RUSH: Well, I tell you what, they sure got the James Comey story off the front page. James who? Comey? What did he do? That story is gone. Makes me think Trump might have leaked this. Just kidding.
Greetings, my friends. El Rushbo, your guiding light, right here behind the Golden EIB Microphone, broadcast excellence straight ahead for the next three hours. The telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.
H.R. McMaster, General H. R. McMaster, just concluded a press briefing with the jackals in the White House briefing room. One thing we’ve learned, we had not seen this in eight years. These people know how to do their jobs. They know how to ask questions and probe. Eight years of Obama they simply applauded and asked what they should say and what they should report, but we have learned now that media people still know how to do their jobs. They do know how to ask questions.
Anyway, McMaster — by the way, he’s one of these guys — and I don’t know if this means anything, but he pronounces the world America with a U in there. Now, I don’t know if that’s an establishment thing. The establishment people in Washington love McMaster. When McMaster was chosen to head up this gig, it gave a lot of Never Trumpers solace and comfort because an establishment military guy had been chosen. And he says “Amurica.” So I don’t know if that’s, you know, like secret handshake code stuff for fellow establishmentarians or not, to signal various things. I’m a student of voices and words and speech partners, and I noticed that.
Anyway, General McMaster basically said, “Gang, there’s nothing here other than the risk you have put this country at. There’s nothing here. Nothing the president did in his conversations with the Russians has had any effect on national security. The president didn’t reveal any sources. The president didn’t share anything that threatens our security. You’ve done that.” Now, he didn’t say it in those words, because he can’t. But I’m telling you that’s what his statement means.
What they tried to do last night, McMaster goes out there after the Post — and, by the way, don’t forget who owns the Post. Who owns the Washington Post now? Well, yeah, Bezos, Amazon, Bezos, Amazon, Amazon, Bezos. You may say, “So what, Rush? I mean, so what?” Well, it wasn’t that long ago that Donald Trump got a feud going with Bezos. Trump has long threatened Bezos as having an unfair monopoly and he may be violating antitrust. And so I think there’s a little Bezos-Trump war going on here, in addition to whatever else is happening.
But it is significant who owns the Washington Post. So the Post leaks their story that Trump gave up American secrets and has put everybody at risk ’cause he’s an idiot and he’s unsophisticated, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s a loose cannon, and we’ve got to get rid of him. Then McMaster goes out and says (paraphrasing), “Nope, there’s nothing here. I was in the room. There was nothing stated in this meeting with the Russians that they didn’t already know.”
You know what this is about? Would you like to know what it is? All that happened here is — I don’t know the city, but it’s gotta be a city that ISIS has a hold on. I mean, you go down a list of those where ISIS is headquartered. How many of you have, over the recent days, read of a potential ban on laptop computers on airplanes flying into the United States from Europe? That’s it. That’s what Trump was telling these guys about, about the laptop ban. The Russians, he was talking to them about the laptop ban, and the reasons for it. Stuff that’s out there.
The Russians know where ISIS is. The Drive-Bys are trying to say that Trump put at risk allies who gave us this information by identifying where they are and who they might be, which means that the Russians could then go out and assassinate our source. That’s how irresponsible Trump is. McMaster went out there and said national security has been put at risk by leaking of information to the press. He has his denial last night. And then Trump — (laughing) after McMaster issues — it’s not a quasi-denial. He’s not denying that Trump said anything. What he’s denying is, is that there’s any news here.
And then Trump after McMaster goes out — and it was originally reported as a denial. If you read what McMaster said, it wasn’t. It was an explanation. Then Trump firebombs McMaster by saying (imitating Trump), “Hey, look, I’m president, I can leak whatever I want, I can tell anybody, I can declassify.” And so the media, “My God, he just cut McMaster off at the knees, and he does this all the time. Why does he do this?” McMaster goes out there to try to protect him and Trump goes to Twitter and blows up the whole plan.
