RUSH: I don’t know. Sometimes I just have to laugh. Like Larry King. Larry King, who has never gotten over what I did to him, and I didn’t do anything to him other than wipe him out. He’s never gotten over it. Now Larry King is working at someplace called Russia Today, and he claims I’m never gonna get a Pulitzer while he’s working at Russia Today, because I start talking about things like the coronavirus and I don’t know what I’m talking about and inside the radio business nobody respects me and I’ve never gonna get a Pulitzer.

Larry, Pulitzers don’t go to radio people. Pulitzers go to print journalists, of which I am not one. I couldn’t win a Pulitzer if I wanted to. And now that I have the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Larry, I don’t need a Pulitzer. I don’t need a step down to get some freaking Pulitzer award which, you know, the New York Times got a Pulitzer for all of the lies on the Russia hoax that they told. That’s how valid a Pulitzer Prize is today.

A Pulitzer Prize, CNN got one. CNN got a Pulitzer Prize for a bogus story that they were led to by James Comey. Let me explain this one again real quick. If 2017, before Trump’s been inaugurated. Obama, Comey, Clapper, and Brennan have a meeting in Obama’s office. They discuss how to get the dossier into the mainstream news. They decide, let’s report some of it to President-Elect Trump.

So, Comey, Brennan, and I think Clapper have a meeting with Trump at his office in Trump on January 6th, the next day. After the meeting Comey asks Clapper and Brennan to leave, says he needs some alone time with Trump. This all documented, by the way. It’s in numerous books, congressional testimony. Comey then tells Trump about the golden showers. He says, Mr. President, you need to know the kind of things being said out there so that you get these in the intelligence briefings, you need to know what’s being said.

And Trump, when they told him, when Comey said there’s a story out there that you’ve hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed that Obama slept in in Moscow, the first thing Trump thought was that they’re setting him up for being blackmailed, ’cause he didn’t do it, it’s ridiculous, didn’t hire prostitutes, period, didn’t do it. And Trump, what the hell is this? And then Trump said, look, my God, you can’t let this get out, my wife, oh, my God. This is crazy, this is stupid.

Comey, when the meeting is over calls Clapper and according to congressional testimony from Comey, says, “Mission accomplished.” At that point Clapper called CNN, who would hire him a few days later. Clapper, the director of national intelligence for Obama, James Clapper, bald-headed guy, called CNN and said the president was just told about the golden showers story.

CNN then runs a story, the president of the United States today was informed about the Steele dossier, the gold showers story where he hired prostitutes. They got a Pulitzer for that. That’s what a Pulitzer Prize is worth, Larry. Zilch, zero, nada.

Anyway, greetings, and welcome back. Great to have you, El Rushbo, executing assigned host duties flawlessly. Telephone number, if you want to be on the program’s 800-282-2882.

Now let’s get into some of the audio sound bites where I can really demonstrate, I don’t know what you’d call this, media malpractice. I mean, it’s more serious than that. The United States media is literally attempting to incite a panic. They are trying to make it — do you know how many coronaviruses cases are in the U.S. — and don’t misunderstand me on this now. Do not you dare misunderstand. They’re also lying that I said that this thing is no different than the common cold. That’s not what I said. When I said, folks, this is the common cold, I was talking about the number of cases. Nobody had died from it at the time I said this.

In the U.S., 86 cases, two deaths. Eighty-six cases of the coronavirus, two deaths. The number of people that are gonna die today from the flu, it will be in the thousands. The high hundreds to thousands. That’s how many people will die from the flu today. “Is that okay?” I’m not saying anything’s okay. Do not put words in my mouth. Didn’t say that. I’m saying a little perspective here. So when I said that the coronavirus is the common cold, I was talking about the lack of number of cases, the fact that nobody had died from it. And I said it’s the common cold in the U.S. Of course, in China it’s not the common cold.

The number of cases in China has peaked apparently. At least the reported cases are coming down. And this, by the way, I think is a factor in the market too. Tim Cook saying we think the worst has happened, we’re ramping back up for production purposes in China, our assembly lines. That’s gonna have a positive impact on the market.

