RUSH: The president did a drive-by rather than be maligned by the Drive-Bys. He got in his hermetically sealed SUV, left the Walter Reed complex, and drove around to say “thanks” to all the supporters that had been gathered outside Walter Reed. He wanted to show his appreciation for his supporters out in the street. The Drive-By Media immediately had a cow. The Drive-By Media was livid that they weren’t taken along. They can’t believe that the pool was not invited to go along. The president just doesn’t leave the hospital and go out there in the SUV and drive around without the media knowing about it, they said.

They also claimed that this is really bad behavior. This is Trump at his worst. He doesn’t care. He’s infecting the Secret Service inside his SUV. He’s infecting anybody that he comes in contact with. It’s irresponsible of Trump to do this despite saying that they were furious they weren’t allowed to come along. Which seems like it’s a contradiction, but it’s the media, and they’re always furious at Trump for something.

I read a really agitated piece — well, I read a piece by a really agitated reporter. No, I read a piece that quoted a doctor, attending physician at Johns Hopkins, which allowed the media to give the statement even more credibility. The doctor’s a CNN contributor, James Phillips. Here is the sound bite that the Drive-Bys love. It was on the Today Show today. Sound bite number seven.

Savannah Guthrie talking to the attending physician, Dr. James Phillips at Walter Reed. She said, “Corey Lewandowski says those Secret Service agents volunteered for that duty –” to be with the president in his SUV. “– but in terms of public health, how likely is it that they could contract COVID having been in that sealed car with the patient?”

PHILLIPS: The reality is that this was a dangerous move. There is no medical benefit for this to have taken place. It violates CDC guidelines that come from the president’s own administration. The reason why the tweets that I sent out have garnered so much attention is because I was being honest in the moment. It’s the message that’s sent to other people who are sick that it’s okay to go out.

We’re seeing schools try to reopen. We’re seeing parents who have already sent their kids to school with disease. This is the wrong message to be sending. And the only way that somebody can volunteer for something like this and do it safely is through real informed consent. They have to know the real risks of getting into that vehicle. And my concern is that they didn’t.

RUSH: His concern is that they didn’t, but does he know? They have to know the real risk? How would they not? They’re not stupid idiots. By the way, was the president wearing a mask? He was. Isn’t that the end-all to everything? If you’re wearing a mask that allows you to go do whatever you want to do. Isn’t that what they’ve been telling us? You gotta wear that mask. If you don’t wear that mask, you can’t go anywhere. If you got the mask on, fine and dandy. Isn’t that the impression they’ve left you with?

So president’s wearing a mask. They’re making a big deal too out of the fact that his SUV is hermetically sealed to guard against biological attacks or any kind of biohazard that might be launched as he’s driving around Washington or wherever he happens to be that nothing can get in.

Therefore, what is in is trapped in there and can’t get out. So, here you have the president with COVID wearing his mask driving around, you got Secret Service people inside. One is driving. One’s riding shotgun. There’s some others in the back with the president. And the media is attempting to say that every one of those people has been put at grave risk in service to a president who doesn’t care about them. Who couldn’t care less if they get sick. That’s the message that they want to have conveyed. Mark Meadows addressed it all on Fox & Friends today. This is what he had to say about it.

MEADOWS: Here’s the interesting thing is, you know, they’re criticizing, “Well, he put his Secret Service agent at risk.” Well, the Secret Service agent, how do we think that we got here? I mean, we, we came here in Marine 1, the Secret Service agent that is with him has been with him, he’s been with him in cars and yet we took additional precautions with PPE and others to make sure that they were protected. But, you know, a number of folks are trying to just make a big deal of that when, indeed, I know that myself and some of the Secret Service detailees are right there with him…

DOOCY: Sure.

MEADOWS: …trying to make sure that he’s protected each and every day.

RUSH: Yeah. Why didn’t they raise the same question when the president was on that helicopter on the way to Walter Reed on Friday evening? ‘Cause Meadows makes a great point. He’s in the helicopter, and that’s sealed pretty tight as well. You’ve got the two pilots up front. You have Secret Service people in there; you’ve got agent who’s carrying the football that’s got the nuclear launch codes. It goes everywhere the president goes. He’s in the back of the helicopter.

Mark Meadows, and it looked like Dr. Giroir was there. I couldn’t tell, he was wearing a mask. But they’re all wearing masks. Everybody was following mask mandates, and there were all kinds of people in that chopper. And when the president recorded his video in the Diplomatic Reception Room, before walking out and getting on the chopper — yeah, that’s the Diplomatic Reception Room where that video was shot. There has to be somebody running the camera in there.

I mean, there are people all over the White House coming in contact with the president, the first lady. So why focus on the drive-by? Why focus on the president getting in his SUV and driving around when there were plenty of reasons or occasions you could have leveled the same complaint days earlier?

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RUSH: By the way, folks, this is treatment week for me. I will be out tomorrow and Wednesday, and then we keep our fingers crossed for Thursday and Friday. Thursday and Friday are largely dependent on what happens tomorrow and potentially Wednesday. You never know with treatment week.