And so everybody expected when McMaster showed up in the briefing room today, they were hoping that McMaster would get mad, express his anger and say, “This is it, I’m done being kneecapped by this guy, I’m outta here.” They really were hoping McMaster would resign today. I read it. They were hoping McMaster would publicly resign and storm off and indict Trump as the biggest idiot he has ever encountered in life. And that’s not what McMaster did. McMaster told these guys the only people threatening national security here are you.
Now, he didn’t attack their business of journalism. He didn’t say, “You guys don’t have a right to publish.” He’s just saying, “You made a horrible decision here.” By the way, you’ve heard that the Post was asked to refrain from publishing certain details and that they agreed not to publish certain details. One of the details was the city where the intel came from.
If the Post is willing to withhold certain information for national security, then why not withhold all of it? And of course everybody’s asking, “Who did this? Who’s the leaker?” And nobody’s close to being able to identify that. The possibilities are all over the place. I’ve seen tweets from people who said, “I have a direct line to the newsroom at the Washington Post. And they told me the leaker is not a current or former U.S. government official.”
Really? If the leaker is not a current or former U.S., well, who else is in the room? It has to mean the Russians. Except the Russians — hee-hee-hee — Russia says reports that Trump revealed secret information are fake. The Russians have called the Washington Post fake news.
Dateline Moscow, Reuters: The reports that U.S. President Donald Trump has revealed highly classified information about a planned Islamic State operation to Russia’s foreign minister are fake, Interfax News Agency cited the Russian foreign ministry as saying on Tuesday. Well, that settles it, right? If the Russians say it’s fake, it’s fake. So that’s just one tweet saying that the leak is not somebody who is current or former U.S. government official. Well, who’s in the room? But maybe that’s not the limitation, because whoever was in the room could have talked. So who in the room talked to who?
It’s obviously a deliberate leak. It’s obviously a deliberate leak designed to inflict harm somehow. We don’t really know what the purpose of the leak is ’cause there’s so many things allegedly going on here. Whoever leaked this could have leaked it just to further the idea that the Trump White House is out of control and Trump needs to get rid of everybody and re-staff it with establishment types. The leak could have been designed to portray Trump as the idiot they think he is, placing us at great risk national security-wise. The leak could have come from a staffer who’s upset, no longer being listened to.
I mean, look at the news. Yesterday we were told by these clowns over at MSNBC that Kellyanne Conway secretly told ’em she hates Trump; she’s never even liked Trump. You know, she started out with Cruz. She hates Trump! She’s embarrassed having to go out there and speak for Trump, but she’s doing it for the money. And then we’ve heard that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Steve Bannon, and Priebus or somebody were caught… Spicer. They were having a shout fest in the Cabinet Room yesterday.
An ABC reporter overheard it but didn’t hear what it was about. There have been reports that Bannon’s on the outs. He’s not liking it ’cause Trump’s chosen to listen to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law, and Ivanka, the daughter. So who knows? The leak could come from anybody for any reason. You can take your pick. Each is probably pretty close to being as valid as the other. But, again, McMaster just finished this briefing, and he said that the information the president discussed with the Russians was standard information discussed with heads of states working together.
He said, “I stand by my statement I made yesterday. The premise of that article is false.” Now, the Drive-Bys don’t want to hear that. The Drive-Bys, to continue this, are gonna have to assume that McMaster is lying in his role as loyal staff member to Donald Trump. Because otherwise that story has been put to bed. McMaster said, “You guys, the only people threatening national security here are you by publishing this. What I said last night holds.” It’s a flat-out denial of the claims made in the Washington Post story.
That should end it. But, of course, we know it won’t because the details are not relevant here. The details of this are not really relevant. The bottom line is this. The bottom line of the Washington Post story is that they have made an ongoing and unilateral decision that getting rid of the president for political purposes is more important than the safety of the American people. It’s more important than U.S. national security, thinks the Washington Post — and I’m sure the rest of the Drive-Bys echo the sentiment.
