RUSH: You have to hear something. I have three sound bites that happened on CNN today before the program started.

It’s Jeffrey Lord, whom you know as a writer for the American Spectator, a former political director in the Reagan administration. He has joined CNN as a conservative commentator some months ago and is appearing more and more frequently, more and more often on CNN because he’s doing a bang-up job over there. He also happens to be a Trumpster, for all intents and purposes. He’s a solid, rock-ribbed conservative. We interviewed him for the Limbaugh Letter, and he says he sees a lot of Reagan in Trump. (I’m just telling you what he says.)

The purpose of his appearance today, is CNN will not let go of Trump not disavowing the KKK or David Duke on Jake Tapper’s show last Sunday. The fact that Trump has disavowed Duke and the KKK a gazillion times doesn’t count at CNN. And the reason it doesn’t counts is because he didn’t disavow on Sunday with Jake Tapper, and they won’t let it go. And Jeffrey Lord’s exactly right about this. It’s exactly how the Drive-Bys operate.

And you throw race into the mix, and you have a guaranteed kerfuffle that they will not let go because there are so many institutional biases here. And the first institutional bias is that all Republicans are racist pigs who regret the days of slavery ever ended. That’s what your average, ordinary media leftist believes today. Well, Jeffrey’s on CNN all week telling them (summarized), “You know, you guys got this all wrong. The KKK was a bunch of Democrats. The KKK was the militarized wing of the Democrat Party.

“The Klan was all Democrats, segregationists,” and CNN can’t fathom it. They don’t understand it. It doesn’t compute. And you combine those two things with the fact that they just… In their world, Trump has not disavowed them. He disavowed, I counted, 15 times last night. He got the question again. But CNN won’t let go of it because he didn’t disavowed on our Sunday show. Chris Cuomo says he’s gotta do it. You know, whatever theory they’ve got is that Trump doesn’t mean all these disavowals elsewhere.

“Because he didn’t disavow it on our show, that’s what’s real, and the 25 gazillion thousand times he has disavowed, they don’t count because we don’t want to let go of the issue.” So they brought in Jeffrey Lord to go up against Van Jones. I have three sound bites of this. This segment went through commercial breaks. It went through 25 minutes, it seemed like. We don’t have all of that. We can’t play all of that, obviously. But we’ve cut it up here to give you a bit of a flavor for how it went.

It… Oh, I guess this was last night. I thought this was live today. How can this have been last night? Did they redo this again today? This had…? (interruption) What I saw today, they had what’s-her-face, Alisyn Camerota. (interruption) Well, okay. Doesn’t matter. I watched it today. Maybe they were replaying. This had happened last night. Here’s the setup, talking about the controversy of Trump not disavowing Duke and the Klan being a left-wing Democrat organization. Van Jones starts out, and there are three sound bites here.

JONES: The Klan is a terrorist organization that has killed —

LORD: Leftist terrorist organization.

JONES: You can — you can — you can put whatever label you want — you want to on it. That’s your — that’s your game to play.

LORD: No. It’s important to get history right.

JONES: You came on the air and you said, “Well, this is just like when Reverend Wright was speaking.”

LORD: Yeah! Yeah!

JONES: Reverend Wright never lynched anybody.

LORD: Never mind his anti-Semitism?

JONES: Reverend Wright never killed anybody.

LORD: Reverend Wright is an anti-Semite.

JONES: Reverend Wright never put anybody on — on — on — on a post. And you guys play these word games. And it’s wrong to do in America!

LORD: It is wrong to —

JONES: It is wrong to do.

LORD: It is wrong to understand that these are not leftists. You don’t hide and say, “That’s not part of the base of the Democratic Party.” They were the military arm, the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, according to historians. For God’s sakes, read your history.

JONES: That was 50 years ago.

RUSH: And it continued…

LORD: This is a media thing here. Did he make a mistake? Sure. But he has said this many, many times. I’ve gone back and looked. He’s well on record over and over and over again on this.

JONES: It’s worse than that, sir. That whole thing with those Central jogger (sic) kids, he got the entire city of New York whipped on this idea that these kids had done something wrong —

LORD: Right.

JONES: — and then when it turned out they were innocent — we all make mistakes — he never apologized to those kids.

LORD: Van, what you’re doing right here, what you’re doing here is dividing people. We’re all Americans here.

JONES: I am —

LORD: This is what liberals do. You are dividing people by race.

JONES: I am not. Why —

LORD: This is what liberalism is all about.

JONES: The Klan divided people by race.

LORD: You have to divide by race.

JONES: The Klan killed people by race.

LORD: They did it to further the progressive agenda!

RUSH: And one more.