So we’ve got Mark Steyn as the guest host tomorrow. And that will be great. Steyn will be awesome, perfectly timed to come in and deal with whatever happens after we finish today up until tomorrow. Todd Herman will be here on Wednesday. And then we’ll play it by ear as Thursday and Friday roll around. The objective of course is to be here Thursday. The last treatment week I was able to for the first time ever in treatment week to be here on a Thursday. The week prior to that, the treatment week prior to that that I was able to get here on a Friday. So we hope the trend continues. We shall see.

Now, about this business of the Drive-Bys being so paranoid or angry or whatever about Trump driving around thanking the supporters that showed up, you know what? I remember all day Friday, all day, Trump announces near 1 a.m. on Friday that he and the first lady have tested positive. And then all day Friday, I mean, I’m doing the program here, noon to 3 Eastern, there’s not a word from the president. And everybody is going bonkers. Everybody’s going nuts. Everybody’s wondering, “Why doesn’t he come out and do a tweet? Why doesn’t he come out and do a video? Why doesn’t he come out and say hi? What’s going on?

People started getting really, really worried. I mean, after all, it is COVID-19. And so why? Well, he’s the president. I mean, he owes us a signal that he’s okay. He owes us this. This is what everybody was saying. Media, everybody else. So the president gets in the car, drives around, and the media goes bonkers. The president of the United States constantly needs to show the world that he’s okay, that if he’s getting better, he’s getting better. That he’s good enough to get in a car, drive around, and thank supporters.

And thanking supporters is key. Nobody demanded the supporters show up. Nobody asked them to. And yet there they were. I’ve told you I don’t know how many times how much humility he’s got and how much gratitude he has for his supporters. It is very important to instill confidence that the leader’s okay. So that’s what he’s doing, and he’s coming under fire for it. He can’t win no matter what he does.

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RUSH: Here’s Vinny. Vinny is in Wilmington, North Carolina. Welcome, sir, and great to have you here. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Mega prayers to you and your family. Rush, you know, I’ve been listening to you forever. You know I always agree with you, but I’ll be honest with you, this was a very gratuitous and I believe stupid move by the president to just jump in his limo, go out front like that. It wasn’t necessary. And he knows, he knows what was gonna happen. Okay? And, yeah, I’m still gonna crawl through broken glass to vote for this guy. I mean, I’m a GOP poll watcher here in North Carolina on election night to make sure that they don’t cheat, at least in my little neck of the world here. And I support Donald Trump to the ends of the earth. And you know I do.

But I just can’t understand why he sticks his foot in his mouth like this sometimes when it was so predictable this was what was gonna happen doing what he did. I know the Secret Service agents are gonna be fine. No one’s gonna get sick. Everything’s gonna be fine. But it just gives them something else to throw at this guy, when we are dealing with, you know, 200,000-plus deaths with COVID and these ridiculous polls. I mean, it does have, you know, a draining effect on all of us.

I mean, we’re not superhuman, I guess like you sometimes, and, you know, heaven knows we try, and I just wish he wouldn’t have done that. I just wish he would have tweeted out like he was doing or put out videos like he was doing and go to the White House maybe, you know, back to the White House today. I don’t understand it. I mean, I’m very worried about November 3rd.

RUSH: Well, now, wait a minute. Wait a minute, now. What’s the difference in going back to the White House today and taking a ride around Walter Reed in the SUV?

CALLER: I just felt that it was a gratuitous moment that he did to himself. Okay? He could have easily expressed his love and thanks, which he did in a video, and I thought he did tweet to people outside. I thought he did tweet to them earlier. And the difference is, I guess the White House is a little more controlled. I mean, I heard everything he was saying about the helicopter ride, and you’re right. You’re a hundred percent right about that.

RUSH: What it sounds like is that you are upset that he knowingly gave the media and the Democrats a weapon to criticize him for and you think he knowingly did it, and it just ticks you off because you’re sick and tired —

CALLER: Bingo.

RUSH: — of every day in the media is nothing but Trump sucks and you’re tired of it.

CALLER: Bingo. Bingo. Yes. Yes. That’s it. Hundred percent. Yes.

RUSH: And you wish he would stop feeding ’em.

CALLER: Listen. I know Trump is Trump. Okay? And I get that. But it’s just some things I wonder, like, why are you doing this when it was so predictable that they were gonna jump all over this as you putting people unnecessarily in danger. And they would draw a distinction between riding in the chopper to Walter Reed and going out in a limo to wave to his supporters.

RUSH: Vinny —

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Now, what about this? At the time Trump decided to go get in his hermetically sealed SUV, drive around and wave to his supporters, at the time, the media is speculating that he may be on death’s door, they’re getting all kind of detailed… “Well, they gave him that dexamethasone, they don’t give that. Oh, my God. They’re giving him that with oxygen? And you don’t give Remdesivir with dexin. Oh, my God.”

And the media is portraying a guy on the deathbed. They’re portraying a guy who is not being honest with us. The doctors aren’t being honest. Mark Meadows isn’t being honest. Nobody’s being honest. This guy is in bad shape. He’s on the way to maybe being over. And he’s hearing all this. He knows all that stuff is out there. And he’s desperately looking for ways — despite the fact those two videos you’re talking about that he made at Walter Reed, those were awesome, did you not think?

