Rush Limbaugh Program - February 24, 2017, Friday, Hour #1

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Feb. 24, 2017 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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February 24, 2017, Friday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	Well, and I've had some people email me about it, and I mean it never even occurred to me.
	You think I should.
	Well, okay, maybe.
	I'll think about it.
	From the Southern Command in Sunny, South Florida.
	It's open line Friday.
	Guys, the people emailing me since last night that I ought to play parts of my CPAC speech.
	We're back in 2009 when Obama took office.
	It never even occurred to us.
	That's eight years ago.
	Anyway, greetings.
	Great to have you with us, folks.
	It is Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh here and ready and rev to go, eager to speak with you today.
	If you're new to the program, and there's a good chance you are audience, this program is continuing to expand at near geometric proportions.
	Thank you very much for that.
	It's incredible.
	If you're new to the program Monday through Thursday, when we go to the phones, people have been screened, and it's been determined that they're going to talk about things I care about, because the focal point is the host sounding interested.
	If that doesn't happen, then it's a near disaster.
	The host sounds bored, you're flirting with disaster there.
	But on Friday, we don't do that.
	On Friday, pretty much whatever you want to talk about is fine.
	It's um it doesn't really differ that much from Monday through Thursday as it turns out, but we still present the opportunity.
	If you want to talk about something other than all of this that is front and center in the news, uh this is the day to do it.
	800 282-2882, the email address L RushboNet.us.
	Okay, we're gonna get to the president's speech at CPAC today.
	Mike Pence, we have excerpts of his speech at CPAC last night.
	Have some commentary about CPAC, particularly Dr. Larry Arnes's speech yesterday morning.
	I want to review some of what he said.
	He he uh attempted to define conservatism, which is key.
	I I think there's something fascinating going on here in uh in this year with Trump being elected president, and that is a lot of people questioning what is conservatism now.
	And is is this, for example, my father's conservative?
	Is it my conservatism when I was young and growing up?
	Is it the is it the conservatism of William F. Buckley Jr., the modern-day godfather founder.
	Not go back to Burke and others private, but the modern era would be Mr. Buckley.
	What is it?
	Is it that or has it become something else?
	Uh has current conservatism modified and expanded so as to be able to include in it President Trump and his supporters, or is that indeed populism and nationalism and really doesn't have much to do with conservatism?
	And this has all come to the forefront because it's CPAC time, and that's the Conservative Political Action Conference.
	And it is assumed that what happens at CPAC is the definition of conservatism of the day.
	And that largely depends on who they invite, who they give prominence to, and there's been some controversy about that this year with their invitation to uh Milo Yoannopoulos.
	And the president shows up today, and he didn't talk much about conservatism philosophically or theoretically, and the president very seldom explains why.
	He believes what he believes.
	He just lets you know that he believes what he believes, but you don't really know how he arrived at it.
	Now, conservatives love to tell you why they think what they think, and it's usually a means of persuading people to accept it and join it.
	And so now it's up for grabs, largely because the Trump campaign fractured conservatism Into many different splinters.
	And many people who thought that they were the modern day leaders of conservatism, in fact, found themselves in a new category called never Trumpers.
	And they were the group of people that no matter what, Trump should not win, even if it meant the implosion and the end of the Republican Party, even if it meant we go back to zero.
	We go back to the dark ages and rebuild from nothing.
	That would be better than having Trump win.
	And many of those people are still there, and they are still active in what I call the academic or intellectual side of conservatism.
	Many people think that I am what conservatism is, and I don't say that with ego in any stretch.
	I'm just telling you that I realize uh how some people look at me.
	And I've I've always thought of myself as a conservative philosophically and the way that uh I try to live my life.
	But in terms of actual leader of a movement, that that that kind of thing has never been front and center in my mind.
	I just believe what I believe and tell people what it is and try to explain it, and I indeed try to persuade people to join it.
	Uh and I've found myself at odds with others in the conservative who themselves think I have contributed to the watering down or the bastardization.
	In many ways, the never Trumpers thought that I was performing a great disservice to conservatism by not slamming Trump.
	And because I didn't slam Trump, and because I didn't come out and forcefully oppose Trump, that I was myself a leading agent of destruction and compromise of the modern conservative movement.
	But I don't think it's had a leader in a long time.
	I don't think there's any one person that can tell you what it is and have every other conservative agree with it.
	They could get most of it, but I think conservatism largely became an academic exercise.
	It be it became a movement that wasn't really fraught with much action.