There is a distinct possibility here that American citizens could die because the Washington Post has decided to interfere with American intelligence decisions, in order to sabotage President Trump. And, by the way, that is what this is. There is an ongoing effort to sabotage Trump personally, politically, professionally. And this sabotage is occurring from within the government and perhaps even from within the Trump administration. It is being aided and abetted by the establishment media.
Without that, the saboteurs and leakers would really not be able to make themselves known or heard. In effect, what the Washington Post has accused the president of doing they have done themselves, and McMaster made the point. National security has been put at risk by leaking of this information. This was a conversation between the president and the Russians. It’s entirely his purview. This parallels… This circus at the ninth circuit, the oral arguments, the judges and the lawyer opposing the Trump administration acknowledge, “Hey, what the president did? Yes, it’s constitutional, but not to us.
“Hillary Clinton should be president. If Hillary Clinton had issued travel ban, it’d be perfectly fine and you wouldn’t even know we exist. But Trump? Trump issued the ban, and Trump is not constitutional. Not U.S. constitutional. Trump is not legit.” Trump does not hold any authority they respect. So they’re out there admitting that the only reason they oppose them and they want the courts to slam it down is ’cause Trump issued it. Same thing here. Trump had a conversation with the Russians!
Hillary can talk to the Russians all day. Obama can give away every kind of secret we have to the Russians. Hillary can traffic in classified data on her server for years, and nobody cares because she’s Hillary and she’s a lib and they can’t do anything wrong. Obama can tell Dmitry Medvedev, “You tell Vladimir,” as in Putin, “to just be patient. I’ll be more flexible in getting rid of American weapons after I win reelection.” Not a concern in the world about Obama selling out the United States repeatedly over and over, in Iran, in Syria, you name it.
Hillary Clinton with classified data being sent all over the world via her server. No concern whatsoever. In fact, the press effort to cover that up and to say, “No big deal! It was nothing important there.” But Trump has a private conversation with Russian counterparts and the media’s point is, “He doesn’t have the right to! He’s illegitimate! We don’t respect the election that gave him the presidency! So he doesn’t have the right to tell the Russians anything! And the way we’re gonna tell this story is to say that Trump is unfit.
“He’s dangerous because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s an idiot, and he’s a pig, and he has no right to talk to the Russians this way because he’s not really a president that we respect.” And that’s what this is all about. It’s a refusal to accept the outcome of the election. It’s a refusal to accept Trump as president, combined with an effort to get rid of him. And no, I don’t think by way of impeachment. I don’t think that’s their objective here. When I say “get rid of him,” maybe actually get rid of him.
But I think short of that, the effort is to make him a total fool and have him lose all support and basically have him break down mentally, is what I think they’re trying to do. I think they’re literally trying to force him into a compromised position. Not think; I have no doubt. The Drive-By Media has disseminated sensitive intelligence. They have agreed, in part of the story, to withhold information because of the threat. But not all of it, which means there’s a calculation here. It is their authority they answer to and respect.
Not the election, not the Constitution, not the president, not the president’s engaging in exercising constitutional duties. None of that’s respected by the Drive-By Media, the Democrat Party, or whatever. (interruption) Why does no one question the hypocrisy of this inconsistency? Because hypocrisy never attaches itself to the left lane. They’re never called on hypocrisy. The greatest hypocrisy is Hillary Clinton trafficking in thousands of classified documents for years in an illegal, home email server.
The same people saying Trump is unfit said of Hillary, “It’s not a big deal! It’s not. She wasn’t giving anything away, and, besides, Hillary’s so smart that if she did make a mistake, she would recover from it.” I think what this is really about — and nobody’s gonna ask the Washington Post how or why they made the determination that they made. But what this is really about is the media deciding that compromising U.S. national security is crucial if doing so furthers the objective of sabotaging and ruining the Donald Trump presidency.