So we have 89,000 confirmed cases, 45,000 people have recovered from it, 3,048 deaths of which two are in the United States. Yet we have the American media willingly, knowingly attempting to create a panic. And in the process, they want you to believe that your president doesn’t care, that he thinks it’s a hoax, that he doesn’t even think coronavirus is real. That’s what they want you to believe.

They’re trying to tell you that President Trump doesn’t even think it’s real. He thinks it’s a hoax made up by the media. It’s the epitome of irresponsible. It’s such a high degree of irresponsibility, it doesn’t even warrant shouting or losing your temper over. It’s so bad that you can’t understand it. What the media is doing is so bad that it defies civilized description.

So let’s go to Chuck Todd. Chuck Todd is interviewing Vice President Pence on Sunday on Meet the Press. He plays a montage of people correctly analyzing what the Democrats are doing and always do and then calls it gross.

TODD: I wanna play for you what some of your allies have said about the coronavirus. Here’s — including the president’s son and the RNC chair. Take a listen, sir.

RUSH ARCHIVE: The coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump.

RONNA MCDANIEL: Democrats are using this for their political gain to try and stoke fear in the American people, which is shameful, wrong, and I think un-American.

DONALD TRUMP JR.: For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they could end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness.

TODD: None of this seems to match the facts. What facts are there that Democrats are doing this? This implies some sort of political motivation, which is kind of gross.

RUSH: Chuck, I said it’s not even losing my temper over, but you make it really close. Chuck, it was last week that you, your colleagues and the media all talked about how this might be now an opening for the Democrats. What is an opening for the Democrats, Chuck? People getting sick. The coronavirus. A new illness might be an opening for the Democrats.

It was you Democrats and you people in the media, Chuck, that were talking about this as Trump’s Katrina. What is that? Everybody knows what Katrina is. It’s where you guys think you succeeded in portraying George W. Bush as incompetent and uncaring in dealing with the aftermath of people whose lives have been destroyed by a hurricane?

So what’s different here? “This could be an opening for the Democrats.” What is the opening, Chuck? A bunch of people getting sick and you can blame Trump for it, and then you have the audacity to act outraged and offended and grossed out that anybody could think this? Chuck, I hate to tell you, but you and your buds have been nailed. You have been spotted and you’ve been nailed. We know exactly what you’re doing.

And, by the way, the sound bite of me here — he had in this bite, “The coronavirus is being weaponized as yet another element to bring down Donald Trump.” It damn well has been, Chuck, when you report on the coronavirus as though it is an opening for the Democrats, when you talk about it as Trump’s Katrina, Chuck, that’s weaponizing an illness.

When you politicize an illness that doesn’t know whether its victims are Republican or Democrat, conservative, liberal, gay or straight, doesn’t know anything, and you politicize that, what are you doing, Chuck? You’re politicizing it, and you hope that you can harm Donald Trump with it. There’s no doubt this is happening. So Chuck Todd says to Vice President Pence, “This is kind of gross. I mean, what facts are there the Democrats are doing any of this?”

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I will tell you, there’s been a lot of irresponsible rhetoric among Democrats and commentators —

TODD: Who? Who is this?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: — on the left.

TODD: Name some names, sir!

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well —

TODD: Because this is just —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: All right.

TODD: It just feels like gaslighting. Pluh… Please name some names! I’m a… I’m a… We’re all big. We’re all big people here. Name some names.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: There was a column in the New York Times by a prominent liberal journalist that said we should rename it the Trumpvirus —

TODD: (sputtering) Okay, that — that — that — that is… That is —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: — to inspire —

TODD: Does that apply —

THE VICE PRESIDENT: — to inspire —

TODD: Does that apply to all people?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: — so that the president would be blamed.

RUSH: So Chuck’s saying, “Okay. Okay,” and he’s demanding a name. “Name some names!” Pence gives him a name. “Well, well, does that apply to everybody? (sputtering)” Chuck, has anybody called you “cheap” lately? Chuck, you are so obviously gone now. Chuck Todd and the rest are so obviously all-in on the Democrat Party and the left. I mean, they’re not even making any pretense.”

The tone of his question, “Name some names, sir. Name some names. This is just… Name some names. This is gaslighting, sir. This is gaslighting. Please name some names. I’m waiting. We’re all big people here. Please. We’re — we’re all big people. Name some names! Name some names! I’m waiting. We’re patient. We’re big people here. Come on! Don’t be a coward. Name some names!”

