![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/rush_runs_america.jpg\")
OBAMA: When we were campaigning, we could connect. Once you got to the White House and you were busy governing, you are then more subject to the filter. It was Rush Limbaugh —<\/p>\nRUSH: I\u2019ve got to get some of these sound bites that happened when I wasn\u2019t here. Some of them are just too good, and, if I don\u2019t get to these, I\u2019m gonna have so much stuff backed up, I\u2019m never gonna get to it.<\/p>\n
We start Monday, December 26th. This is David Axelrod\u2019s podcast called The Axe Files, and he\u2019s got Obama on there as a guest, and he and Obama are reviewing Obama\u2019s presidency and what he\u2019s gonna do in his post-presidency and Obama\u2019s wringing his hands over what all\u2019s gone wrong. And Axelrod says, “Maybe we didn\u2019t spend as much time on connecting with voters while you were here.” I\u2019m telling you, they know Obama didn\u2019t have this connection. They\u2019re living an illusion thinking the country hinges on Obama, whether he\u2019s here or not.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have that connection. He never did. Hillary never had it. It\u2019s rare. Reagan had it. Most politicians don\u2019t until they\u2019re long gone, but they think Obama did. But here\u2019s Axelrod in his question admitting it. “Maybe we didn\u2019t spend as much time on connecting with voters,” meaning conservatives, people that weren\u2019t inclined to agree with him. “I mean,” Axelrod says, “we\u2019re trying to save the economy and doing these other things.” We\u2019re trying to save America, we\u2019re trying to do these big things, and maybe we didn\u2019t spend enough time connecting with, like, conservatives and stuff.<\/p>\n
OBAMA: When we were campaigning, we could connect. Once you got to the White House and you were busy governing, you are then more subject to the filter. It was Rush Limbaugh —<\/p>\n
AXELROD: Mmm-hmm!<\/p>\n
OBAMA: — and the NRA and there are all these mediators who are interpreting what we do. And if we\u2019re not actually out there like we are during campaigns, then folks in — in a lot of these communities, what they\u2019re hearing is, “Obama wants to take away my guns.”<\/p>\n
AXELROD: Right.<\/p>\n
OBAMA: “Obamacare is about transgender bathrooms and not my job. Obama is disrespecting my culture and is primarily concerned with coastal elites and minorities,” and so — so part of what I\u2019ve struggled with during my presidency —<\/p>\n
RUSH: Aw, save me, save me.<\/p>\n
OBAMA: — and part of what, I think, I\u2019ll be thinking a lot of after my presidency is, “How do we work around all these filters?”<\/p>\n
RUSH: No! (chuckles) There he is blaming me. He\u2019s blaming me for his lack of ability to connect. The simple fact of the matter is that Obama was about transgender bathrooms! Obama was about gay marriage. Obama was about things that would disrupt the culture. He was about guns. There\u2019s no question that if he could have found a way — and Hillary and the rest of them — that they would do away with the Second Amendment. Nobody doubts that. And for him to sit here and say (impression), “Well, they\u2019re out there thinkin\u2019 I\u2019m gonna do that…”<\/p>\n
Damn right we were because we were right, and what he calls “filters” is simply opposition. And they can\u2019t stand opposition. Obama and the left, they don\u2019t think there should be any opposition. Obama: “Disrespecting my culture primarily concerned with coastal elites.” It\u2019s not… That is how he hears the criticism. Anyway, same program, Axelrod said… No, no. Different program. On CNN\u2019s Situation Room, the host says to… I guess this is Axelrod: “Did the president accept any of his own responsibility for the loss and for the tough position that Democrats are in today?”<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/01125109.Par_.89380.ImageFile.jpg\")
AXELROD: What the president said was, yes, we connected with these voters in campaigns. But once in the White House, uhh, with all that was on our plate, he suggested — again, implicitly — that perhaps there was some neglect there. But he also said that Democrats have to find a way to reach these voters and penetrate the filter of a Rush Limbaugh and some of the, uh, right-wing talk, uh, talk radio internet sites, uh, and so on, which he says has, uh, “distorted,” uh, the message as well. So that\u2019s a project that Democrats have to work on.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I\u2019m sorry, but that\u2019s been a project of theirs for about 25 years, hasn\u2019t it? They\u2019ve been trying to find a way around me for 25 years and every time they lose they blame me for it. Look at that! Of all the people to blame. They don\u2019t blame Trump. They blame me. Because of the filter. And all it means is there\u2019s one guy out there… Not one guy. What this means is there was somebody out there telling the truth about Obama, and that\u2019s what they can\u2019t abide, and that\u2019s why they lost. “We\u2019ve gotta find a way around somebody who\u2019s gonna tell the truth about us.”<\/p>\n
Now, of course they can\u2019t admit that, but that\u2019s what this is. By the way, when Obama gave that speech of his or that appearance or wherever it was where he said (impression), “If I\u2019d\u2019a been on the ballot, I would\u2019a won! If I\u2019d\u2019a been on the ballot, hope and change coulda won a third term.” He went through all the reasons he lost. Did you hear him in these two answers, him mention Russia as the reason he lost? You didn\u2019t, because he didn\u2019t say it!<\/p>\n
At no time in any of these postmortems has Obama blamed Russia, and yet the Democrat Party and the American left, Meryl Streep and the Hollywood left, they\u2019re all blaming the Russian hack for the reason Hillary lost! But then when they talk to people in the media, they don\u2019t even mention Russia. Well, if Russia was the reason they lost, why not say that instead of me? (impression) “Well, we weren\u2019t able to overcome that Russian hack. You know, the Russians — and I told Vladimir Putin! I said, ‘Cut it out! Just cut it out,\u2019 and he did for a while but then he resumed again. Well, and then…” (snorts) These people are so full of it. Funny!<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Lawrence Rosenthal is the chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, University of California Berkeley. They study the right wing. And so this guy, Lawrence Rosenthal, was on C-SPAN on December 27. Here is a portion. We have two sound bites.<\/p>\n
RUSH: There you have it, Lawrence Rosenthal of the Center for Right-Wing Studies at Berkeley claiming that the way Trump got there is to listen to me, to study me and to go out and emulate this program. And he wasn\u2019t finished. We have one more clip from the guy.<\/p>\n ROSENTHAL: What Trump found there was a collection of themes and online memes that constituted the universe of taken-for-granted understandings among the populace right base of the Republican Party. Trump stored these up like a reservoir of riffs that would be available to him. This was the stuff of his free association style of campaigning. And while these themes and memes resonated profoundly with crowds at his rallies, the outside world, liberals and Democrats and establishment conservatives and Republicans, what he was saying was outrageous, beyond the pale, embarrassing, offensive.<\/p>\n RUSH: And yet he won! (laughing) So who\u2019s the minority here and who\u2019s the majority, Mr. Rosenthal? And finally, Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign aide, January 4th on Hannity — gauging time here — the question\u2019s longer than the answer. Question: “What do you think the election became about, Corey, what was it really all about?”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/ROSENTHAL.jpg\")
<\/a>ROSENTHAL: Donald Trump had prepared himself in a serious manner for his run for the presidency. His method was to immerse himself in right-wing media. This practice included listening to talk radio, the likes of Rush Limbaugh, monitoring Tea Party websites and discussions, and following right-wing news sites like the Drudge Report and Breitbart News.<\/p>\n