RUSH: Politico: “Trump Pledges to ‘Weed out’ Administration Officials He Does Not Trust.” Now, this is interesting because it was just today, last night, whenever, that the first lady, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with ABC. People ask, “What in the world is going on? Why in the world is she doing that?” She’s never been on a magazine cover, fashion magazine or otherwise. It was in this interview…
The big take-away that the Drive-Bys have is that Melania said… Well, here. (interruption) Grab audio sound bite No. 12. I think… Yes. This is it. Yep, this is it. She’s talking to Tom Llamas (or Llamas, I’m not sure how he pronounces it), on Good Morning America. She has an anti-cyberbullying initiative. And he said, “What happened to you personally that made you want to tackle this issue?”
MELANIA: I could say I’m the most bullied person in the world.
LLAMAS: You think YOU’RE the most bullied person in the world?
MELANIA: One of them. If you really see what people are saying about me. That’s why I, you know, the best initiative is focusing on social media and online behavior. We need to educate the children of social, emotional behavior so when they grow up and they know how to deal with those issues.
RUSH: Okay. So understandably, the Drive-Bys, “What? You think you’re the most bullied person in the world?” She said, one of them. The Drive-Bys are perplexed. They can’t… That doesn’t compute to them. They don’t understand how a woman of privilege and wealth, even though she has to be married to some reprobate like Trump, it happens, is how they look at it. “How in the world can she run around and say has he seen bullied?” Which is a clear indication that they have no perception themselves and how they behave.
But this is not the take-away. This is not the take-away from the interview. This is what everybody’s focused on. She said something far, to me, more interesting and relevant. Without getting into the Q&A of it, she essentially said that there are people in her husband’s administration that she doesn’t trust that are right there in the West Wing and that the president doesn’t trust ’em, either. And it was just hanging out there all by itself all morning long.
The Drive-Bys reported it, but they were focusing on the bully business, and then shortly after this Politico story hits. “President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will ‘weed out’ individuals inside his administration who he does not like, echoing remarks from his wife,” the bullied Melania Trump. Well, it doesn’t say that, but you know they wanted to write it.
“During a live phone interview Thursday morning with Fox & Friends, the president said ‘It was “more true” in the past, when he was first establishing himself in Washington, that he distrusted members of his team. But he cited U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who announced her resignation this week, as an example of the ‘great people’ who now fill his administration. Trump said he would do away with those he does not like.
“‘Are there some I’m not in love with? Yes. We’ll weed them out slowly,’ the president said.” Well, she said that this is not coincidence. This is not happenstance so Melania and Trump both are putting staff in the West Wing on notice. Trump also said… We’ll get to it. We’ll get to it. I don’t want to jump ahead. Let’s go to the audio sound bites starting with No. 13. This is Trump calling into Fox & Friends today. He’s talking to Steve Doocy. Doocy said, “You took some heat yesterday, Mr. Trump, with going ahead in that rally in Pennsylvania despite the hurricane.”
THE PRESIDENT: I really had very little heat other than the natural haters, of which there are obviously some. We had thousands of people lined up by the time I had to make a decision; so my decision was, do I want to tell people that were waiting 10 and 12 hours already that I’m not coming? And I just thought it would be… We’re talking about thousands of people, you know? When they get there that early and you know, that area obviously is not affected at all by it. We had it under great control. I don’t think, really, the heat was very hot. Relative to other things, I think it was very minor.
RUSH: So the president’s essentially saying, look, these people that lined up, they expected me to show up. I follow through. I do what I say I’m gonna do. The hurricane was gonna do what it did, and there’s nothing I could have done about it last night when I was in this rally. My people are down there working on it. We got it covered. I can do both, and I’m following through on the commitment. So the next question from The Dooce. “Somebody who is probably not gonna vote for you, Eric Holder, former attorney general, said, ‘They go low; we kick ’em,’ and the whole room, Mr. President, started clapping and cheering when he said that. What does that say to you about the tenor of politics today?”
THE PRESIDENT: Better be careful what he’s wishing for, that I can tell you. He better careful what he’s wishing for.
DOOCY: (laughing) What do you mean?
THE PRESIDENT: That’s a disgusting statement for him to make. It’s a very dangerous statement. Holder was held in contempt by Congress. Holder went after Christians. He went after our great evangelicals. He went after the Tea Party people. You know that. They just settled. The IRS just settled that case. Holder is… He’s got some problems.
RUSH: They’re not used to be being talked to like this! In the old days Eric Holder could say whatever he said and the Republicans would whimper away or not even acknowledge or they would say, (impression) “We, in the strongest terms, we denounce the rhetoric uttered by Attorney General Holder… I thin it’s a bit much. It’s totally uncalled for and we routinely unilaterally condemn it.” Trump says (laughinh), “He better be careful what he’s wishing for. That I can tell you. He’d better be careful what he’s wishing for.” Now, the stock market’s been kind of seesawing.
