Yeah, yeah, I just have two more soundbites on this.
But look, it was all over the place.
I mean, we've just chosen some.
We've got the ban on MSNBC.
It was all over all these networks on practically every show.
I don't know.
I'm surprised I'm the only person who had that reaction in the media.
I guess I shouldn't be, but I am to the Trump press conference.
Anyway, greetings, folks.
Great, great, great to have you here.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882 and the email address LRushbo at EIVnet.com.
You know what, Mike?
Grab Britt Hume.
This is quite illustrative, too.
Let me read through this.
Number 20.
Have somebody, number 20 standing by for me to plug in here in just a second.
This business that Trump doesn't like scrutiny.
And you'll forgive me.
I'm really not trying to interject myself into this, but in order to actually be complete in trying to make my point, I think I can trade on personal experiences I've had with the media to make the point that I'm trying to make here.
And I predicted what happened, and it happened, predicted what would happen, and that is that the narrative of that press conference would change from Trump and whatever he did or didn't do with donations to the vets to Trump's behavior, to Trump not wanting scrutiny, to Trump bullying the media, to Trump this, which is what happened.
What that really shows is that Trump can change the media narrative, and they hate that too.
They didn't want the media narrative changed, but they had no choice.
Once Trump took it in that direction, they had to report it, and they love it when it becomes about them.
Most people do.
And so they were very at home and very comfortable changing the narrative or the soap opera storyline, the script, to how mean Trump was and how Trump's mean and he bullies the media and he doesn't like scrutiny and Trump wants a compliant media like Putin has.
We already have that.
It's the point.
We have a state-controlled media.
You know, I say this, people think that I'm joking and I halfway am, but we have a slavish media.
We have a White House press corps that doesn't have a single Republican in it.
We have a White House press corps and have had for all of the Obama administration, which has never once been adversarial with him.
They have never once explored the details of Obamacare.
They have never once exposed any of the lies Obama told in selling and promoting Obamacare.
Not a single time.
The press, as we have discussed on countless occasions, when they cover Obama, it's from one standpoint.
Will Obama get what he wants?
Will Obama succeed?
Will the villains, will the Republicans succeed in stopping Obama?
Will these mean Republicans deny Obama what he wants?
And that's the coverage.
So when Obamacare came up, it wasn't what's in it.
And whenever anybody did expose the contents, they were attacked as people who were partisan and couldn't be trusted and were doing everything they could to deny Obama his signature achievement.
What his signature achievement was was of no concern to the media.
So this business of Trump wants a state-controlled media, we've, for all intents and purposes where Obama's concern, we have it.
With state-controlled media, as far as we're concerned, we have it with Hillary.
And I think that's what I heard yesterday.
I mean, here's the one line that's a perfect summation of what Trump was saying yesterday.
Quote, I don't mind scrutiny.
What I don't like is lies.
You can scrutinize me all day long, but you set up false premises.
You state things about me that are not true, and then you run stories on that.
And today, the media is back at it, as usual.
Their descriptions of yesterday's press conference read almost like they are determined to prove that Trump is right about them.
You know, you can't imagine.
Hillary Clinton has had a press conference, and they're counting in days in 170 days.
Hillary Clinton has a press conference in half a year.
And the last press conference she did was at the UN.
And it ended when the press started getting too close because Hillary chose a United Nations press corps that she didn't think was up to speed on her email problems and other things, her lack of book sales and this and that.
And they were, because that was largely in some of the international press.
But the minute they got close, she canceled it, walked out.
Yesterday, Judicial Watch deposed a bunch of Clinton associates, and it was, I don't remember, I don't recall.
I forgot.
I didn't know 40, 50 times.
Cheryl Middleton, I don't know.
I don't recall.
I didn't know.
I had no idea.
I wasn't aware.
But there's no scrutiny of that.
There's just reporting of it.
And maybe even some slight applause for Mrs. Clinton escaping the evil clutches of the partisan operatives at Judicial Watch.
I mean, let's not fool ourselves here and get off point and pretend that anything has changed with the media.
The media is still walking agents of the Democrat Party.
And their objective is the advancement of the Democrat Party agenda, whatever it happens to be.
And part and parcel of that is discrediting as much as they can people that stand in the way of the advancement of that agenda, wherever they are found.
