RUSH: To the audio sound bites. Trump last night in Charleston, West Virginia. Trump is an amazing figure in a lot of ways. But as Drudge headlined in the Drudge Report yesterday it was hell hour for Trump, hell afternoon. The media talking about the darkest days of Trump’s presidency, could the end be near? And everybody was thinking, “Oh, my God. This is it. They’re finally gonna get rid of Trump.”
And Trump is not staying in the White House sulking or getting mad. He went out to a previously scheduled campaign rally in West Virginia, he gets off Air Force One in Charleston on his way to the rally speaking with reporters about the verdict in the Manafort trial.
THE PRESIDENT: It doesn’t involve me but I still feel, you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do — this is a witch hunt, and it’s a disgrace. This has nothing to do what they started out — looking for Russians involved in our campaign; there were none. This is the way it ends up. And it was not the original mission, believe me. It was something very much different. So it had nothing to with Russian collusion. We continue the witch hunt.
RUSH: He talks to ’em and he takes all questions. And he fires right back at ’em and tells ’em they don’t know what they’re talking about. Up next we now go to the rally and the crowd ate this up. This is Trump slamming the National Football League and firing up the crowd.
THE PRESIDENT: The people of West Virginia, they’re loyal, they’re hardworking, they’re true American patriots. Remember that. (cheers) They are great, they are great people. And, my friends, thank you very much. I love you too. Guy, it’s a guy, but I love you too. You’re proud of our country, you’re proud of our history, and unlike the NFL, you always honor and cherish our great American flag.
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on! Unlike the NFL. (laughing) The poor NFL is sitting there struggling, “What do we do? How do we get out of this?” And then Trump just the keeps piling on ’em. And next up he had some comments about ESPN and the NFL.
THE PRESIDENT: It was just announced by ESPN that rather than defending our anthem, our beautiful, beautiful national anthem, and defending our flag, they’ve decided that they just won’t broadcast when they play the national anthem. (crowd booing) We don’t like that. So while the players are kneeling — some of them; not all of them at all — you’re all proudly standing for our national anthem. Thank you. (cheers) The ESPN thing was terrible.
RUSH: The ESPN thing was terrible. Now, that crowd at that rally in West Virginia, I’m gonna tell you, folks, do not doubt me on this. The swamp watches that, the media watches it, and they have two thoughts that go through their mind. The first one is, they can’t believe it! They think they destroyed Trump yesterday! They can’t believe that Trump is out having a good time after that happened! And they can’t believe that so many people showed up still willing to support Trump, to applaud Trump, to cheer Trump. It just grates on them!
But then the second thing they realize is, we don’t care. It’s just a bunch of chumps from West Virginia. It doesn’t matter. They’re Trump supporters anyway. Screw it. But I guarantee you these people are reliving Watergate. They’re trying to recreate it. And in Watergate, they did have the country aligned and unified against Nixon. They did. It was very easy back then. They owned everything. Every media outlet they owned. ABC, CBS, NBC.
There was no CNN back then, either. The New York Times, the Washington Post, they owned it, folks. They were able to dictate and create public opinion. And they succeeded in driving Nixon’s numbers down to the point that he had to resign rather than face impeachment. They’ve been trying to do that with Trump since he was elected. They haven’t been able to do it. Trump’s approval numbers are still hovering around 50. Believe me, that grates on ’em. They can’t believe it. It ticks ’em off. And seeing these rallies ticks them off.
But at the end they’ll still end up in denial by saying, “It’s just a bunch of chumps in West Virginia who don’t know what’s going on.” So I would take the occasion here of repeating something from yesterday. I was reading a sports website and the comments to a column on that website about kneeling during the anthem and protesting it and so forth. And a reader had an idea.
And here is the idea. What if before the national anthem at every game, the stadium observed a moment of silence for social injustice. The PA announcer could read something like this: “Ladies and gentlemen, the National Football League and the home team,” whatever it is, “strongly believe in equality and social justice. And as Americans and as human beings, we should all strive to be kind to each other, and we should all treat each other with dignity and respect regardless of race, color, gender, creed, religion, or sexual orientation while in this stadium today and after we leave and go about our lives. We will now observe a moment of silence to reflect on those who have suffered injustice in our society. Thank you.”
And then during this moment of silence for social injustice and its legion of victims, players would be free to kneel, to stand, to raise a fist, to lock arms, whatever they wanted to do in protest. But when it was over, the anthem would play, and the players could not kneel. And we had a young Millennial call here yesterday that thought this was a brilliant idea. I first thought it was a seminar caller. And as I kept probing, I kept investigating, I came to realize and understand the caller actually thought it was a great idea. Which I’m also gonna be honest and tell you that it really stunk.