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RUSH: You know, can I also tell you something? I have to laugh at this. Isn’t it…? I don’t know if it’s trolling. I don’t know if it’s karma. I don’t know what it is. But how often is it that every time some news like this pops up, it’s about the Russians? And of course with the Democrats and the media out there making the case (trying to) that Trump is in bed with the Russians and the Russians colluded with jump to hijack the election.
Of course, this fits the bill. Trump was simply paying the Russians back for all of his perceived assistance from the Russians during the campaign. I’ve seen allusions to that certain places in the media and all over social media as well. That, to me, is kind of funny. Other people think it’s serious, obviously. But I think it’s funny that when these events that happen that get media’s underwear in a wad seem to always involve the Russians. But what happened in that room happened in that room, and it was not going to be known by anybody outside that room.
Now, you know, these other tweets from people claiming to have sources inside in the White House, for example, that said that the leak did not come from a current or former U.S. government official? Well, who does that leave? Well, in the immediate circle, it leaves the Russians that were in that room. There was a Tass photographer in there too. And, by the way, the Russians are still the Soviets, and if… The photographer’s an agent. Make no mistake: He’s not some grunt from the dark room in the Kremlin that they take along with them.
He’s an agent. He’s KGB (he’s something) and he’s probably monitoring and listening and all that. He’s another… But we know that. We know he’s not just a photographer. So you had two Russians in there — the Russian ambassador and the foreign secretary, foreign whatever, Lavrov — and Trump and whoever represented us in the meeting. And so somebody in there could have told, after the meeting was over. They could have told somebody on the White House staff what had happened and somebody on the staff that’s not happy with their job, whatever, called the Washington Post.
But it obviously is a deliberate leak, and its intention is to — more than likely — inflict great harm on Trump. As a secondary purpose, it could have been a leak designed to convince Trump to fire somebody or a bunch of people to stop these leaks. There’s all kinds of intriguing possibilities to explain this. But at the end of it all, there is no compromise of national security here without the Washington Post publishing all of this.
Say what you want about Trump talking to the Russians and the Russians, whoever they talk to, whatever. But, really, the Russians knew about the laptop ban, because ISIS is working on laptop bombs. And ISIS is located in certain cities that everybody involved here knows what the cities are. That’s why McMaster said there wasn’t anything compromised here. There wasn’t anything given away that the Russians don’t already know and that many of you don’t already know because much of it’s been publicly reported.
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RUSH: By the way, you know what the latest is now? So McMaster goes out and says (paraphrasing), “Nothing’s changed. What I said last night is what I say today. Nothing happened. The only national security that has been compromised has been performed by you people here in the media. Everything I said last night is still operative. Your story was false.”
So now the Drive-Bys are demanding a transcript of the meeting between Trump and the Russians. Because McMaster has to be lying. And the media’s now acting like a court, the judge and the jury. “You say that nothing happened, and you were in the room, but because you’re Republicans we don’t believe you. So we demand to see a transcript.” Like that’s actually gonna happen. Oh, you want a transcript of a private meeting between the president and — who are you? You people don’t even have an official branch designation in the United States government and you’re demanding a transcript?
And they are. And of course when a transcript is denied or refused, then of course that just extends the story and the narrative that the White House is hiding something. Here’s McMaster, by the way, from the press conference today. He opened up by announcing the president’s schedule, foreign trip upcoming, Vatican, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, any number of places, and then he opened it to questions, and the first question, “General McMaster, you came out to the stakeout area yesterday outside the White House, you said the Washington Post story which came out late yesterday was false. You stick by that assertion? You think that every element of that story is false? Do you have anything to correct in terms of what you said at the podium yesterday afternoon?”
MCMASTER: I stand by my statement that I made yesterday. What I’m saying is really the premise of that article is false, that in any way the president had a conversation that was inappropriate McMaster or that resulted in any kind of lapse in national security. And so I think the real issue, and I think what I’d like to see really debated more, is that our national security has been put at risk by volunteers violating confidentiality and those releasing information to the press that could be used connected with other information available to make American citizens and others more vulnerable.