Britt Hume, listen to this.
This is not criticism of Britt Hume.
This is fascinating, in fact.
Britt Hume is a longtime journalist.
He is a veteran of many years in the business.
ABC News, Fox News.
He's been there, done that, seen it all.
And he was on with Megan Kelly last night.
And she said, Trump basically said, this is who I am.
Get used to it.
I'm not changing.
If you ask me if this is how it's going to be after I'm in the White House, you keep treating me this way, and this is how it's going to be.
And this is what Britt Hume said.
Listen carefully.
Why he would be so angry about people raising questions about a claim that he made, it strikes me that this is what journalists do.
This is what we do.
We ask questions about the claims that politicians make.
He made a claim, questions were raised, and he got his nose out of joint to the point where he was calling out reporters by name, calling them names in a way that I've never seen a presidential candidate do in my memory.
You rarely see it shown in this public way by someone who is obviously takes it all so personally.
And if he has that frame of mind as president, he will have a terribly hard time.
Wait a minute.
You mean it isn't personal?
All this time, and it's not personal?
See, I've been under the impression that it is all personal.
I know damn well the things that the drive-bys do to me is personal.
It certainly isn't professional.
But then, even before that, why would Trump be so angry about people raising questions about a claim that he made?
Strikes me this is what journalists do.
This is what we do.
Okay, translated, that means what journalists do is not believe what people say, treat them as liars, and demand that they prove that they are not.
I first became aware of this.
The terminology is very clearly.
I remember early on in this program, I went and did a rush to excellence performance somewhere, it might have been Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
And we held the event in a place that held, I think, 3,000 people, and there were two protesters outside.
And the media called and talked to me about the two protesters.
Not what happened at my event, not what I said, not that 3,000 people loved it, but they wanted to know my reaction to the two people, a mother and daughter who showed up outside the event.
It was a pathetic protest.
And in their coverage, Limbaugh claimed two people, only two people, I didn't claim anything.
I stated it was true.
The use of the word claim, I am convinced, is taught in journalism school.
So whoever the media is covering says something.
They assert something or they explain something.
It's immediately treated as a claim, which means it isn't true necessarily.
Could be, but we don't know yet because this guy is powerful and therefore he's a liar.
The odds are he could be lying.
So we have to treat this as a lie, which means we have to automatically distrust.
We have to automatically suspect what somebody says to us.
And we do that by referring to it as a claim.
As you go forward reading news, look for that word.
You'll find it in practically every story that's about a person.
So-and-so claimed that when I would explain, they'd ask, how large is your audience?
I'd give them the numbers that come from radio research, audience research group.
Limbaugh claims an audience of, but they go find some critic that doesn't have access to those numbers and ask him what he thinks.
He happens to be a so-called expert in talk radio that nobody's ever heard of.
No, no, no, Limbaugh's audience is about half that.
Limbaugh claims his audience is what it is, which lie about it if it can be disproven.
But the story ends up being, and I am lying, that the expert at the trade magazine is the guy who knows really what the truth is.
And this is how they do it.
That's why I'm upset when anybody in the meeting claims I said something because it's an automatic statement of we think you're lying.
And we're going to tell our readers that you're lying.
And we're going to tell our readers that we don't trust you.
And we're going to tell our readers that we're going to be investigating you.
And we're going to get to the bottom of you because you're claiming things.
Take some time to actually notice the use of that word as you go forth reading news.
It's still used.
It's constant.
And as Britt Hume says here, we journalists don't want what this is what we do.
We don't trust you.
We don't believe you.
We investigate you.
Fine.
But you don't investigate Bill Clinton.
You don't investigate Hillary Clinton.
You don't investigate Barack Obama.
You don't investigate their policies.
You don't investigate the results of their policies.
All you do is try to expose the critics of those policies as somehow flawed, dishonest, or what have you.
Even there's this book now made into a movie, Clinton Cash out there.
You can't get it noticed by the drive-by media.
And when it is noticed, the author claims.
Peter Schweitzer claims in his book, Peter Schweitzer claims that Mrs. Clinton, Peter Schweitzer claims that Bill Clinton.
But Hillary Clinton never gets a question about the specifics.
And all Peter Schweitzer's doing is what we're told journalists are supposed to do.
He's investigating.
