But the overall level of ignorance here is just striking among people who think that they’re smarter than anybody else in the world.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay, audio sound bites very quickly, Paul from Texas called C-SPAN. This was earlier this morning…
PAUL: The president allowed a radio disc jockey to determine and create the shutdown. It was already a done deal. So a deejay decided that he’s gonna make an input on the status of how he felt about the president, his decision — and the Republican and Democrat had already decided. And therefore, he put the spin on it. So this right here is not on the president. This right here is a radio disc jockey. Our president allowed a radio deejay to determine the fate of America.
PAUL: Yes, I am.
RUSH: So the host here is Pedro Echevarria, and he continued…
ECHEVARRIA: Why do you think he has that much influence?
PAUL: Because once that phone call was made, he made a statement over the air and said the president at this point in time will be losin’ all of his constituents. He was puttin’ the threat and said he cowed down and weakened to the Democrats. Then the decision was made to go ahead, and the president changed his mind. Rush Limbaugh did this.
RUSH: (laughing)
PAUL: Any time you allow someone of authority, allow someone else to just share an opinion with you — ’cause there was no basis or facts to that! That’s just Rush Limbaugh’s opinion.
RUSH: Any of that make any sense to you? (laughing) Touchdown! It makes no sense whatsoever. This is what the Democrats… This is their average constituent, how they think, how they react. I did it. They literally, literally believe I did it.
Related Links