	It was a lot of philosophizing, it was a lot of thinking, uh, expression of those thoughts.
	But in terms of action, I mean, I I said something during the campaign that I caught a lot of flack for.
	I'll repeat it for you again, when I was being accused of betraying conservatism by not denouncing Trump.
	It would be probably advantageous for me to tell you that what really has guided me in terms of politics for a huge number of years is defeating the left.
	Now, defeating the left with conservatism, obviously, but if it meant a slight departure here or there, defeating the left is it to me.
	That has to happen.
	We don't do that, then we are forever going to be challenged and in trouble.
	In other words, they're not to be compromised with, they can't be.
	They don't have any interest in that.
	They represent the greatest threat to this country in my lifetime.
	The modern day American left and its agents all over the world represent, and so it this is not a time for purity to me.
	This is a time for reality and recognition and necessity of saving the country.
	And that's what I think Trump is.
	I don't think Trump's philosophical or ideological much.
	He may be becoming more so as he is assaulted day in and day out by agents of the left.
	We would hope that that's the uh that's the case.
	But I think that the situation in our country with with the left, and it's it's it's bigger than the Democrat Party.
	The Democrat Party is its home, and the Democrat Party has become so radical now that the uh Democrats of 30 years ago would not recognize it.
	It is it is so Far and gone.
	But they populate the judiciary.
	And they populate much of the bureaucracy.
	And even after they lose elections, they are still in quite a few positions of power.
	They have to be rooted out.
	One election isn't going to do the trick.
	You got to win the election, then you have to implement the agenda and whatever it, and you have to withstand all of the assaults that are going to come your way in the process.
	And this has been something that many on the right, the Republican Party just they haven't wanted to endure the assaults.
	They just haven't wanted to put up with that.
	So they've been pragmatists or compromisers.
	And the conservative movement, define it as you will, while it was winning elections, it was stalled out in terms of the implementation of ideas.
	And I can demonstrate that by simply asking you, how many times did you vote?
	2008, 2010, 2012, Republican conservatives running for office, saying exactly what you wanted them to say, telling you they were going to do exactly what they were going to do, and then when they get there, it didn't happen.
	And that's what I mean.
	There wasn't any action.
	There wasn't, and we didn't seem to have very many warriors that were interested in implementing the ideas.
	They seem to be content with owning the ideas.
	So enter Trump into all this.
	And now we've got action.
	We have action, whether by design or by accident, where Trump is concerned, we have action against the left.
	And this is what it looks like.
	And it's always going to be ugly, and it's always going to be upsetting, and it's always, and it's not going to get better.
	Bannon was right about this yesterday.
	I mean, not in the near future.
	It isn't going to get better.
	Give you an example, something that happened at CPAC.
	There was a tweet by somebody named Peter Hambe.
	I don't know Peter Hamby, the name rings a bell, but I can't place it, but it doesn't matter.
	This guy tweeted out crowd at CPAC wearing those little pro-Trump flags that look exactly like the Russian flag.
	Staffers quickly around to confiscate them.
	Okay, so you read that tweet, and you say, now how the hell does this happen?
	This is CPAC.
	What in the hell are a bunch of miniature Russian type flags doing in there?
	Why are people waving them around?
	This is not something that would organically happen at CPAC.
	And it turns out it wasn't.
	James O'Keefe of Project Veritas tweeted this was Ryan Clayton from the Bob Kramer group.
	Americans Take Action, handing out Russian flags.
	Ryan was forcibly removed.
	Peter Hamby edited that out.
	So what happened is this guy Kramer, who we played sound bites of for you yesterday.
	Kramer is the guy, the husband of Democrat Congressman Jan Tchaikowski, who had over 350 visits to the White House during Obama's turn, and 50 some out of those were with Obama himself in the Oval Office.
	This was a guy caught by Project Veritas secret video, admitting that Hillary Clinton paid for this guy Kramer to go out and hire agitators and protesters to show up at Trump rallies during the campaign and disrupt them and to make themselves look like Trump supporters.
	So they're they're on the ball and they somehow get into CPAC.
	And they hand out these little Russian flags to try to make the connection that CPackers are very happy with Trump's connection to Russia, and that they're happily waving these flags around.
	That creates the pictures and the video that then media can fly into and say, look at this, my gosh, they're not even hiding it.
	That's what I mean by they're not gonna go away.
	They're not gonna this is all they've got.
	They can't win elections right now.
	I mean, there's some, as I said yesterday, some and two days ago, some real upsides to all this happening.