Hillary has claimed that the foundation is doing this, and she's claimed that she's raised this money.
She's claimed that she got this for speeches.
Well, Schweitzer's out there investigating, and Schweitzer's the bad guy.
In the drive-by media, Schweitzer's the bad guy.
And that's, I'm, look, that's all Trump is doing here.
I don't think, I actually think if you want to know the truth, in his own way, Trump loves scrutiny.
Trump loves the attention.
Trump's proud of what he does.
He's proud of his achievements.
He's proud of the buildings he built.
What he doesn't like is when people don't believe that he did what he did, don't believe him when he says what he says, and try to expose him as a liar, which is what this was.
He's out there claiming he donated $6 million to charity, and they're out there trying to prove that he lied about it, that he never intended to, that he may even be keeping some of the money personally.
Now they're saying that since the money was not donated all the way back in January, some of it not until a week or two ago, that that's evidence that Trump never intended to give the money.
We forced him to do it with our scrutiny.
Well, I may be the only person in big media to recognize all the bills.
I will guarantee you that there are millions of people in this audience and elsewhere across the country who had the same reaction to this that I did, who think it's about time somebody reacted to the media this way, because there's no, you might have a problem with Trump calling a guy a sleaze to his face.
You might, I mean, I'm not.
I know, exactly.
When does the media get to determine what the proper timeline is to hand out money to a charity?
When does the media get to determine what the right and wrong thing to do is on anything?
Who are they?
Are they the arbiters of virtue?
Have they never made a misstep?
This is the thing.
It's always bugged me.
These people get to sit and total judge and everybody else.
You try to turn it around on them.
You can't do that.
We're journalists.
Yeah, why is that any different?
I mean, we can't look into your past, find out how many illegitimate kids you might have had, how many DUIs you've got, how many women you might have knocked up in college.
You're not allowed to find that out.
No, you're not.
I'm a journalist.
My life is irrelevant.
It's not part of the story.
Well, it ought to be.
If you're out there making claims on everybody else's misbehaving, you're going to set yourself up at the arbiter of propriety and morality and goodness and decency and all that stuff.
Let's see how you fall into it.
But they don't want any part of it.
And the traditional Republican role here has been: don't, don't, don't fire back.
Don't respond.
Don't react to people who buy ink with a barrel.
You can't win.
No matter what you do, they're going to have the last word.
Don't do it.
And they do end up having the last word that way.
What Trump is doing is showing you can change a media narrative against their will.
But the point is, there's no equality here and there's no balance.
We've known it for years, but we've never had a candidate show how you combat it.
And that's what Trump is doing.
He's showing how you combat this unfairness, this unequality, inequality, this injustice, whatever you want to call this.
The media coverage versus Democrats versus Republicans, liberals versus conservatives, how out of balance it is.
I got to take a break.
We're going to come back and we're going to start including your calls in all of this.
Hang tall.
Now, the ABC reporter that Trump called a sleaze is named Tom Yamis.
And there's a backstory there.
Tom Yamis is one of the reporters who, a couple of weeks ago, said that Juanita Broderick's rape charges against Bill Clinton have been, quote, completely discredited.
And they haven't been discredited.
Tom Yamis on ABC News Thursday, May 19th, pronounced the Juanita Broderick rape accusations is decades old and discredited.
How many times do you see anybody in the drive-by media say that about a probable rape victim?
Any other rape victim and men, they're the heroine of the story.
And whoever did it is the target.
But not now.
Now, Juanita Broderick is just the latest bimbo to jump up that has to be dealt with.
That's who Trump called a sleaze.
Not to mention that he said that to try to dismiss Trump's ad, which used quotes from Juanita Broderick.
But they're never going to report the context of Trump's sleaze remark.
They're just going to think it came out of left field and is not attached to anything.
And they're just going to say it's Trump being Trump because Trump's mean.
This is the kind of in-depth report you can never expect to happen.
Anyway, let's hit the phones.
Philip in Sarasota, Florida.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're up first today.
Big responsibility.
How are you?
Hey, thanks.
Thanks for having the call.
Yeah.
All right.
So with Trump criticizing the media, I like what he's doing.
I like what he's doing, but the attitude of contentiousness, well, it definitely reflects the population at large with their attitude of contentiousness toward the media with all their lies and collusion.