RUSH: There you have it. McMaster once again reiterates that Trump didn’t do anything appropriate. The media thought he was gonna come out and resign. Well, some did. I was reading all kinds of things last night and today and there were a number of them saying, “He can’t go on. Trump cut him off knees with his tweet today. This guy has been humiliated. Trump is impossible to work for. McMaster is the only thing that gives this administration any integrity. McMaster is the only guy that gives this administration any respect, and if he’s smart, he won’t hang around and be polluted and poisoned.”
They really thought he was gonna come out and express anger and walk out of there to thunderous applause from the media. Which, by the way, is what happened when Obama went to the Washington Post. The Washington Post newsroom was in ecstasy and gave the president a standing ovation when he came over just to check the propaganda operation.
And now head to the phones. This is Tony in Lauria, Michigan. Am I pronouncing that right, Lauria, Michigan?
CALLER: You are pronouncing it correctly, Rush.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: Pleasure to speak to you again, sir.
RUSH: I appreciate your call. Thanks very much.
CALLER: I appreciate what you do.
RUSH: Go ahead, sir. I was talking. You couldn’t hear me because you were talking, but I welcomed you and I’m glad you’re here. What was it that you called about?
CALLER: Well, Rush, what I was thinking about when I was listening to General McMaster speak was that he said, as far as he knew, that Trump had not been briefed on the name of this city that was supposedly reported to the Washington Post. So if Trump wasn’t briefed on the name of the city and Washington Post has the name of the city, whoever leaked the name of the city to the Post must have a fairly high level security clearance to even be aware of the name of the city.
RUSH: Well, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. The detail in this leak, it reads like somebody had a tape of it or somebody was in there taping it. The leaks are so detailed that it goes way beyond just somebody recapping a meeting and speaking about it in shorthand. This is very, very detailed.
CALLER: I think I heard Fox News report that it was actually leaked as part of an email that was dispersed to a small group of people. But even so, if Trump didn’t release the name of the city, whomever did put it in that email, if it was an email, it was, you know, fairly high level security clearance. That’s a huge problem.
RUSH: For who?
CALLER: In my view, for the nation, for the nation as a whole that someone with that high level of a security clearance is leaking information to any news source, whether it be the Post or Fox News or —
RUSH: Yeah, but this has been going on since after the election. The deep state, all these embeds, largely Obama holdovers. I think people would be surprised how many Obama people remain in the Trump administration.
CALLER: Why do you think that’s the case, Rush? Why do you think that the president hasn’t taken steps to weed out some of these bad eggs?
RUSH: I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t make any sense and therefore I can’t understand it. If it’s senseless, I can’t tell you. I’m not that idiotic. When something is sensible, I can explain it to you in spades. When something doesn’t make any sense, all I can do is wild guess like you’re doing. And the wild guesses are, “Well, there was so much opposition. He still hasn’t completely filled out the cabinet. He didn’t realize how many positions there were gonna be.”
Or he’s got people in his immediate circle who don’t think it’s a problem there are Obama holdovers. And it’s a big operation, one man can’t, meaning the president, can’t hire and fire every position we’re talking about throughout this behemoth bureaucracy. As I say, all those are wild guesses.
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RUSH: Folks, do you know how Joseph Stalin found out we had a nuclear bomb? Harry Truman told him. Truman told him at Potsdam, yeah. People are forgetting how Trump negotiates with people, in addition. Who knows what he’s doing with the Russians in there. But it doesn’t matter ’cause of the way it’s been portrayed now.