It’s been roller coastering, and Trump is suspicious as he can be of it. And let me just tell you something, folks. There are a number of wealthy Democrat Wall Street types, investors, people that run hedge funds who I am convinced would willingly take a bit of a financial hit to their wealth and businesses, primarily their businesses, not their wealth. But they would incur some pain, if it meant lowering economic activity enough to hurt Trump. I have no doubt that there are enough Looney Tunes on the left who would willingly do this.
I think they’re that desperate, as a previous caller said. And, of course, it flies in the face. The Democrats and the media tried to say, “This is a new age. Yeah, the economy’s doing well, but the president’s not gonna get any credit for that. People don’t even believe it. Look at our polling data. People…” Obviously, that’s not true. I think they’re terribly worried that this great economy is gonna be greatly beneficial not just to Trump but the Republicans in the midterms. And so there’s some monkeying going on with interest rates is the point. It’s causing the stock market to roller coaster. Trump pointed out to him that yesterday was not a good day for investors.
THE PRESIDENT: The Federal Reserve is getting a little bit too cute, that’s all. When I took over this economy, this economy was ready to crash. We were at 1% GDP. Now we’re at 4.2%. It was ready to crash. It was the worst, if you look from the Great Depression, it was the worst recovery in the history of on you are country. And Obama threw tremendous money at it. Don’t forget, Obama was playing with zero money. So he was playing with funny money. He was… It was very easy. I’m paying interest at a high rate because of our Fed, and I’d like our Fed not to be so aggressive because I think they’re making a big mistake.
RUSH: Translation: He is worried, maybe accusing the Federal Reserve of raising interest rates because the economy’s chugging along so well that traditional inside-the-Beltway Washington gets very worried when the economy’s going great. My whole life I’ve noticed this and my whole life I have been perplexed by this. I’ve asked myself why…? And let’s look at the Fed here as the establishment in this story. Why is a great performing and growing economy so threatening to official Washington?
And it is, because every time the economy starts chugging, what does the Fed do? They leak, they leak that they are thinking of raising rates. And what does that do? That chills activity in equities markets. If these people think the Feds are gonna start raising rates, people start selling rather than buying and investing. What Trump is saying, he thinks this is being done purposefully to slow down the economy at the time totally unnecessary for it, right before an election, and he’s calling them out!
It’s another thing previous Republican presidents would not do. He’s calling out the Fed. (impression) “Mr. Limbaugh, doesn’t Trump run the Fed?” No. He may appoint the Federal Reserve chairman, but no. Day to day, no way. And the Federal Reserve chairman, the odds are that a number of the board of governors gonna be, you know, a bunch of commie leftists, as they are at many financial institutions. They’re not gonna be particularly crazy about Trump, despite how much wealth they are earning because of Trump. So Trump’s calling them out on it.
He says there’s no reason to raising rates right now! Right before the election, slowing things down. So they react to it. And this roller coaster stock market day actually ended up being only a one-day roller coaster. I think there’s positive action today. I will check it. Let’s see. One more thing here. Do we have…? Yeah. Ainsley Earhardt said, “Your wife recently had an interview. She said there are people in the White House she doesn’t trust, people you don’t trust. You have to watch your back. Is that true? And if that is the case, why do those people you don’t trust still in the administration?”
THE PRESIDENT: We have great people now working. Are there some that I’m not in love with? Yes. And we’ll weed them out slowly but surely.
EARHARDT: There have been some other embarrassing leaks. Are you any closer to figuring out who these people are?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me tell you about leaks. I think a lot of the leaks are not leaks. They’re made up by the newspapers. The media’s very, very dishonest, beyond anything that anybody can understand. Now, even the letter written to the Times, there is a chance, there is a very good chance that that was written by the Times. I wouldn’t be that surprised ’cause the Times is totally corrupt and dishonest.
RUSH: Where did you first hear that? Right here. Who was the first and maybe the only person to suggest that the Times itself wrote that piece? That memo, that supposed memo written by an angry staffer in the Trump administration claiming they’re up close and personal and the president doesn’t know what he’s doing, but don’t worry, there are adults in the room, and we’re doing everything we can to stop this guy. (impression) “We’re conservatives and we love this…” And they started a massive manhunt to find out who did this, and they couldn’t find anybody.
And I think on the first day, on the first day, we’d have to go back and check the transcripts, but I think it was the first day. I told everybody. I don’t believe this. I think the Times made this up, I think they wrote it and they are telling us that somebody in the administration wrote it, but I think this is somebody from the editorial board, the editorial staff, one of the op-ed people. This is a New York Times creation. I think they are that big a wit’s end.
I think they are that frustrated. I think they have trade everything that has always worked to destroy Republican presidents, and it just bounces off of Trump. Nothing hurts him, much less gets rid of him, and I think they’re at their wit’s end. And I think they’ve run out of things, pages in the playbook, run out of weapons, run out of plays, and they’re inventing things now. And this I think is what happened. I was the first to say so. And there’s the proof. If he’s saying it, the odds are pretty good that he knows it.