But in order to make my point, I want to flash back to the 1960s, Cold War.
The Soviet spies were getting a lot of information from our news sources.
And President Kennedy held a speech formally to the press at the Waldorf Historio where he admonished them to basically use safer practices, more wise practices in the reporting of their news.
And he really procured a very amicable relationship with the press there between the president and the press.
And so I think I'd like to see a President Trump do something similar to.
Of course, we would.
That would be.
Well, everybody would love the press to treat their guy the way they treated JFK.
Oh, my God.
That would be nirvana.
The press thought they were going to King Arthur's roundtable every day.
They thought they were heading into Camelot.
They thought they were part of the story.
JFK was in there.
Jackie.
I mean, it was idyllic.
And yeah, I remember those, I remember reporters and JFK chuckling and laughing during press conference.
Oh, yeah, that would be fabulous.
Never going to happen.
If you hold out for something like that as your definition of a successful candidate who could have a relationship like that with a media, it isn't going to ever, ever happen.
Not in our lifetimes.
With half my brain type behind my back to make it fair, because that's what we are about here.
We're about fairness.
In case liberals call, Put them at the front of the line when they do.
800-282-2882, Stephen, Columbus, Ohio.
It's your turn.
Great to have you, sir.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
You better.
I just yeah, I just wanted to know who it was out there that's defined what it is to act presidential.
Just kind of irritates me because to me, Mr. Trump is acting presidential.
He's strong.
He doesn't want anyone run over him.
He's principled, in my opinion, and I'm proud of him.
And I'll tell you what, nothing makes me sick, more sick than seeing these read-my-lip Republicans not supporting him.
Anyway, I just wanted to get your feedback.
That's a good question.
Who defines presidential?
I mean, Nina Easton just said that she hoped Trump would become presidential.
She's by no means alone.
There's all kinds of people suggesting that it's time now for Trump to pivot from the primary campaign attitudes and to assume the presidential attitude now, whatever it is.
I guess we'd have to say the establishment defines that.
Now, if you want to go for the real definition of presidential, go read the Federalist Papers.
The Federalist Papers will go into great detail about what the founders thought was necessary in an executive leader.
And you know what was at the top of it?
Morality.
Character.
Decency.
John Adams, I believe it was, who said the Constitution was written for men of character.
People, he meant, of character.
If it ever fell into the hands of people without character and morality, that it was as worthless as the paper that it was on.
It's an interesting thing to discuss.
How has the Constitution survived?
I mean, there's no penalty.
The Constitution is not going to eat you if you ignore it.
The Constitution is not going to call somebody and have you shot.
And yet, for most of our 200 years, there has been total adherence to it, or remarkable adherence.
And this has come from the character of the leaders that we've had.
This is the definition of the rule of law and why it's so important, respect for the law, the rule of law, that nobody's above it, and so forth.
Well, now we see that we have somebody in the White House to whom the Constitution has become an obstacle.
And he's by no means the first, and he's by no means the only.
All kinds of liberals, and many of them in his cabinet, many of them in his regime, who also think the Constitution is an obstacle that has to be overcome, swept out of the way, either privately or publicly or what have you.
But regardless, the Constitution is a great obstacle to totalitarians and statists and authoritarians.
That's one definition of presidential, is what the founders thought.
And it's much deeper than just character and morality.
But if you look at the qualifications that are spelled out in the Constitution, basically birth and age.
I mean, you don't have to pass any mental test.
The founders thought the people, the voters, would take care of things like that, that we wouldn't elect somebody criminally insane.
But what is presidential in the modern context?
Who is defining that?
Would you say that it's elements of the Washington establishment?
Or is it the media?
Is the definition of the term acting presidential to simply mean anything but what Trump does?
Is acting presidential being boring?
Is being presidential being substantive and wonkish and policy focused at all times?
What is acting presidential?
Particularly when so many in the drive-bys think that Trump is not being presidential.
He's not acting presidential.
Why?
Well, because he insults people and he blames people.
He targets people.
He calls people names, calls his own party members names.
He calls members of the press names.
That's not presidential.
Well, depends.
I mean, been a lot of presidents in private.
The things they say about people, they're just like you and me, folks, in what they think about other people and what they say about them.