JONES: I have a kid, seven years old, watching all this nonsense in your party, he turns around and says, “Dad, you’re a liar.” He doesn’t even know what the word means, but he sees so much vitriol from your party, he brings that into our house. Now we got to have him watch, you know, Nick Jr., he can’t even absorb civics because of what’s going on in your party. Tell Donald Trump he needs, for my children’s sake, for the children’s sake of American, if he’s gonna lead this country, he needs to be as passionate about what has happened to people —

LORD: We have to be passionate —

JONES: — in my community as anybody else —

LORD: We have to be passionate about making sure that, as Robert Kennedy used to say, that this country is colorblind. We have to, as President Kennedy used to say —

RUSH: All right, stop, stop, you know, folks, I’m sorry. I set you up for something that this is not. This obviously was from last night. They did it again this morning. I didn’t see this last night. This is not noteworthy. Whatever you heard here, this is chump change, to what happened today. And it was, I don’t know, around ten o’clock or 10:30, 11, I forget when it was. It was before the program started.

It was focused on Trump. It was focused on the Klan. It was focused on how the Democrats do this, that they get this idea in their heads and no matter what they fit every event into their narrative. And in this case the KKK is a bunch of right-wing terrorists. It doesn’t matter where they were formed. It doesn’t matter who formed ’em. It doesn’t matter that Robert Bird was a member, that’s years ago and we’re talking about today, and Trump won’t disavow it, even though Trump has. And Jeffrey Lord was just — they were inches away, face to face. It was civil, the whole time it was civil, but it was something you never see on CNN because they don’t have anybody on there that could do what Lord did.

It was really electric and Van Jones ended up expressing his profound respect for Lord, you know, and Cuomo was saying, “Look, I think I see what the problem here is,” and he nailed the problem from Lord’s perspective, but it didn’t get anywhere near solving anything. It was just that for the first time ever I saw the way a narrative regarding race and the race card is used in the liberal media blown up and thrown right back in their faces successfully. And Van Jones, these other people, had no idea, they had never heard this perspective.

It’s a foreign language to them that the KKK was a bunch of Democrats. Even though you can them the names: Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Robert Byrd, all of that doesn’t matter. That was then and today is today, and they’ve got their narrative, the Republicans and Trump are racist pigs and so forth. And this disavowal of the KKK, Trump still hasn’t done it because he didn’t do it on their Sunday show.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, Cookie went back and found the things that I saw today. Apparently the Van Jones, Jeffrey Lord segment originally happened last night. I didn’t see that. I saw 20 minutes of it this morning. It went from 8:45 to about 9:10. They went to top-of-the-hour breaks. They delayed the beginning of their nine o’clock show for this thing to continue. It was hot. There’s no way we can play the whole thing here. We’ve got two sound bites and these will give you a flavor for it.

But just, again, to set it up. Jeffrey Lord is there as a conservative analyst of the news, the, quote, unquote, Republican strategist. You know, people that have never been involved in a strategy session in their lives are called strategists on cable news networks because they might strategize at Starbucks with their friends. But Jeffrey actually is. He was a political director, Reagan administration, writes now at the American Spectator and NewsBusters. And he’s a Trumpist. And he was there to answer the charge that Trump continues to avoid disavowing the Klan and David Duke, which is preposterous.

Trump has disavowed for years David Duke and the Klan. He left the Reform Party because they were in it. But he didn’t on Jake Tapper’s precious CNN Sunday morning show. And so, as far as CNN’s concerned, he has not disavowed. If he won’t disavow on their Sunday show, then he hasn’t disavowed. And he brought in Van Jones, a well-known, admitted communist from the first Obama administration, and he’s now a strategist and commentator on CNN. He and Jeffrey went at it with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota actually acting as therapists to bring these two together, to get ’em to listen to each other.

So here are two sound bites as a flavor for it. Chris Cuomo says, “With the benefit of time, Van Jones, does the perspective of — don’t forget who these guys were, the KKK, and what it means to your party, does it make more sense to you in the analysis of what it means today with Donald Trump?”

JONES: I don’t understand why the right wing is all obsessed with trying to point out that the Ku Klux Klan, you know, 50, 60, 70 years was a part of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party in that time was a racist party, and there were violent elements. That’s true. Because obviously Republicans at that time were the party of Lincoln, who ended slavery. But we’ve had a reversal over this past 50 — my entire lifetime, I was born in ’68 there’s been that reversal. So I think for African-Americans, when we try and speak about the pain of the lynchings, we try to speak about the fear that we are having around every African-American dinner table, kitchen table, about what does Trump mean, people go, “Well, 50 years ago they were Democrats,” to us it feels dismissive.

RUSH: There hasn’t been a reversal. This is the whole point. The reversal is a marketing maneuver. What reversal? The Republicans haven’t lynched anybody. That all happened, slavery, lynchings, those were Democrats that did it. The list of names again: Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond back in those days was a Democrat, J. William Fulbright from Arkansas. He was Bill Clinton’s mentor. Ernest Hollings. How about Herman Talmadge of Georgia? I mean, the list of these guys, Robert C. Byrd, nickname Sheets, was a grand freaking Kleagle, which meant he was a recruiter. And he achieved the Exalted Cyclops level of the Ku Klux Klan. Whatever it is, he was one.

I always thought of a cyclops as a one-eyed monster in the Sinbad movies. So I’ve never understood what a cyclops is in the Klan. But you notice how easy this — yeah, he admits — and this is new. You won’t have a Democrat admitting they were Democrats. Klan was Democrats, racist party, violent elements, that’s true. But we’ve had a reversal over these past years. What reversal? What lynchings is he talking about? When did the Klan join the Republican Party? There isn’t a single Republican that’s ever been a member of the Klan, not like the Democrats can boast Robert C. Byrd.

