RUSH: To the phones. Scott, Jacksonville, Florida. Great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: (garbled cell) Hi, Rush. I’ve been watching Meet the Press for a very long time. I loved Tim Russert. But what I watched this Sunday — Chuck Todd basically coming through the screen and yelling at Senator Johnson — I was just speechless.

RUSH: Why were you speechless?

CALLER: Because Chuck Todd is usually — for the most part — pretty level. You know, he does try to get answers to questions, but —

RUSH: Aw, come on, Scott! What are you talking about? Chuck Todd pretty level?

CALLER: I mean…

RUSH: Don’t confuse him with Tim Russert. For crying out loud! Scott, my man, you cannot possibly believe that Chuck Todd is “basically pretty level.”

CALLER: I mean, in the tone of voice, Rush. But he really — and that’s why I’m calling you —

RUSH: Ohhh.

CALLER: — because you’ve always told us the many years I’ve listened to you that journalists are supposed to be dispassionate, they are supposed to be unbiased, and Chuck really came through the screen this weekend.

RUSH: Well, we have the audio sound bites of this. It’s on our Cue Sheet roster. I’m glad you called, Scott, because it’s a good transition. He’s right, by the way. F. Chuck blew up. He blew up with Senator Ron Johnson. Senator Ron Johnson pushed back. Senator Ron Johnson called out F. Chuck Todd and the intelligence community for bias, and for colluding with Democrats to start the Russia hoax. So here’s a Republican senator we don’t have to worry about being purloined by Adam Schiff and the Democrats.

Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Chuck Todd was talking to Ron Johnson about impeachment. Question: “You told the Wall Street Journal late last week that when Gordon Sondland seemed to imply that the frozen military aid was connected to a promise by Zelensky for investigations, you said, ‘At that suggestion, I winced. My reaction was, “Oh, God, I don’t want to see those two things combined.”‘ Why did you wince and what do you mean by ‘those two things combined’?”

JOHNSON: First of all, your setup piece was typically very unbiased. By the way, you’ve got John Brennan on. You ought to ask Director Brennan, “What did Peter Strzok mean when he texted Lisa Page?” I have my third letter in to the inspector general —

TODD: All right. Senator?

JOHNSON: — of the Intelligence Committee, asking to just confirm, just confirm, “Are you investigating those leaks that Peter Strzok talked about in his text messages with Lisa Page?”

TODD: All right, Senator, I have no idea why — why — why —

JOHNSON: No, that’s a setup —

TODD: — why —

JOHNSON: — that is entirely relevant to this point.

TODD: — why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here.

JOHNSON: It is not. It is not that.

TODD: I have no idea.

JOHNSON: That is exactly —

TODD: I have no idea why we’re going here.

JOHNSON: That is —

TODD: Senator, I’m asking about —

JOHNSON: That is exactly why President Trump is upset —

TODD: I’m ask —

JOHNSON: — and why his supporters are upset at the news media.

TODD: This is not about the media.

JOHNSON: You know, Chuck, here’s the deal.

TODD: Senator Johnson…

JOHNSON: Here’s the deal. The bias in media that’s revealed —

TODD: (shouts) Senator Johnson, please!

JOHNSON: Go ahead.

TODD: Can we please answer the question that I ask you instead of (Gasp!) trying to make Donald Trump feel better here that you’re not criticizing —

JOHNSON: I’m not. I’m not.

RUSH: So you’re not even allowed to go on NBC and defend Trump. If you do, you’re exhibiting bias, you’re unprofessional, and they’re not gonna let you get away with it — and then you dare accuse F. Chuck Todd of being in league with John Brennan! Which he is. All of NBC is in league with the intelligence community. They’re all in league still with Obama and people from that regime, and here’s somebody who has finally called ’em out on it, and you hear the anger. (impression) “Why, that’s a Fox News conspiracy! You’re better than that, Senator.

“You can’t come in here and bring a Fox News conspiracy.” So they know all this stuff. They just choose to ignore it. He said, “You go talk to John Brennan, talk about the backup plan that Lisa Page and Strzok Smirk had.” “That’s a Fox News conspiracy theory!” It’s not a Fox News conspiracy. We’ve read the texts between the two! Okay, the next bite. Chuck Todd says, “I’m just trying to ask you a simple question. What made you wince?”

