RUSH: So good to be back, folks. Great to be here. Thanks to the “best of” host yesterday, which was me on tape, and a great best-of show yesterday. Well, the audience is always suggesting I don’t show enough gratitude to guest hosts, so I want to thank myself for appearing yesterday here on tape. We’re back at it here. It’s 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.
All right. The assassination of Donald Trump and anybody else in his near orbit that they can touch continues unabated today. The narrative, the Drive-By news. By the way, I don’t know how many of you have taken up my suggestion. It was not a command. It was not an order. It was a suggestion. Just turn off the news, ’cause there isn’t any news anymore, just turn it off. I have, going on now 10 days — you know, two five day weeks.
Honestly, folks, I can’t tell you how much my perception of things in general, the country, so forth, and my mood are so much improved. It’s not smoke. I’m not exaggerating here at all. As an illustration, we were guests of some buddies over in the Bahamas over the weekend on Sunday and Monday. And after playing golf all day Saturday, man, oh, man, my golf game — there are so many life lessons in golf. I wish you people didn’t go stick-to-the-issues crazy when I start talking about golf because there’s really some instructive stuff here that I could share with you.
But, anyway, after golf all day, we had dinner. A bunch of people at the host’s home, a bunch of people who also have homes at this place in the Bahamas. It was an august group of people. I’m not gonna mention any names because these things are all private and I didn’t ask anybody if I could quote them or mention them so I’m not going to.
But the point is that it was a getaway, it was fun, but at dinner all anybody wanted to talk to me about was the news, which, look, I’m not complaining. I understand it. But before that began, you know, there are stages at a dinner party. You have the adult beverage, the cocktail hour and the hors d’oeuvres are passed around and people that don’t know each other are getting to know each other. You’re sizing up who you want to avoid and who you don’t want to talk to, and who you’d like to meet and so forth. You do all that and then you sit down to dinner and after everybody’s gotten to know each other, familiarity sets in, people let loose and start opening up.
And it was exhilarating because many of the people there did not have my take on things. It’s always exhilarating when you have a point of view that a lot of people haven’t considered. You see their eyes light up or, in some cases, they start muttering. (laughing) But it was exhilarating and it was fun. It was persuasive. It was a home run night, I have to tell you. But at the same time it caused all the angst that talking about this stuff causes. I’m not complaining about it. It was just an illustration.
So I tried to veer it away. There was an NFL owner there, so I tried to steer the conversation away after we’d spent ample time on the country and Trump. What I always try to do, ’cause I’m a great conversational, folks, probably nobody better. You know how to be a great conversationalist? Just ask people about themselves and shut up and let ’em go and they’ll think you’re the best conversationalist in the world. They’ll think you’re cool and hip, and you haven’t said a word. You just gotta ask the right questions and get them launching ’cause everybody loves to talk about themselves.
And in this case the people that were talking about themselves, it was fascinating to listen. There was a wide range of professionalism there. I wouldn’t call these people jobholders. These are CEOs and owners and so forth. You get them talking about themselves and it’s literally fascinating and a learning opportunity. I’ve always said one of the greatest perks of my success has been the entree to meet people I otherwise would not have met and be able to talk to ’em, pick their brains and so forth.
It was all good. But it starts off lighthearted, we’re playing golf and so forth and then you get to dinner and it wasn’t tense or nervous or anything, but it changed the mood, understandably. We’re divided. So I, in my own mind want to save the day after saying what I had to say, after persuading the people I had to persuade, or giving it a good shot, then steered this stuff away. I’m just telling you, it makes a remarkable difference in two things: your own mood and your perception of things that are going on the country.
It doesn’t mean that you hide. I’m not talking about building boundaries around yourself where you ignore things. You can’t do that, and you people are way too informed and involved to ever do that. I’m just saying buy yourself some time away from it and don’t expose yourself to just one-sided BS, which is all the news is anymore. You’re watching a hit squad. I don’t care what network you watch. Some networks have less of a hit squad, but there are hit squad types on every network. Some networks are all hit squad all the time, and some networks just have a few assassins scattered throughout the day. That would be Fox. PMSNBC and CNN are all hit squad all the time.
And their narrative is, “Our democracy is in peril. Our country is in giant trouble. We have ticked off the Germans. We’ve made Angela Merkel mad.” Can you believe Angela Merkel, to show you how things have changed, not just here but in the world, Angela Merkel after the big G7 meeting where Trump upbraids her for not participating thoroughly and fully in NATO and basically not groveling like every other president has, you know, she’s running for reelection. She went to a beer hall I think in Munich and she wanted to give people a dose of reality. And you know what she said, essentially?
I’m paraphrasing. Essentially she said, “The days of us being able to count on others are over. From this day forward, we’re going to have to take care of ourselves.” And she was praised, as though it was meritorious. As though it was a problem, it was a change for the worse, that Germany was gonna have to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. In the old days, like five years ago, if you said that you wanted to depend on yourself and that you wanted to be self-reliant, self-sufficient, it was praiseworthy. But Angela Merkel goes out there and starts talking about all this, “Well, I guess we can’t depend on them.”
It’s 180 degrees out of phase. And I think, you know, Trump on this trip I think is the same Trump who’s there all the time. For example, I don’t believe Donald Trump is distracted. I don’t think Donald Trump is sitting in the residence of the White House playing with marbles like Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny. I don’t think that he’s troubled. I think that he is solid, knows where he is. I think he’s watching less of the news. He still tweets a lot, but I think he’s watching less.