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RUSH: There it is right there. CNN: “Sources Say Trump Revealed Classified Intel with Russia.” It’s not classified if the president passes it on! The president is the ultimate authority on declassifying classified information! McMaster said that what Trump shared was wholly appropriate, that there wasn’t a whole lot of they didn’t know. There’s a lot of talk about this city, ladies and gentlemen. … If the name of the city is so sensitive, why would the unnamed senior officials give the name of the city to the press?
If the city involved here — the city where ISIS is, where they are hatching plans to make bombs out of laptop computers… That’s what this is all about, and that has been in the news. The Russians even admit, “Yes, this is what we talked about,” and, you know, the potential ban on airplane flights into the United States from Europe. The ban on the usage of a laptop computer that has been in the news as a possibility here for at least a week. So the city where the bombs… I guess this is the importance of the city. It’s where ISIS is designing and testing these laptop computer bombs.
The Washington Post claims they know the city but that somebody in a position of great, high authority asked them not to publish the name of the city, and they didn’t. So why? If the city is that important, why would these unnamed senior officials give the name of the city to the press? And then I… Our last caller may have said something I had not yet heard, that Trump doesn’t know the city? Did you hear him say that, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) I can’t believe that, that Trump hasn’t been briefed on the city, that Trump’s in there talking to the Russians about this, and they haven’t told Trump the city?
Why wouldn’t they tell Trump the city? (interruption) Well, don’t shake your finger at me. Tell me! Why would they…? (interruption) Mmm-hmm. (interruption) Oh, okay. Okay. Well, okay. (interruption) All right. All right. (interruption) Okay. Okay. (interruption) Since you put it in that light, there is a narrative floating around out there that the intel community — and this is a narrative. This is not established fact. It’s another one of these news narratives manufactured out of thin air that the intelligence community (sniveling), “Is so scared (sobbing) of the incompetence of the president — so worried that he’s blithering idiot (sniffles) — that they are withholding intel from him.
“(Gasp!) They don’t trust the commander-in-chief, and so knowing everything that they know as a matter of national security, the intelligence community, “popularly now known as the IC, “is withholding data from Trump.” That narrative is out there. And so now you say you have seen references in these stories that the name of the city… (interruption) Oh, okay. Okay. That narrative, yeah. But I hadn’t heard what the caller said, that the name of the city has been withheld from Trump. What McMaster said was that the president wasn’t aware of the source of the information, not that he didn’t know the city.
What master said that Trump had not been told of was the source — i.e., the guy or the agency within a country — that Trump didn’t know that. He wasn’t aware of the source of the information he discussed with the Russians. He wasn’t briefed on that, but nobody… I can’t find anybody. I could be wrong. I can’t read everything. But about Trump not knowing the city, the caller was the first person I’ve heard say that. If he’s right and I’m wrong? (chuckles) Chalk it up, folks. It’s such a rarity, we can celebrate with a cake. But, you know, this whole notion that the Washington Post — which has been proven to have lied twice in the last week and a half.
They lied about Comey requesting more money for the Russia investigation (McCabe shot that down), and they lied about the fact that Rosenstein threatened to quit as the deputy attorney general. That wasn’t true. So now the Washington Post is saying that they have been requested by ranking intelligence officials to withhold the name of the city and withhold some of the detail of the intelligence that they were leaked. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Washington Post made up the request to withhold stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised at all, ’cause who can disprove that?
Nobody’s naming the leaker, so nobody knows from where or whom the Washington Post is getting its information. The Post says (paraphrase), “Yeah, yeah, yeah. They told us to withhold certain things, and as good citizens, we’re withholding the name.” How do we know that they were requested to hold things? Why do we trust these people? Why wouldn’t (using intelligence guided by experience) we not trust them? They’ve lied twice on major items involving FBI, Comey, and the so-called Russia investigation. TheHill.com just tweeted 30 minutes ago, just in: “McMaster: Real issue is leakers, not Trump revealing intel,” and that’s true!