I've had first-hand experience at it with three different presidents.
But that's the private side.
Publicly is a president like George W. Bush never responds to critics.
Does press conferences, lets the press ask whatever they want, hems and haws around, answers whatever he wants and tries to not answer everything else, and then let the chips fall where they fall.
Being presidential like Bill Clinton does with what goes on in the Oval Office of people like Monica Lewinsky and then lying about it with your wife standing at your side.
What is presidential?
What's acting presidential?
Well, in the current context, what is meant by Trump must act presidential is that Trump must change.
Trump must stop being who he is because Trump, as he is, is unacceptable to us.
Does the press act presidential?
Is the White House Press Corps presidential?
Are they overflowing with respect and moral turpitude and other such things?
I mean, where is this standard of behavior etched in stone and who did it?
Who gets to define who is and who isn't presidential?
Obama has called Republicans hostage-takers and terrorists.
Was that presidential?
Hillary said the media shamed Trump into giving his $1 million donation to the vets.
She's lying.
Is lying like that acting presidential?
Is Mrs. Clinton presidential?
I ain't no way turned.
I'm going to call anybody whatever name I want to call them because I can't deal dissent whatever.
Is that presidential?
Showing up in Mau pantsuits every day with orange, red, bright, vibrant colors, presidential.
I mean, what is this?
We all know what it is.
Steve next, and Steve, it's Quincy, Illinois next.
And Jeff, great to have you.
EIB Network.
Hello, sir.
Oh, hi, Rush.
I think what Trump is doing, he starts out by being himself, calling people sleazes and slime and getting massive responses at his rallies the second he mentions the press.
But I think he then has pivoted to do more of what you do, and that is pick out a specific example like Katie Couric and then just barbecue her.
And I don't think, you know, you mentioned yesterday that the press like to be called a sleaze because they could use that as a new badge of honor.
Well, partly they do.
I mean, there's a couple reporters today actually writing, they wish Hillary would insult them so that they'd have something to work with here on the other side.
I mean, it's a badge of honor in one.
Make no mistake.
This guy that was called a sleaze, his kids, that's one of the first things they're going to be taught about who their father is.
Donald Trump, it's a moment of great achievement in the media.
It is.
Don't doubt, Rush.
Don't doubt me on this.
You're right in that they received some notoriety in that regard.
But I don't say Katie Couric, who is exposed very specifically for very poor journalism.
I don't think she looks upon it as a badge of honor.
Oh, no, no, no.
You're right.
That's exactly right.
But it's a big different thing.
When Trump identifies somebody personally and calls them a sleaze, that's a badge on it.
In many ways, the media will say, success.
I got Trump off his game.
I really upset Trump.
I really bother Trump.
And that's what I'm here to do.
And so it becomes incident where you put a notch in your belt.
Katie Couric thing, she just, there's nothing admirable about this.
She's just not a good person.
And every such incident that she's involved with just confirms that.
I mean, that incident that she was, you're exactly right.
There's no comparison.
And she's not proud of that.
She wishes she could strip that away.
And her friends in the media will help her.
Yes.
And Rush, I'd also add that, you know, your listeners, we hear what you've said about the press for years.
The public at large and moderates and so forth, they hear the moniker, oh, the press is liberal, and they don't even really, I don't think they get it.
But when Trump starts using specific examples, I think people's eyes are being opened.
You know, whereas to some extent you preach to the choir, you know, Trump is now preaching to a much larger national and even international audience.
And I think people are finally seeing maybe what many of us conservatives have seen for 20 years.
They're now being exposed for the first time.
And it's very unique.
You know what?
I think it's a good point in terms of, you know, Trump, by virtue of being a candidate and therefore being on the news all the time, the low-information crowd can't escape him.
And they're watching what's happening.
And it has to be eye-opening.
Just as some of these explosés in the Clintons are for a lot of people who were young and were not alive or old enough back then to have the slightest idea what happened, nor were they influenced by the slavish Clinton state control media covering up for him all those years.
So that's a good point, too.
I'm glad you called, Jeff, but I got to go because I'm out of time for this segment.
It's going by too fast.
Oh, yeah, there's even more soundbites here of me on this.
I just had to break it up.
I mean, it's over half the soundbite roster today.
Let's go back to it.
