RUSH: I think, folks — and I don’t mean this to be criticism. But I think Trump needs to keep in mind it’s not just him that the media is slandering and libeling. It’s everybody that supports him. Everybody that voted for him, everybody who donates to him, everybody who expresses anything positive about him is being treated this way as well.
The reason why I think it’s important for him to recognize this is because it’s a two-way street, and there are ways of reaching people on that basis. Trump’s… You know, look, it’s easy for performers and people in public to think that the show of support is one way: To you. It’s a common fallacy, I think, that a lot of public figures and performers make, and they get lost in their egos and heads, and they stop realizing that it goes both ways. You’ve gotta return it. Trump was great at this during the campaign.
Trump knew he had this bond with all these people at the rallies, all these people voting for him, and he gave them feedback in the form that he knew it and greatly appreciated it. I’m not saying he doesn’t do that anymore, but there’s a whole army of Trump voters out there that he can mobilize by simply recognizing and saying to all these people, “You know, it’s not just me you’re hitting. You’re hitting the people who are making this economy work. You are hitting and tarring and feathering the people who are making this country work right now. And it’s outrageous what you’re saying about the American people, not just me.”
You want to watch him skyrocket the polls?
Have that happen.
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RUSH: Go to Evansville, Indiana. This is Pat. It is the great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. I would just like to say to the listeners: This constant drumbeat that we hear from the negative mainstream media — when you hear words like racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, white supremacy — take those words and then think about your everyday experience — your friends, your family, the people that you interact with, the citizens of this country — and ask yourself how many of those people fall into any of those categories? It’s a minuscule, a minuscule amount. But the media, they want to portray this country and the citizens that way. The way they have misrepresented the citizens of this country, good people… This country is full of good people. And, sure, those things exist, but they’re just minuscule in numbers compared to the great and good, fine people. The people that I interact with every day on my job (crosstalk)
RUSH: Exactly right. This is why I think people you’re talking about react to it the way you are. They are repulsed by it and they’re angered by it. The media presents this stuff with certitude. This is the American people we’re talking about. They’ve got everybody believing that people that voted for Trump, Trump himself, are white supremacists. It’s the new racism. I don’t think they are aware, because they don’t care, of what kind of backlash they’re actually causing.
CALLER: Exactly, I… (crosstalk)
RUSH: How many white supremacists do you know, Pat? Literal white supremacists, not just racists. How many white supremacists have you met in your life?
CALLER: That’s it, Rush. You just made the point. That’s it. None. None. And most people listening and most of the citizens of this country don’t have relationships with or know any of those people or any of the phobias at all. That’s not what really is America. That’s not the reality. Bite you just played from Frank Luntz and your ensuing comments, that is what it is. That’s it. I mean, that’s truth. That’s reality. The mainstream media, I don’t understand why they want to cause — or seem to want to cause — division between people. The race relations of this country from what I see are better than they’ve ever been. The people that I interact with every day are just good people, and I don’t think they want to be referred to as a color. I don’t think we want to be white and black and whatever.
RUSH: Not only is that true… Look, you can say the same thing about the relationship that hetero and gay people have. Gay marriage is in 40 of the 50 states. Homosexuality is not nearly the divisive problem it used to be. People are accepting this day and age, and yet the media’s out trying to make the claim… You can find, if you look at the right person, that they’re calling Trump a homophobe as well as all this other stuff, and (chuckling) he hasn’t said a word about homosexuality, gay this or gay that. It’s just… You ask, “Why can the media do it?” Let me ask you: “Why do you think they’re doing it?”
CALLER: I don’t know. You know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I know you’ve talked about as far as in the education system, some of these professors, maybe there’s a Russian connection there, or why that… I don’t really want to go that far. But —
RUSH: Well, it’s not a… (crosstalk) No, no, it’s not a conspiracy. The media, they are left-wing activists. But I’ve got people telling me, “Rush, you’re giving that too much weight. Yeah, they’re liberals. But what they are is conformists. They all want to get along with each other. They all want to be seen as respectable and learned and on the right page, and so they all conform to whatever the popular instincts of liberalism are on a day-to-day basis.” I understand that, but I also think they hate Trump. They just hate. They have been poisoned with this hatred for Trump, and they’re trying to pull a Nixon. They’ll do anything at all to get rid of the guy as a testament to their power.