McMaster said Trump did not reveal any intel. The Hill makes it sound like McMaster had no problems with Trump revealing intel. McMaster said Trump did not reveal anything that was classified, and TheHill.com is making it sound like McMaster had no problem with Trump revealing intel. And that’s what CNN’s little graphic on the screen is trying to imply as well. So the media’s trying to present it as though Trump’s been caught because of his stupidity. Nobody thinks Trump’s a traitor. Don’t think that.
They think Trump is just the biggest blithering idiot that has ever walked the earth, and so they’re out there saying, “He doesn’t even know what’s classified and what’s not. He doesn’t know who to tell and who not to tell various things. Trump’s just…” Then they alternatively say that Trump is such a braggart that he divulges all kinds of secret stuff just to impress people. He’s got this desperate need to be seen as important, so he will leak things that he shouldn’t leak, just to impress people and to let them know he knows something that they don’t.
That’s very high schoolish. But these are just some of the narratives running around. The media is currently claiming that McMaster has all about confirmed that Trump disclosed the city from which the intel was derived, but McMaster didn’t say that. The media is claiming that McMaster has implied Trump mentioned the city. That’s not what happened. McMaster is saying that they’re confusing what he’s admitted to with having released the name of the city, and that’s not… Anyway, that’s how in the weeds this all is, and it’s how desperate the Drive-Bys are to nail this. But, again, I want to note: James Comey and that story is off the front page.
I mean, it’s not there, folks. You can’t find it. Isn’t it interesting? It’s a perfect illustration of Drive-By Media. If you wonder why I call it that, this is it. They blow up a story, everything’s in tatters and smithereens, lives are destroyed, reputations ruined, and they’re on down the road waiting to do it again, not hanging around to help fix any of the damage they cause. So now, Comey’s in the rearview mirror and Trump and McMaster and national security are what we’re talking about.
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RUSH: We have another bite here from the H. R. McMaster press conference this morning, briefing, a Bloomberg operative said, “General McMaster, is there now an active investigation how this information was leaked? And can you tell us who’s running that investigation? I’d also like to ask you, given that President Trump’s now gonna meeting face-to-face with literally dozens of foreign leaders, if there are sensitivities to his discretion, in what sort of information to decide to declassify. How is that something that you are advising him ahead of this foreign trip?”
MCMASTER: There are no sensitivities in terms of me or anybody who’s been with the president in many of these engagements. He shares information in a way that is wholly appropriate. And I should just make maybe the statement here that the president wasn’t even aware, you know, of where this information came from. He wasn’t briefed on the source and method of the information, either.
RUSH: That, I’m convinced, is what they’re trying to say that McMaster said he doesn’t even know the city. And what McMaster here said, “The president wasn’t aware of where the information came from. He wasn’t briefed on the source or the method of the information, either.” So that I think is the source of confusion here on Trump not knowing the city that is involved. No answer on whether there is an investigation into the leaks. That’s open-ended too. There should have been one going on for months.
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RUSH: We have Pamela in Freeland, Michigan, next. Pamela, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I’m absolutely honored and excited to speak to you, and I have been listening to you since my son was a toddler, and he is now 31, and I quit my job to stay home with him. And so I’ve listened to you for a very long time. I absolutely love you so —
RUSH: That’s exactly what I appreciate, more than you know.
CALLER: Well, good. The thing that continues to go through my mind, with all this leaking coming out of the meetings with President Trump, why is it everyone’s so sure it’s a person and not that they literally have bugged the office? What is it that makes people think the previous administration was so honest that they wouldn’t do that?
RUSH: Now this is interesting. I must say, Pamela, I had not entertained that Obama had left the Oval Office bugged.
CALLER: Well, it’s how I think.
RUSH: Look, you know, folks, I don’t think so you can summarily reject anything that’s going on these days with stakes as high as they are, but there have to be security sweeps that go in there and they look for bugs. It’s gotta be a daily thing. So the sweepers have to be in on it and have to be lying about it, “No, there’s nothing here,” as they scope right by it. That’s a stretch, I think.