CALLER: I did think. That’s why I’m saying, they were great. He should have just kept up with that. And look, I bow to your point. I do. Okay? I’m calling more as a worried supporter, you know, than anything else. And you nailed it. I am tired of the media just destroying this guy no matter what. He could just bend over and tie his damn shoelaces —

RUSH: Let me tell you something. If I had a way, if I knew how to make the media stop, I would have put it into place a long time ago. I don’t know how to make ’em stop. I don’t know how to make the Democrat Party become honest all of a sudden. I don’t know how the mainstream media can become human. Because they clearly are a bunch of monsters now. They literally are a bunch of scaremonger monsters. I don’t know how to make ’em human. I don’t know how to restore any kind of decency, human decency whatsoever to the American left, the Democrat Party, the American media, I don’t know how to do it.

I do know that you can’t control it. You cannot, no matter what you do — and Vinny, you know this better than I do — you cannot change their behavior by altering yours unless your behavior is to quit and give up, to concede defeat. Then maybe they’ll leave you alone. But other than that, no matter what you do — if he hadn’t gotten in the SUV and driven around and waved to the supporters they would have come up with — they were in the middle of saying he’s maybe almost dead here and that you’re not being told and they’re giving all the reasons why that could be true.

And they’re talking about using dexamethasone at the same time as using Remdesivir, and now the stories about dexamethasone out there are literally over the top outrageous. It can make you manic, it can really make you realize where you — folks, I have taken the stuff. I’ve had to take it during my course of treatment. It doesn’t do any of that stuff to you. It didn’t me. It’s not even why it was given. It was given to me for different reasons than it’s given the COVID patients, but it’s a steroid. It was given to me to counter the potential negative impacts of chemo. And I was just on it for a couple days. It wasn’t long-term.

Prednisone is an entirely different steroid. I don’t think the president’s on that, but dexamethasone is for COVID-19 patients that are having some serious problems. It’s as close to a miracle drug as there is, and that’s why the Drive-Bys are harping. “Oh, my God, dexamethasone! They give that to you when you’re on the verge of pneumonia. They give you that when you’ve got really bad lung inflammation.”

Folks, I don’t think that’s true in this case. I think that they are throwing everything they know at the president here in an effort to shorten the duration of his experience. But I shouldn’t even say that because I’m not a doctor and I don’t even like playing one. But the media isn’t, either, and they’re going out and they’re getting a bunch of — you know, medicine’s been corrupted by politics. Everything has been corrupted. They go find a corrupt doctor who is a Trump hater who will tailor his medical commentary to fit in with Trump hate-ism and the media will find them and they’ll be all over TV.

I don’t know how to make ’em stop. I don’t know how they live with themselves. They must be absent a conscience. But I don’t know how to make ’em stop. My attitude, philosophy is they just have to be defeated every opportunity at the ballot box. They just have to be defeated knowing that every time they’re defeated they get even worse. And if they’re defeated on November 3rd, it’s gonna be worse, you haven’t seen anything yet. At any rate, I’m long as always at this break it seems. Gonna take a break. Chill out, Vinny. We’re gonna be okay.

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RUSH: This is Will somewhere in Texas. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah, Mr. Limbaugh, praying for you every day. I’ve been a long-time fan. I did have the opportunity of meeting you in 1992. I’m a former presidential Secret Service agent. And it was in the Astrodome at the RNC, I came up and briefly introduced myself to you.

RUSH: Wow. Thank you very much. I remember that convention. Oh, I’ll never forget that convention.

CALLER: Yeah. So, anyway, I just wanted to give you my thoughts. As I say, I was on a presidential detail a long time ago. I’ve been to over 70 countries in very dangerous situations with a protectee, with HIV areas, flu, you know, the whole nine yards. And if I was a current presidential agent, 95% of them are in their thirties or forties where the mortality rate, even if you get infected, is, you know, 99.7 or 99.8%.

You got a better chance than just a regular flu. I would have no reservations, and I hate to say it, I might even welcome having it because I would know within a week or two that I would be immune to even having to wear the mask as the president will be going forward. So that’s my perspective on this. And they’re making, like you say, a bigger deal out of this than they need to have.

RUSH: I appreciate that. Now, that’s kind of shocking that you might not have even minded getting it if you were that age and had the statistical recovery rate that you had going in that you would then have developed some immunity to it and have even greater freedom afterwards.

CALLER: I’ll give you a better one here on the statistics here. Still baseball players — Tom Seaver and Jay Johnstone. You know, people like this who have had dementia for years and they die and they get COVID-19 cause of death. And I just think it’s ridiculous the way they’re padding these numbers and the whole nine yards —

RUSH: Well, that is true. The death statistics with COVID-19 have been really played with, you know, being listed as cause of death when it isn’t just to jack the statistics up. Well, Will, I’m glad to hear from you. I’m glad you were able to get through here and share with your sentiments and all this. Former Secret Service agent, presidential detail, met him at the Republican convention in 1992 at the Astrodome in Houston.