See, what this is about is at the first reported of the lie from the whistleblower before Trump released the transcript, what is everybody saying? “The whistleblower has secondhand knowledge! Yeah, President Trump seven or eight times was offering money and demanding this guy investigate,” and that’s what Ron Johnson said made him wince. He’s wincing at lies! Then Trump releases the transcript. He finds out it’s not lies, that he’s been set up, and he’s livid. F. Chuck Todd invites him on to NBC to ask why he winced, because what Chuck Todd wants Ron Johnson to say is, “Trump is scum, and I finally saw it, and I finally learned it.”

Well, Ron Johnson didn’t say that. He’s pushing back against all the bias, and F. Chuck Todd ain’t digging it.

JOHNSON: Because I didn’t want those connected. I was supporting the aid. When I asked the president about that, he completely denied it. He adamantly denied it. He vehemently, angrily denied it. He said, “I’d never do that!” Unlike the narrative of the press that President Trump was to dig up dirt on his 2020 opponent, what he wants is he wants an accounting of what happened in 2016. Who set him up? Did things spring from Ukraine? There’s a good piece we’ve got an oversight letter on from Politico in 2017. It says Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton undermine Trump.

TODD: Ambassador V…

JOHNSON: People who wrote this article are being pilloried. I’m being called a conspiracy theorist, John Solomon is being called a conspiracy theorist, because the press is horribly biased, and Trump and his supporters completely understand that.

TODD: Hey, look… (sputtering)

RUSH: (impression) “Hey, look… Hey, hey, look… Hey, hey, hey!” We told you about that Politico story. In January 2017, a couple of days or maybe a week before Trump was even inaugurated, Politico runs a story, and the headline was (summarized): “Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump, and now they’re trying regain favor with Trump.” That was the story. He’s just reminding Chuck Todd of this, that everybody was arrayed and aligned against Trump, that it was media bias.

F. Chuck says (sputtering), “You’re not answering my question! I just want you to answer my question! Why did you wince? Why did you wince?”

There’s one more bite in this. It’s a troika. It’s a threesome. But I have to take a break.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is the next sound bite to finish the troika. Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin, is pushing back on Meet the Depressed yesterday with F. Chuck Todd. He’s not holding back at all on how biased Chuck Todd is and the intelligence community — how biased this whole effort to get Donald Trump is — and Chuck was not happy. I’ll just set this up for those of you who may not have heard the previous hour about these particular bites.

When the whistleblower first was reported to have blown the whistle on the phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, what was the whistleblower saying? What is Adam Schiff out there piling on? Well, the whistleblower said (summarized), “Trump asked the president of Ukraine to make up dirt on Biden. Trump said, ‘Make it up,’ eight or nine times. ‘Make it up! Do whatever you have to do, and don’t get back to me until you’ve done it. Find out everything you can on Biden and his kid.'”

That’s what the whistleblower said, and Ron Johnson said when he saw that, he winced. “Oh, my God. That’s a quid pro quo! This…” It turns out it wasn’t true. The whistleblower made it up! The whistleblower was hearing things secondhand. Schiff made it up. The whistleblower made it up because they never thought Trump would reveal the transcript, release it. He did. When he released the transcript, none of what the whistleblower said was true.

So the media is left to create an illusion. So the first whistleblower bombs out. Now they’ve got a second whistleblower who has firsthand knowledge, but it doesn’t matter. The transcript has been released! They could have 12 whistleblowers — and they might, because John Brennan put out a casting call. (summarized) “Anybody who says you’ve ever seen Trump or thought or heard Trump do something illegal, now is the time to come forward! We will protect you.”

So here they’re gonna come, because it’s an illusion that (sobbing) “There are patriots inside of government that can’t abide Trump! Oh, my God, they can’t stay silent any longer! They have to come forward.” But they’re making it all up. It’s all about the phone call to the president of Ukraine./Because what this is, folks, is their totality of a campaign strategy for 2020. What they hope to do with this intense pressure is pick off a couple of Republicans, like they thought they had Ron Johnson.

That’s why F. Chuck Todd wanted him on Meet the Press. F. Chuck Todd wanted Ron Johnson to come up and say, “What Trump said in that call was sickening. It was repulsive! It’s yuck-o.” They were hoping to recruit him. Chuck Todd’s dream was to recruit a Republican for Trump impeachment. Instead, by the time Ron Johnson appeared, the truth had come out about the transcript of the phone call.