Anyway, here was Lord’s answer. Alisyn Camerota said, “Jeffrey, were you using a diversionary tactic to go back 50, 60, 70 years rather than back two days ago to what Donald Trump said where he did not give any sort of aggressive disavowal with Jake Tapper of the KKK? Why not just focus on today and the race today that we’re talking about instead of all this time 50 years ago?”

LORD: What I was trying to do was give historical context. My point is that race fuels the progressive movement and has always fueled the progressive movement, whether it was slavery, segregation, lynching, the Ku Klux Klan to today’s racial quotas, illegal immigration by skin color, you know, groups like La Raza, the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, et cetera, it’s always about let’s divide people by race and then here’s the progressive agenda that we want to enact. That’s the connection to me, and it’s a constant throughout 200-some-odd years of history. The Klan being just one of them. And, by the way, not long ago, when Occupy Wall Street was a big thing going, David Duke was a big supporter of Occupy Wall Street.

RUSH: Exactly. But this thing ended up with them shouting at each other back and forth, talking over each other, it was difficult to hear — for me, anyway — what they were saying, and Camerota and Cuomo had to go in there and referee. It ended fine. There were no fisticuffs or any of that. It’s just that you never see this perspective hardly anywhere, but certainly not on CNN.

But this reminds me of something. Brian just reminded me this last night. You know, after the candidates had made their speeches, their victory or whatever other speeches after the elections last night when they were sitting down and doing interviews with the various networks, I guess this is where I’m gonna give my analysis of what candidates in my mind are doing that they could do better. And this is risky to do. This is really risky, because I run the risk of offending supporters of these people. But at the same time, I can’t sit here and just stand mute when, as Rob from San Antonio said, that I may be responsible for all this. You know, so I can’t pretend I’ve got nothing to do with it.

In the case of Rubio, it is clear that Rubio had some success in the tactics that he chose to switch to in the last debate by going after Trump and making fun of him, mocking him, con man, and lines around the state and Trump University and all this. He won some accolades from establishment types, and he is convinced that it helped him in Virginia. He is convinced that it helped him get votes in other states on Super Tuesday, he still lost them, but is convinced that it helped his performance.

So in his interviews last night, he doubled down on all of this, every other word about Trump was “con man.” And then he joined in on this business of Trump not disavowing the KKK and David Duke. And, you know, Brian mentioned to me, some other people have mentioned to me as well that it started to grate on them, make ’em nervous and create even some sympathy for Trump because everybody in the world knows he has disavowed, and not just once.

Now, this situation, you know, what happened on the CNN show, who knows. Everybody has their theories for what that was about. But you cannot credibly say that Donald Trump supports the KKK. You cannot incredibly say that Donald Trump is sympathetic to them or to David Duke. You cannot credibly say that. And so to try to is not gonna help you, in my humble estimation. And Rubio kept throwing out last night that Trump will not disavow the KKK and we can’t have anybody in the Republican Party doing this.

I think that’s gonna backfire, because the one thing that Republican voters, conservative voters all over this country are fed up with is this phony charge of racism that the Democrats make. And if a Republican starts making those same charges about a fellow Republican, it isn’t gonna work, if you ask me. It’s going to backfire. I mean, “con man,” it’s one thing if you want to continue with that strategy, thinking that it’s helpful. In other words, turn Trump’s tactics around on him, make fun of people, bully people, laugh at them, mock them, and so forth.

But this KKK thing and David Duke, there’s no question that Trump has disavowed, there’s no question Trump wants no part of that and never has. You know, if you’re gonna accuse somebody of something, that has to be some small grain somewhere of accuracy. It’s gotta be something that’s believable. You can’t — the media can — you can’t manufacture a charge out of nothing and have it stick. I know you’re shouting, “Well, Harry Reid did it with Romney.” Well, you know, one of the reasons that worked was the way Romney handled that, too, let’s not forget. I mean, the Republican reaction to any of this stuff is basically to ignore it, thinking nobody’s going to believe it, and that doesn’t work.

So I thought that was, for Rubio, a little bit perhaps counterproductive. And I’m very nervous talking about it. This is not my job to advise them, and they know their business better than I do. But I would dial that back. I don’t think that’s… (interruption) Well, that’s another thing. (interruption) You mean all these allegations that Trump…? (interruption) How the…? (interruption) Yeah, the Democrats are cataloging this stuff and using it in the general. “And even Marco Rubio, a Republican, knew that Trump is a con man.”

“Listen, to what Marco Rubio said about Donald Trump,” and they play a sound bite from him. Yeah. Well, nobody’s thinking that right now. Nobody ever does thinking that, Snerdley. Nobody thinks the general. That’s way down the list. You deal with that when you get there. Right now, these guys are all thinking they’ve gotta do what they have to do to win this. And they’ll deal with whatever messes are created now, later. And the same thing with Hillary and Crazy Bernie. I mean, we’re getting our share of sound bites to use against them, too.

So it’s a two-way street.