So Pence gives one name.

“Well, you can’t associate that with everybody!”

It wasn’t that long ago that even if Chuck wasn’t embarrassed that there would have been somebody in the media (chuckling) that would have been embarrassed by the way they’re acting. But that’s not happening. Now we move to CNN, Reliable Sources on Sunday morning, a totally crazy CNN guest psychoanalyzes me and you — me and this audience, Trump base.

This is the University of Delaware professor Dannagal G. Young. She’s a woman, and the question comes from I don’t know who. “I want to ask what you think is going on with the crazed conspiracy theories about the coronavirus from right-wing media. What is this about?”

YOUNG: This poses a unique challenge to the conservative media landscape because their base — which constitutes social and cultural conservatives — generally on average tends to be more concerned about issues related to pathogens and hygiene and cleanliness. And I know that this is a hard pill to swallow, but there’s a lot of research from political psychology that actually suggests that those kinds of concerns may actually result in attitudes and behaviors that are socially or culturally conservative. So what does one do if one is Rush Limbaugh? They’ve done two things. On the one hand, they’ve downplayed the severity of the threat, referring to it as the common cold.

RUSH: There we go again. How many times did I make clear what I was saying about this? But note the question: “What is going on with these crazed conspiracy theories about the coronavirus?” It’s not a conspiracy theory to say at the time it was being discussed that it’s no more severe than the common cold. What…? What’s a conspiracy theory about that?

(impression) “What if you do, if you are a Rush Limbaugh?” Well, sorry, Ms. Dannagal Young, there’s only one of me, and there’s not gonna be another. So you’re out of luck if you’re searching. “But Lord, we can’t turn people against the Democrats. We can’t permit that to happen. We’ve gotta let the Democrats get away with it!” You want to talk about conspiracy theories and kookism? She continued. She wasn’t through.

YOUNG: The second thing that they’ve done in addition to the downplaying is the reframing of the virus altogether, which I think is fascinating. So if you have an audience for whom that virus and pathogens are gonna make you fearful, what can you do? Well, you can reframe if as something that’s being weaponized by an out group. The threat becomes the Democrats and the media — and when you think about that language, “weaponizing a virus,” where is that housed in our minds psychologically? Where is that schema (sic) housed? That’s related to biological warfare, terrorism. The natural extension in your brain when you hear “weaponized virus” are really dire — and really, well, kind of prime that in-group, out-group feeling.

RUSH: Well, I stand by it: The media is weaponizing this virus to use it as a weapon against Donald Trump by lying about it and lying about him, claiming that he thinks it’s a hoax. These people have to work very hard here to deflect any damage from sticking to the Democrats who are the architects of all this weaponization.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I have here a CNBC story from back on February 3rd. So this is roughly a month ago, and the headline is: “The Flu Has Already Killed 10,000 Across the United States as the World Frets Over Coronavirus.” That’s a CNBC headline. No editorializing, no addition or subtraction. February 3rd, CNBC: “The Flu Has Already Killed 10,000 Across the United States as the World Frets Over Coronavirus.”

Subhead: “The flu remains a higher threat to U.S. public health than the new coronavirus. This flu season alone has sickened at least 19 million across the U.S. and led to 10,000 deaths and 180,000 hospitalizations. Roughly a dozen cases of the deadly coronavirus have been identified in the U.S. …” This is back on February 3rd, a month ago. So we’re up from 12 cases to 85 or 86 now.

We have had 10,000 deaths from the flu so far this season, 180,000 people hospitalized with the flu. Where is the panic over the flu? Where is the market plunge because of the flu? Where is headline after headline after headline talking about the people getting the flu? Where is the headline about shortage of hospital surgical masks because of the flu? Where is the headline, “We Are Out of All Medical Supplies at Costco!” on stories about the flu?