The whistleblowers were making it up. Schiff was making it up. So Ron Johnson pushed back, and F. Chuck Todd was livid and didn’t want to hear it! He tried to talk over Senator Johnson, making sure he couldn’t make his point about the conspirators like Strzok Smirk and Page and all the rest of them being anti-Trump and the media being anti-Trump. So here’s the third the sound bite with that as the continuation of the conversation.

You will hear here… What you’ve noticed in these bites is that Ron Johnson is having trouble answering the question. He’s there as a guest. He’s there as a potential newsmaker. That’s why these people are invited on these programs is to make news! The way that happens is, you let them speak! You ask them your trick question; you let them speak. If you’re F. Chuck Todd and you don’t get the answer you want, you talk over them, and that’s what happens here…

TODD: So do you not trust the FBI?

JOHNSON: — borderline truth.

TODD: You don’t trust the CIA?

JOHNSON: No. No, I don’t.

TODD: (sputtering) I — I — I — I am just very confused here.

JOHNSON: Absolutely not!

TODD: You don’t trust either of those agencies?

JOHNSON: After Peter Strzok and Lisa Page?

TODD: Okay.

JOHNSON: After… After James Comey, Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, John Brennan?

TODD: You believe the FBI and the CIA, these government agencies?

JOHNSON: No, I don’t trust any of these guys in the Obama administration.

TODD: Okay.

JOHNSON: I don’t trust any of them.

TODD: You don’t trust them now? Do you trust them now?

JOHNSON: No! I didn’t trust them back then!

TODD: And you don’t trust them now?

JOHNSON: I do not trust John Brennan. I do not trust Peter Strozk, Lisa Page, James Comey, Andrew McCabe. I don’t trust those guys.

TODD: Do you trust the CIA and FBI now, because none of them have come to any of the conclusions —

RUSH: See that? Were you able to follow what Johnson was saying? (interruption) You were because you know. But to somebody that doesn’t know, he’s made to look like a raving lunatic there. “Oh! So you distrust the CIA? Oh! So you don’t believe the FBI? So you don’t trust Washington? Oh, you don’t!” Question, Chuck: Why the hell do you? They’re nothing but a pack of jackals here running a sham operation that’s an attempt to get rid of a president! That’s why you support it. The real questions here is for people like Chuck Todd.

Why is the CIA sacrosanct to you? I can remember back in not too long — go back to the eighties and some of the nineties — you people in the media hated the CIA! You despised them. But now you’re on the team! Now you’re all on the deep state, administrative state team, and you gotta get rid of Donald Trump. “Hell, no, I don’t trust Comey! Hell, no I don’t trust Brennan. I don’t trust any of these guys in the Obama administration. I don’t trust any of them.”

(Todd impression) “Do you don’t trust them now?” “No! I didn’t trust them back then and you don’t trust ’em now. I don’t trust John Brennan. I don’t trust Comey. I don’t trust Strzok, Page, any of them — FBI, CIA, Andrew McCabe, none of them. I don’t trust any of those guys.” F. Chuck Todd did his best to make sure that Ron Johnson’s answer to his question was muddled and distorted and talked over, so that Johnson was made to say, “You don’t trust CIA! You don’t trust FBI!”

Again, Chuck, the question is, “Why do you? Why this blanket acceptance when you don’t have named sources, when you don’t have any facts? When Mueller said none of it happened, why do you still trust it?” The real question is, “Why does anybody still trust Chuck Todd, and why does anybody still trust George Stephanopoulos? Why does anybody still trust anybody at CNN or MSNBC?” These people lied to the American people for two years, three years now about Trump colluding with Russia.

It was blown up in smithereens. It didn’t happen. Everybody knew at the beginning it didn’t happen. They tried to make everybody believe it happened but it didn’t. They’ve discredited themselves from the New York Times on down the media chain. Why does anybody still believe them? Why does anybody trust the New York Times? Why should anybody? And yet here’s F. Chuck Todd. “Oh! You don’t trust CIA? Oh! You don’t trust the FBI? Oh!

“You don’t trust Obama? Oh, you don’t trust Comey? Really?” Damn right we don’t! I find it all fascinating.