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RUSH: Kate in Bremerton, Washington, it’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you. You just made my heart leap just a few minutes ago when you gave the Trump the suggestion about how to include his followers in his rallies. I’ve been wondering for a long time how to best support him. I can’t donate to his campaign. I’m not an activist. I’ve really been kind of at a loss. I feel sorry for him. I pray for him. But when you suggested that he include us in the attacks that are being waged against him, it just made my heart soar because I finally know how I can support him. When he does that, when he brings us all in together, we kind of share the burden for him. It just made me feel so good.
RUSH: Well, that’s actually a great way to put it. Let me expand on it a little since I’m actually getting other emails from people who had similar reaction to you, which means it must have hit a nerve. By the way, this is not a criticism. The first thing I want to say is this is not a criticism. In context here, the comments every day about white supremacy and white nationalism and racism and we are mass shooters, we are responsible for mass shooters… It’s my theory that all of us are seething about this.
We’re seething with a controlled rage and anger. We’re really, really ticked off about it. But not just because they’re saying it about Trump. They’re saying it about us. And there are no limits to it. There’s no sense of responsibility. The media and these are whipping up genuine, uncontrolled rage and hatred with us as the focal point. We’re the enemy. We’re being made out as an enemy, when none of it is anywhere near the truth. Now, in Trump’s case, one of the things that he had going for him is something that he has naturally.
When he came down the escalator in 2015, began his campaign, and started doing the rallies… You’ve heard me speak of the bond. It’s an intangible thing. You can’t see it. You can see the results of it. You see smiling faces, long crowds, people lining up hours in advance, tolerant support, understanding support. Trump was returning it. Trump was letting everybody know how appreciative he was. He might spend 30 seconds in a rally acknowledging people. He might have spent two minutes.
But there was a point in every rally where he let everybody know that in the deepest part of his heart and soul, he loved them and appreciated them and knew that none of this would be happening without them — and they all knew it. Everybody at the rally, everybody in the Trump support system understood that and got it. He has that ability to silently, charismatically communicate with people. Well, now we are two, 2-1/2 years in.
I would submit to you there’s not a human being in electoral politics today who could have withstood even a small percentage of what Donald Trump has gotten. And he gets it all day, every day, and there’s not a break. And after 2-1/2 years of this, nobody could blame him for thinking that all of this is a one-way thing, that everybody’s out to get him. You couldn’t… I mean, he would be a fool not to think that, because it happens to be true.
But in this instance, I think the fact that all of this incoming — all of these attempts to literally ruin him and destroy his family, his businesses, his presidency, his life — are also being used on all of his supporters. Not that he has forgotten it, and not that he has begun to take anybody for granted. Don’t even think I’m going there. I’m just saying that after 2-1/2 years, put yourself in his shoes, and every day you wake up and you know what’s coming.
You’d be forgiven if you thought that you were the sole target of it.
You’d be forgiven if you thought everybody had it out for you.
All I’m saying is that if the president can once again begin to speak up for the people supporting him and act outraged, as we all are — mad as hell over the injustice of categorizing 60 million people the way they are categorizing him — it would rally people. It would revive people, if there is any of that necessary. But more than that, it would send the signal that Trump and his supporters are still bonded, everybody’s in and on the same page and motivated — and “armed,” if you will — for the future to continue what he was elected to do in 2016.
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RUSH: Look, folks, I think it’s nothing more than just a slight, little change in messaging. Not much at all. It’s the idea that when either the Democrat candidates, media, anybody that happens to get national airtime on cable news or in the newspaper article or whatever… When any of those people go after Trump as a racist, white supremacist, white nationalist, they’re smearing all of us — and it is that. It is a smear. We just had a caller. He doesn’t know anybody who is! He doesn’t know a white supremacist.
I don’t, either! I don’t think I’ve ever met one. The whole idea, the whole notion that they’re wandering around out there in great numbers and that they have some sort of impact in conservatism? I mean, it’s just absurd, and he need knows it. But we’re all being tarred and feathered with this. We’re all being smeared — and as the media go after him, it’s not just him they’re going after. So the more he aligns himself with his base, with his supporters, rather than continuing to rely on us aligning with him…
It’s a two-way street — and again, this is not a criticism. I don’t want anybody to be misunderstood. But during all this, I’m sure that people in the White House are worried about the impact. “Oh, my gosh. Are we losing people? Do you think this is affecting people?” They’re all asking each other, because some of them in there are not Trumpists. “Oh, my God. This stuff’s gotta be working.” No, no, no! The way to make sure that doesn’t happen is for Trump to continue to align himself with his supporters, as they continue to be loyal and align themselves with him.