In fact, this story on the flu was one of the few you could get about it. There wasn’t a story about 10,000 people dead ’cause it happens every year. The 180,000 hospitalized? It happens every year. That’s why there are flu shots. Everybody knows this. Here comes the coronavirus, by comparison the common cold, and everybody is freaking out — and why? Because they are using it to try to inflict political damage on Donald Trump.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Remember, there are people, for a lot of different reasons, tuning in for the first time every hour to this program. People tuning in for the first time every day. Because of the ways I and this program have been in the news recently. So it’s creating a lot of curiosity. So I sometimes will take a break and say something you all have heard me say numerous times, but the new listeners haven’t.

And in this case, there’s nothing to be gained by lying to people here. There’s nothing to be advanced in terms of my career or reputation by knowingly lying to anybody about anything. Because, in this day and age, it can be discovered and exposed. And to sit here and try to openly lie about the coronavirus would be silly and pointless, and plus it’s not in my nature to do it anyway. I don’t want to get wherever I get on the back of lies or false information. It’s just exact opposite. I want the people who listen to this program to be more informed because they do than people who don’t.

So the idea that this coronavirus has been politicized — another word for that is “weaponized” — to be used by the enemies of Donald Trump as a means of harming him politically? It’s undeniable. It literally is undeniable. When you hear Democrats saying, as they did last week, “This could be an opening,” coronavirus could be an opening “for Democrats,” how?

People getting sick all over the world, some of them dying, is an opening for Democrats? Is that really what the Democrats want to be attached to them, that somehow people getting sick is an opportunity for them or an opening? And it’s them saying it, not me. And then they are lying about me saying that the coronavirus was a thing created by deep state scientists.

I mean, not even the most insane, lunatic kook internet websites have said something as silly as that — and yet the Drive-By Media, BuzzFeed, tried to make that sail. So there’s no point in lying about it. When I say that the coronavirus, folks, it’s the common cold, I’m trying to stop a panic. I’m talking about the number of cases, the number of people seriously sick.

It’s fewer than the people get the common cold. This was last week when the number of cases was about 15 or 20. The number of cases now is 86. The number of deaths in America is two. On October 3rd, 10,000 Americans had died by the flu already this season, and 180,000 (I being one of them) had been hospitalized for it.

There’s just a total lack of proportion on any of this, and I don’t even think it’s controversial to say the Democrats are politicizing this because they’ve been politicizing everything. The New York Times lies for two years about collusion between Trump and Russia to win the election. They get a Pulitzer Prize for it, even after the Mueller report comes out and says, “No collusion.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Max Boot. I want to tell you a little bit about Max Boot. Max Boot is a columnist and an author, foreign policy specialist. He used to be somebody that I looked up to and admired. He wrote regularly, when I first heard of him, for the Wall Street Journal. And his stuff, I used it on a number of occasions. I always quote him or reference him. I always cite him when I used it. I don’t steal anybody’s stuff, unless I tell ’em I’m gonna steal it and they say they don’t care, then I do. But that doesn’t happen much.

But I cited his work often. And he’d write me back occasionally thanking me or giving me some other tip, tidbit in his piece that he thought was noteworthy. Then Trump came along, and Max Boot became somebody I don’t recognize. He became a Never Trumper extraordinaire. He became as irrational as the Never Trumpers. I mean, I have sat here and watched Donald Trump implement both domestically and internationally, foreign policy, domestic policy things these people supposedly devoted their lives to.

They were at think tanks where they sat around, they thought about it, and then they wrote what they thought would be persuasive things to try to influence policy makers. They were working hard, I thought, to see that what they believed was actually implemented in the form of policy in the United States, or as Bill Gates says, “poolicy.” If you’re gonna be a Gates type, you gotta pronounce those words the right way. Just the way you pronounce the word “poolicy” sends a signal who you really are. It’s like saying you don’t say “talent on loan from God.” You say “talent on loan from God-d.” And you don’t say policy. That lets people know that you’re a small, august group.

Anyway, Max Boot became somebody I didn’t recognize. And he watches along with all these other Never Trumpers, he watches things that he believed in dearly be implemented and still opposes them or opposes them because of the guy doing the implementing, Donald Trump. Max has been off the reservation ever since Trump got the Republican nomination and won the election. It’s been amazing. I know some of these Never Trumpers, and I guess I never really did know them. Like Bill Kristol today has come out and endorsed Joe Biden.

