RUSH: Did any of you see the Trump rally last night? This Trump rally last night was maybe one of the best ever.

It was certainly in the top five. And it hearkened back to 2016. And I’m watching the rally last night — and, Brian, put up that photo.

I want to show you what a peaceful assembly looks like. I want to show you what a peaceful crowd looks like. That is the crowd at Latrobe, Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. We’re showing this up on the Dittocam.

That’s the crowd eagerly anticipating the president’s arrival. You don’t see anything there but good, old-fashioned, decent Americans politely waiting on their president. That is what a peaceful crowd looks like. Not what you see happening in Portland or Seattle or Minneapolis or Kenosha or anyplace else.

I’m telling you, this rally last night — you know, Kathryn and I were watching this thing, and we’re saying, “Something had to happen.” I’ve not seen Trump this up, he was flawless. His energy level did not change from the moment he hit the stage. There wasn’t one, “uh, uh, you know.” He didn’t lose his train of thought. He shifted from prompter to ad-lib seamlessly. He was so on his game. I’m saying to myself, they had to get some good news. The internal polling data must really be through the roof. ‘Cause I’m telling you, folks, this was a Trump rally we haven’t seen this year.

We haven’t seen the attitude we had from Trump last night. We haven’t seen the good mood. We haven’t seen any aspect of it. And this is not to put down or to be critical of any of the Trump rallies prior to last night’s. This was just how good it was. There wasn’t a moment in this rally where anybody watching it could have been bored. It was compelling from beginning to end. It was hilariously funny. It was on point. The man had an instant recall, facts, things that have been embedded in his memory for years were able to be recalled and appeared to be effortless. And it was a joy to watch that last night.

And, again, one of the reasons why, for me, is because there had to be, in my mind, you know, having experience at this, things happen and they give you a good mood before you go out. And I was saying, something had to happen. And it wasn’t this stupid story in The Atlantic about Trump calling buried military heroes losers. I was thinking there had to be some really good news about the economy, there had to be some real good news about internal polling data, because he was just on a magnificent roll. And we’ve got audio sound bites of that, and we will have examples so you can hear it for yourself if you didn’t see the rally.

The rally, Fox carried a little bit of it, some of it, most of it. They bumped out of it about an hour in. You had to go to C-SPAN if you wanted to watch the whole thing, the rest of it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Folks, I have to tell you, this rally last night, it is a shame that the rally is not more of a story today. It was the finest rally all year. And it may be in the top five Trump rallies ever. Now, I’ll have to admit I didn’t see every Trump rally in 2016, but I saw enough of them to know he was gonna win the election.

Now, I’m somebody, I study speech. I study delivery. I study everything about public speaking. I study confidence. I study the assuredness level. I study every aspect of it. And I am telling you that what President Trump did last night in Pennsylvania was among the best he has ever done. If you didn’t see it, it is worth you going to YouTube to try to find it.

Now, I don’t want to keep talking about it because if I do, I’m gonna build up expectations to a level where they can’t possibly be met. You know, that happened to me with the movie The Exorcist. I was one of the last to see that movie. And, in the process, I had had so many people tell me about it, how scary it was, how revolutionary scary it was, stuff that had never been done in a horror movie before. I had people tell me they got so scared, they almost had to walk out. Adults.

So, when I finally saw this thing, I went in there practically ready to run out. And when it was over I said to myself, what the hell was the big deal? Okay, so we had a dummy here with a head doing a 180 vomiting pea soup. Big deal. My expectations could not have been met. And I don’t want to do the same thing to you with this rally last night. But I am here to tell you, it was one for the ages. He weaved in and out from serious to funny. Do you know how difficult this is? It’s what happens on this program.

This program, if I may go a little inside baseball, we combine two and sometimes three elements. And to do this you have to have credibility in all the elements. So we combine the serious discussion of serious issues with irreverent, satirical and parody humor. We do that with credibility. And we do it by switching on a dime. Now, let’s say Johnny Carson during The Tonight Show, if he ever came out and spent 20 minutes getting dead serious with you about what he thought of politics or culture at the moment, you’d be uncomfortable and you’d be saying that’s not why I watch The Tonight Show. You’d be nervous.

He goes on and off the teleprompter seamlessly. Do you know how hard just the prompter by itself is? It is very hard to use a teleprompter and make it look like you’re not reading it. Because people get dependent on it. When the words are right in front of you and they’re flowing by, you are a prisoner to them. And if something happens to the prompter, if it freezes or if it goes dead, you’re stuck. “Oh, no, oh, no, the prompter.” And your mind isn’t working because your mind isn’t thinking. Your mind is focused on reading.

Trump would not be thrown off if his prompter stopped working because he stops in the middle of it. The hardest working guy at a Trump rally is the prompter operator. He’s gotta recognize when Trump’s back on prompter. He’s gotta stick with Trump as long as he reads the prompter. Then when Trump decides to go off of it, he’s gotta stop the prompter at that point.

You could not miss the energetic optimism through this thing last night. I looked over at Kathryn, I said, “Something has happened. They’ve got some great news. There is a reason his mood and his attitude is what it is tonight.” And I thought maybe they got some great internal polling data that just came out. Maybe it was this economic news that was reported today. But something was responsible for it. There wasn’t one “uh.” There wasn’t a “ya know.” There wasn’t the intellectual pause. “Uh, I, perhaps maybe.” None of that.

