RUSH: The Trump administration has rejected Vladimir Putin’s request to question the former Russian ambassador for Obama. What was his name? McFaul or something? Now, just to show you, just to show you. Now, we made mention of this when this happened. I announced this, I suggested to you one of the reasons the Drive-Bys went ballistic is because it appeared to me that Putin and Trump coordinated a press conference little routine designed to mock and make fun of the media.

Because Trump said (imitating Trump and Putin exchange), “Well, you know, that’s an interesting idea, and I think Putin has something interesting to say about that. What is your point, Mr. President?” So Putin says, “I will make deal, I will make deal. I will let Mueller come to Russia to interrogate prisoners if I can interrogate people of my choosing in America.” Everybody went bonkers. Everybody went ballistic. Putin said that he wants to interrogate Americans!

And people said, “Well, so what? Mueller wants to interrogate Russians,” except Mueller really doesn’t. So for the past two days — this, to me, is comical — for the past two days the Trump administration has been leading the media to believe that it was considering actually sending Obama’s ex-ambassador to Russia back over to Putin for interrogation.

That ambassador — I think his name is McFaul — has been in the media, “This is outrageous. I cannot believe my country would not protect me against this kind of a direct assault from a leader of a foreign nation.” And I’m laughing myself silly because I know there’s no way Trump is gonna send anybody over there to Putin to be interrogated. That’s how people die. Have you noticed the number of people dying in the U.K. being poisoned by Russian agents?

Now, they’ve got a Russia problem. Russia’s actually poisoning people in the U.K. But I find amazing the Drive-Bys actually thought that the Trump administration was considering Putin’s deal. Of course, Robert Mueller is never going to go to Moscow. Robert Mueller and his team of bandits are never gonna head over there to interrogate these 13 Russians that they’ve indicted.

And, by the same token, Donald Trump was never going to send former Obama administrations over to Putin to be interrogated, but he let ’em dangle for a couple of days. Anyway, the White House just announced that they’ve rejected Putin’s request. (laughing) They really thought Trump would do it. See, this, to me, is so illustrative. They really thought Trump would do this, because you know, Putin owns Trump. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You’ve heard the latest, haven’t you?

“The only reason Trump isn’t bankrupt is that Putin has bankrolled Trump for the last 10 or 15 years. That’s why that’s why everybody wants to see Trump’s tax reports and tax returns because it’ll be made clear that if it weren’t for Putin and Russia and all their oligarchs that Trump would be dirt poor. He wouldn’t have anything. He owes Putin and Russia for all of his wealth. He doesn’t want anybody to find out, and that’s why Putin owns Trump.” That’s been going around, in case you haven’t heard it.

And that’s why people believe, “My gosh. Trump might actually send Obama’s ex-ambassador back to be interrogated. Anyway, it was never going to happen, but the fact that many in the media thought it might, tells you everything you need to know about what they think of Donald Trump.