Now, how many of you people…? How many of you people gave Bill Kristol thousands of dollars to go on so-called conservative cruises with the guy? You know, after every Republican election when we would lose, Kristol or these guys would do their cruises to the fjords of Norway or wherever exotic places they went. You know, they’d take you to subfreezing temperatures in December.

They’d do their lectures and all of their appearances with their Never Trumper buddies, at the time you thought that they were conservative thought leaders, and they’re sitting there and they’re telling you, “Don’t worry, we got it. We might have lost this election but we’re still succeeding in implementing what we believe.” Then Trump comes along and they throw it all away. Their magazines go defunct, go out of business because their subscribers say, “Hey, these guys aren’t even conservatives, they’re ripping it!”

They start new magazines, new organizations. Now they’re endorsing Democrats. How many of you people gave these people all that money to go on these postelection cruises? I know some of you in this audience did. How many of you…? They have these… Some of them don’t go on cruises. They just book hotels for the weekend, and they call it, you know, The Vote for Us Weekend or the Conservatism Is Still Alive Weekend or whatever.

You go there and they get all these other conservative speakers, and they tell you, “Just keep giving us money, keep donating to our cause. I guarantee you, someday we’re gonna win.” Then the day comes, Trump gets elected, and we start winning, and they abandon everybody. How many of you have sent them money, I wonder? Well, you know, Max Boot and some of these people have just descended to inexplicable irrationality.

So on CNN Friday night, Max Boot appeared. Now, I haven’t done anything to Max Boot. In fact, I haven’t even commented on Max much as a Never Trumper. In fact, I try on rare occasions not to even mention these people by name because I think things are cyclical and at some point, they’re gonna be back. I give ’em the benefit of the doubt.

So I haven’t tarred and feathered them and ripped into them by name like some people have, and I certainly haven’t spent very much time, if any, on Max. So here’s Max with Don Lemon Friday night, and Max is at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Don Lemon says, “Does this outbreak, this coronavirus, does this show the dangerous weakness of the Trump administration?”

BOOT: It’s hard to imagine anything more irresponsible than the president going to this rally, going on TV and saying this is a hoax. I mean, he is echoing the worst elements of his base, people like Rush Limbaugh and others who are saying this is some kind of conspiracy against Donald Trump. Because there really are people out there who actually believe what Donald Trump says. There are people who believe what Rush Limbaugh says. There are people who listen to these voices, and what kind of message does it send to say, “Don’t worry worried. This is a liberal Democratic plot against Trump” —

RUSH: All right, stop the tape. We’re running out of time. Max, you’re smarter than this. This is what gets me. Trump has never said that the virus is a hoax, and he knows it. And he knows that I know that the virus isn’t a hoax. He knows that I know the virus is a virus and that it came from the ChiComs and that it’s running its course. And he knows that I have not said that the virus was manufactured by the deep state to be weaponized against Trump.

He knows exactly what I mean, Max Boot does, when I say the Democrats in the media have weaponized this news story to use it against Trump. He knows what I mean, so why lie about this? This is so beneath somebody of Max Boot’s brain and intelligence saying this is a hoax. Max, nobody is saying that this virus is a hoax. Nobody’s saying it was manufactured in a lab by anti-Trump deep staters like you to be used for whatever purpose.

What we’re saying is what you damn well know is that this is just the latest Trump-Russia collusion story, it’s the latest phone call to the Ukrainan president. It’s the latest opportunity to portray Trump as incompetent, dangerous, silly, stupid, whatever, and way to get rid of him when everything else has failed. I don’t understand. You want to be critical of me, fine. Why go with this? This is so absurd. So I don’t know what’s happening these Never Trumpers. I really thought I knew, but this just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Not with somebody who’s got Max’s IQ and his brains.

It makes no sense.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. So Bill Kristol. In addition to I don’t know how many of you spending thousands of dollars to go on his so-called conservative cruises, how many of you have subscribed to his now worthless magazine? Now Bill Kristol has endorsed for the presidency a guy who, as a senator, led the effort to deny Clarence Thomas a seat on the Supreme Court. Now, who is it among us that’s lost their minds? What’s Bill Kristol doing endorsing the guy that tried to stop Clarence Thomas being on the Supreme Court? You tell me.