Look, it’s a really subtle thing I’m talking about.
Not a big deal. It doesn’t require a full speech. It could be just a one-off comment. But I’m telling you, it would go a long way, because there’s a whole lot of people out here waiting to be represented. Go back to the Bush years. Remember when Rove and Bush would not respond to any of this horrible “Bush = Hitler” stuff that they were saying, and how you wondered what the hell was going on, because if they’re not willing to defend themselves, they’re not willing to defend you? I’m telling you, there’s a gold mine here. So that was really the point.
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RUSH: There’s one other question about this. This stuff that’s being said about Donald Trump, about us and about him — white supremacy, white nationalism. This is reprehensible, slanderous stuff. Where is the Republican Party? Where is the outrage from members of the president’s party? Why is it always left to conservative alternative media to express its outrage? Where are they? Well, we know the answer. It’s a rhetorical question. But isn’t it about time there came to be some unity in this pushback?
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RUSH: Now, grab audio sound bite 26. It just so happens this is sort of exactly what I was just talking about. CNN is beside itself over this. CNN and the rest of the Drive-By Media think this is a scandal. It just does not compute with them. It’s a sound bite from Trump in El Paso yesterday, and he’s at the University Medical Center meeting with the hospital staff, and this is the sound bite.
THE PRESIDENT: I was here three months ago, we made a speech. And we had a… what was the name of the arena? That place was (crosstalk from staff) packed, right? That was some crowd.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Thank you for all that you do. Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: And we had twice the number outside. And then you had this crazy Beto. Beto had like 400 people (laughter) in a parking lot.
RUSH: Okay, there’s Trump talking about his supporters, had all these people showing up, it was a great thing, he starts ripping into Beto, and the people there loved it! Trump is a real guy. He’s being authentic with them. This is his way of telling everybody how much appreciation he has for El Paso. So what if it means that a bunch of people showed up to a Trump rally?
But there he is acknowledging them and at the same time getting his dig — this guy Beto really is a whack job, folks. I mean, there’s no two ways about this. Beto O’Rourke is really a whack job and only in the Democrat Party would somebody who loses a Senate race somehow be launched as a presidential contender. Only in the Democrat Party of 2019 would that happen.
But CNN is doing entire segments on this, on how out of touch Trump is, he’s bragging about his crowd size when he’s supposed to be comforting the victims. Now, these are the people, what do they tell us? They tell us, “Stiff your prayers. We don’t care about your prayers, they’re meaningless. We don’t care about your prayers and good thoughts. They don’t do anything for anybody.”
Are these not the people that say this, the Drive-By Media and the Democrats? Your prayers and your thoughts, you can keep ’em because they don’t do anybody any good. So here’s Trump, and he’s not saying, “We’re praying for you and doing everything we can.” He’s coming in and he’s being a real guy with ’em. He’s coming in and he’s establishing a notion of things go on, life goes on kind of normalcy.”
You can think what you want it, obviously, but CNN and the rest of the Drive-Bys think this is classic illustration of how Trump is long gone egomaniac. Can’t think of anybody but himself, makes everything about him, ew, he’s just so offensive, he makes everything about him. So do you! You people at CNN can’t leave him alone! Everything you do is about Trump!
You ever stop to think of it that way? CNN would have nothing to talk about if the subject of Donald Trump ended up being banned for just one day, what would CNN do? What would they have to talk about? Absolutely nothing. And the way they talk about Trump is never-ending character assassination, never-ending slander, never-ending criticism.
And then Trump might respond to it and that is really bad. He’s not supposed to respond to critics. That’s so unpresidential. That’s just horrible. Man, I’ll tell you, when you talk about people who are out of touch and have no idea what people in El Paso are really going through — that’s another thing that gets me. These people in the Drive-By Media presume to know how everybody’s feeling. They presume to think everybody hates Trump and that nobody wants Trump there. They presume to think that everybody hates guns. They presume to think that anybody that donated for Trump needs to be called out.
Talk about wild, presumptuous behavior not anchored in any kind of reality. Anyway, he drives ’em crazy.