My point, I don’t think Trump is anywhere near the place that the Drive-Bys portray him as being every day. I don’t think he’s barely hanging on. I don’t think his psyche is about ruined. I don’t think that he is depressed and down in the dumps. And I don’t think it’s any time soon that the cops are gonna catch him on the road, DUI, with a horrible mug shot not knowing where he is or how he got there. What a sad, sad, sad, sad and all too predictable story with Tiger Woods, which of course I will get into a little bit later.
See, I have a different narrative in the country here today, folks. My narrative is (and the facts support this narrative) American voters saved this country as we know it. My narrative is that Barack Obama is the one using intelligence agencies to spy on Americans. Barack Obama was the guy setting up back-channel communication links to the Iranians in order to do the prelude to a nuke deal that allows the Iranians to eventually have nuclear weapons. It was Barack Obama back channeling that. Barack Obama — even as a candidate — was doing such things.
Barack Obama was back channeling with Vladimir Putin via his foreign secretary at the time, Medvedev. Remember the old comment, the open mic? (paraphrased)”Hey, tell Vladimir to relax. I’ll have a little bit more flexibility after the election.” He was talking about reducing the American nuclear weapons arsenal. These are the kind of things that were destroying this country, not to mention the cultural rot that has been promoted, inspired, and amplified by the American left. This country was on the verge of being transformed away from its founding.
If Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, she would have been on the road to completing the Obama transformation. We wouldn’t have the Supreme Court justice nominee and confirmation that we got. We wouldn’t have any of the good things that Trump has done. You and I… In fact, this has always been my explanation of people about why there’s not unity on the Republican side in opposition to Democrats, why there’s not unity among conservatives. I’ve always told you it’s because — particularly in New York and Washington — Republicans, conservatives do not believe that we were in a crisis.
They don’t think we’re anywhere near losing the country. They think that you and I and people who believe that the last presidential election was gonna be determinative in the kind of county…? They laugh at that. They don’t think we’re anywhere near that kind of condition. “We’re not losing the country! You guys are crazy.” There’s a sizable component of the Republican Party that thinks that, and a sizable component of the northeastern conservative — call it media movement or what have you — simply do not believe that there’s this crisis because they don’t live it.
Where they live, they’re fine. There’s no crisis. They’re perpetual minority dwellers anyway, and they’re comfortable there. That’s their assigned role in life. But you and I, it’s a much different take. We’re on the verge of losing much of the foundation that defined this country. So that’s a big wall there or a big division when it comes to unity. Then you add, you know, the problems… (chuckle) I hear Mitch McConnell, “I just don’t seeee… I just don’t seeeeeeee… I just don’t see how I’m gonna get to 50 votes on this health care bill.” For crying out loud! Before they had the majority, they said, “Well, you know, we only have the House.
“We don’t have the White House, don’t have the Senate. We can’t really stop Obama.” So we gave the Senate. “Well, yeah, but now we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate.” So we gave them the Senate with 52 votes, and then the White House. And now they can’t… We’re back down to 50 votes they can’t find, not 60. Now we can’t even find 50, when we have 52 Senators on our side! Did you see where a bunch of eighth graders were in Washington on a field trip and half of them refused to pose for a picture with Paul Ryan? I saw some video of these eighth graders, and listened to them talk about why (chuckles) and I swear they were robots.
They were repeating what they have to be hearing in class from their teachers — and, perhaps, also at home. (interruption) Yeah, I mean, it was eighth graders. How old are you in eighth grade, 14? (interruption) How old’s an eighth grader? I forgot. Thirteen, 14? I mean, it was literal… It was the same kind of hate that you hear out of Maxine Waters — who really did some hate on a constituent in California. We have that audio sound bite coming up. Eighth graders, folks, half of them. One of these kids (impression), “I just couldn’t see myself standing in a photo with a man who puts his party ahead of country.”
An eighth grader? The Speaker of the House puts his party ahead of the country? Where does an eighth grader get that? Has to be… They don’t come out of the womb thinking things like that, and they’re not that far out of the womb in the eighth grade. I mean, they’re still largely the product of influence, inculcation, indoctrination, propaganda. So, yeah, my narrative is — and it’s supported by the facts — that American voters, you, saved the country as we know it. It was Obama and his team that were purposely undermining the America that we all love.
There’s always gonna be an America, but there are some people that don’t like it, never have liked it and want it to be much different. And Obama led that group. Spying on… We now know, by the way, we have a pretty good idea that it was John Brennan (who voted for the Communist Party candidate 1980) that got all this started. It was John Brennan who went to Obama, said, “We’ve got a basis here for…” Not a premise, not evidence. “We have a basis for spying on Trump and his campaign, for the purposes of destroying him,” and it didn’t stop after Trump won the presidency.
The spying and the efforts to destroy continued. Hillary Clinton would have covered all of that up, but voters blew up the plan. It was Obama and Hillary who represented the clear and present threat to the democratic processes that underlie our republic, not Trump, not Jared Kushner, not Paul Manafort, not Cory Lewandowski. (chuckles) I mean, it’s striking, the names that are continually targeted by assassination hit squad. Has anybody else noticed the pattern starting with the early days of Trump’s campaign, where the media decide they’re gonna take down a member of his circle?
Not the Democrats, folks. Who was the first to tell you…? Remember how revolutionary an idea you thought it was? Who was the first to tell you that Democrat Party’s an afterthought now? Electorally, it hardly exists. They keep losing elections. But they’re not running the left anymore. The media is. That’s the engine, the fuel and the engine. They’re the ones mounting this hit squad, not the Democrats. The Democrats are just along for the ride.