The audience was at rapt attention for every word. Now, he gets mocked, Trump does, for being a moronic, unpresidential boob. Let me just tell you. As a highly trained, instinctively talented communications expert, you can’t do what Donald Trump does at these rallies or impromptu get-togethers in the White House or the Oval Office, you can’t do what he does without a vast and superior intelligence and awareness of the topics and circumstances.

You can’t do what he does without having an empathetic awareness of your surroundings. You can’t do what he does without being aware of how the audience is receiving what you’re doing. Are you boring them? Have they tuned you out? Are they paying rapt attention? You’ve got to be able to factor all of that while you’re doing what you’re doing. You have to a vast memory. If you’re gonna go out there and speak for 90 minutes, you better have instant recall.

Remember when I said earlier this week that I think that the Democrats are trying to foment a race war in this country by reacting to the Republican convention in the way they did with nothing but pure hate? I think they’re trying to goad Trump into responding with hate so that they can then say, “See this guy? He’s a pure hater?” I think this is what this story in The Atlantic is all about.

I think they’re trying to provoke. I think they’re trying to goad Trump. This fake news, this Atlantic piece is just the ultimate attempt by the Democrats in the media to provoke him, to get him to respond out of character, off character, with sheer anger and hatred. So far he’s resisted. He’s been entirely disciplined on this ever since the Republican convention ended.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Trump. I want you to hear some examples of this rally last night, because, folks, it was one for the ages. We’ll just go in order. Here is the first bite.

THE PRESIDENT: They want to ban straws. Has anybody ever tried those paper straws? They’re not working too good.

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: So, they want to ban straws. I said, “Oh, really, what about the carton, what about the plate, what about the knives and the spoons that are plastic?” Oh, they’re okay. But the straws we gotta ban.

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: Has anybody ever tried — seriously, the new straw is made out of paper, right? It disintegrates as you drink it. If you have a nice tie like this tie, this would have no chance.

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: By the time you get finished, the straw is totally disintegrated.

RUSH: This was like a Trump rally from 2016. He was amped up. He was in a good mood. Whatever came to his mind. It was a stream of consciousness for an hour and a half. Now, you might, “What do you mean, Rush? The first bite and you want to treat us to Trump talking about banning straws?” He was on a whole riff on environmentalism, and he started out with how stupid and wasteful and what a bunch of wackos the Paris climate accords was. So, after he tells people what he thinks of the Paris climate accords, something happened, triggered him on paper straws, and he’s off and running on ’em. Here’s the next bite. He eviscerated Joe Hiden in this bite.

THE PRESIDENT: He hasn’t answered questions in, what, two months or something. And yesterday he took a couple, and they were setups like I’ve never seen. One young woman, who I think is there, one young woman is smiling. “Hi. Hi. Hi. I’d just like to ask you, I’m sorry to bother you with this question.”

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s the most incredible. So, Joe Hiden, we have a new one, Joe Hiden.

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: We call him Joe Hiden. Did you ever see a man that likes a mask as much as him?

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: A lot of times he has it hanging down because, you know what? It gives him a feeling of you security. If I were a psychiatrist —

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: Right? No, I’d say, I’d say, this guy’s got some big issues.

RUSH: He was talking there about the fact that Biden walks out half the time with a mask hanging drooping from his ear. Joe Hiden, making fun of the media asking him questions. One young woman smiles, “Hi, hi. I’d just like to ask you — sorry to bother you with the question.” But it’s exactly how these press conferences go with Biden. “I’m sorry to ask you this, but what do you think of President Trump’s soul? And would you like to comment on the life President Trump leads?”

Kamala Harris, by the way, is pushing and still pushing banning straws, and that’s also something that Trump made mention of. Here’s the next bite where he eviscerates Nancy Pelosi.

THE PRESIDENT: She said, “I was set up. I was set up by the salon owner. I was set up.” I said, “Tell me she didn’t say that, please.”

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: If she was set up, then she shouldn’t be leading the House of Representatives.

CROWD: (applause)

THE PRESIDENT: I want the salon owner to lead the House of Representatives because she set up — think of it. She set up the Speaker of the House. Nancy, you’re not supposed to get set up. You’re representing our country.

CROWD: (laughter)

THE PRESIDENT: You know what she should have done, honestly? She should have said, “I made a mistake, sorry.” And nobody would be talking about it. This is like the biggest story. Crazy Nancy. Highly overrated person.

RUSH: Yeah. It’s a good point. Salon owner set her up and Pelosi is actually admitting that she was set up by the salon owner? And the salon owner can easily refute it. She has a bunch of chairs in her salon that she sells or rents out to independent contractors. There’s no way — I mean, Pelosi called and set up the appointment. Anyway, that’s old news. But he was just on a roll. Here he is on Cuomo and de Blasio in New York.

THE PRESIDENT: If you took New York out of it, which was a disaster by Cuomo, if you took New York out of those numbers, we would have numbers that would be even better than they are. I could read numbers that would be even much better. ‘Cause a big percentage of the people that died in this country died because New York was incompetently run by Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo.

CROWD: (applause)

RUSH: Yessiree Bob. Just four short examples.