This is Fox and Friends today.
Co-host Ainsley Earhart is introducing and playing Clip of Me and asking other guests to comment on it.
Here's how it began.
Rush Limbaugh was talking about it, and he says that Republicans have been waiting on this type of talk, some honest, an honest approach for a very long time.
Listen.
How many years have people been begging for a Republican to just once take on the media the way Trump did?
All the way from the premise to the details, to the motivation.
Near the end of the frustrated journalism.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, Mr. Trump, is it going to be this way?
Is it going to be this way?
Are you going to be attacking us after you become president?
People at home watch this.
Because, folks, in the age of internet trolling, manners are out the window.
It's a waste of time asking for manners here.
You get my point on this, by the way.
I'm not, it's in certain sectors, but certain people, I'm saying what Trump is doing just is fabulous.
It's just fabulous.
It's the way people behave now.
Most of them that do it are anonymous or at least protected because it's not face-to-face on the internet.
But Trump, I mean, he's out there face to face with this.
Now, Ainsley Earhart's guest was Pete Hegseth, Concerned Veterans of America CEO Pete Hegseth.
By the way, Pete has a great new book out.
It came out earlier this month, in May, H-E-G-S-E-T-H.
I don't have a title of the book right in the front, but I'll get it.
But it's fascinating.
He's a vet.
He's an all-around guy, if you will.
And he has his appearances on Fox.
And Ainsley went to him to react to some of this.
Right before we went on set, Pete and I were talking about why is it that America loves Trump so much?
Like, why is it that America wants this?
And you were saying that long gone are the days where things like that, that game has changed a lot.
There's also so much angst and frustration about the process.
They see press secretaries and presidents talking to the press, and it's all kind of this fake, shallow conversation.
Everyone's bending the truth, and he's saying, I'm done with it.
I'm coming after you.
That's exactly right.
Just being presidential stuff, nobody believes it anymore.
It's BS.
It's perceived as BS.
Press Secretary goes out, answers questions.
Nobody in the world thinks that the questions are actually being answered.
Every question is an opportunity for presidential spin.
It's not just tied to Obama.
It's the whole system.
People don't think.
We've reached a point in our country, and it's serious.
Leaders are not trusted.
They're suspected now.
And one of the reasons is economics.
Look, folks, people are not blind.
How is it, I saw this example the other day.
How is it, poor Denny Hastert?
Denny Hastert was a coach and a teacher at high school.
And then he ends up in Congress.
And after so many years in Congress on a congressional salary that's probably average to be $160,000 a year, if you average all 20 years, how does a guy like that end up with enough money to pay a multi-million dollar settlement in a lawsuit?
Harry Reid, who had nothing when he gets elected to the Senate, is now a multi-millionaire real estate baron.
He owns land all over Nevada and in California, and his sons at the same time.
He lives, or did, in a fashionable 10,000 square foot apartment, I think at a Ritz hotel in Washington.
How does a guy on a Senate salary do this?
And while all of this is happening, and those are just two of many examples of public figures in elected office becoming multi-millionaires in ways that are impossible on what they're earning, while the American middle class income has remained stagnant for 15 years.
I interviewed Jeff Sessions yesterday for the next issue of the limbo letter, and we were talking about how the issues of trade and trade deals, how everybody in Washington missed that.
The Trump campaign comes along, and it turns out that it's a seminal top five issue for Trump people.
And yet everybody in Washington missed it.
They missed the angst over immigration until they didn't.
They caught up with that about 2007.
But on trade, they had no idea that there was so much anger and angst and upset.
They had no idea that all of the jobs that have been lost and transferred out of the country, they thought people, I guess, had just adjusted to it and moved on.
Because where they live, everything's fine economically.
And so this divide that exists between the governed and the elected is deeper and wider than it's ever been.
And it doesn't matter where people smart, dumb, ignorant, they can see and they can see that things don't make sense.
And so all of this is understandable if you have the ability to unplug yourself from the ages-old playbook and formula of politics and try to examine all these new elements out there that contribute to this new era.
It's the fastest three hours in media.
It's interesting how so many things are cyclical and repeat, such as these lessons on the media that we've been doing frequently for now 27, 28 years.
But there are other things out there that I want to get into, the Clinton stack and the independent candidate stack and the general news stack.