	They're exposing themselves.
	They are marginalizing themselves.
	They've come out of the closet, so to speak.
	They're not hiding.
	They can't hide behind their camouflage.
	They can't portray themselves as harmless, lovable little fuzzball leftists who are only interested in civil rights.
	These are a bunch of really mean and deranged people.
	Seriously genuinely mean people.
	And they have to be fought, and they have to be defeated.
	And thinking alone isn't going to do it.
	The idea is that thinking and writing and sometimes appearing in the media and proselytizing conservatism will magically penetrate the minds of undecided and uninformed people and persuade them.
	It's not how it happens.
	Well, not en masse.
	Now the big controversy today, and I first got wind of this last night.
	There's a headline out there.
	CNN has an exclusive.
	This is not quite fake news, but it's almost as bad.
	FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump Russia stories.
	Now, first let me tell you what the Trump Russia stories are.
	There are three of them.
	The first from the New York Times last October, in which nameless sources told the New York Times that agents of the Trump campaign were in contact with Russia during the campaign and discussing ways to sabotage the Hillary campaign.
	That story came long after the narrative that the Russians hacked the election, the Russians stole the election.
	Hillary should have won.
	Trump's victory is illegitimate.
	That makes his agenda illegitimate.
	It makes his Supreme Court nominees illegitimate, makes his cabinet illegitimate.
	In fact, nothing about Trump is legit because he was elected by virtue of fraud.
	That's the narrative that has been covered and used to describe the Trump presidency since the night of the election and the day after.
	They haven't changed it.
	They're only doubling and tripling down on it.
	And then in within that foundation having been laid, there came a story in October.
	And guess what?
	Not only did the Russians hack, not only did the Russians tamper, which is a preposterous impossibility.
	The New York Times story in October claimed that there were people in the Trump campaign talking to the Russians.
	No evidence.
	The New York Times was very clear deep down the story.
	No evidence to support this.
	It was just sources saying so.
	The New York Times ran the same story about three weeks ago.
	With updates.
	There weren't any updates.
	They just re-ran the story.
	They claimed to have a little bit more sourcing, but even in the story three weeks ago, experts have yet to find any concrete evidence.
	There is no evidence.
	Now at the same time the New York Times story, three weeks ago ran the Wall Street Journal came out on a Wednesday night with a news alert alleging the same thing.
	That Trump operatives were in contact with Putin and Russian government operatives during the campaign to the express purpose of sabotaging.
	It turned out that the Wall Street Journal story the next day also contained basically the same stuff.
	No evidence to support any of this.
	It's just nameless sources saying so.
	So in the CNN headline, FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump Russia stories.
	Those are the stories that this CNN exclusive is about.
	That headline is very misleading because it's not what happened.
	And I have to take a break now, but I will complete and continue the story when we get back.
	So we had the tweet that Bob Kramer's group somehow got into CPAC and passed out a little bunch of flags that look like the Russian flag.
	And people are waving them around, and that gets tweeted out.
	And then O'Keeffe comes along and finds no no no.
	Robert Kramer's group, previously explained who that is, got in there and got these things.
	Anyway, the Hill.com.
	This is our CPAC attendees seen waving Russian flags.
	From the Raw story, CPAC scrambles to control damage after attendees wave Russian flags.
	CPAC attendees wave Russian flags ahead of Trump speech.
	That's from another website called the Week.
	So this is it.
	It did not happen.
	It did totally planted stuff that drive by media probably knows it's fake and a sabotage attempt.
	Doesn't matter.
	It's all about perpetuating this silly idea that the Russians actually are the reason Trump is president.
	We'll get back here in just a second.
	What happened was these little flags they had, they were they were branded with Trump on them.
	And they were the Russian flag.
	And they were manufactured by a Democrat hate group.
	Because that's what the Democrat Party is.
	Democrat Party, my friends, is the largest hate group in the country.
	Bar none.
	So anyway, they pass these flags out, and they're got Trump on them.
	They are facsimiles or replicas of the Russian flag.
	And people are waving them around and so forth.
	And then here come they come confiscate them because they're plants.
	Now it's a good trick.
	Don't misunderstand.
	The problem here is that there's coordination between the guy who planted flags and the media.
	The media is reporting this as though these Trump people were eager to wave Russian flags.
	Because don't you know there's a connection between Trump and the Russians?
	And everybody that voted for Trump knows if it hadn't been for the Russians, why Trump would have never been elected.
	This is the big lie.
	The big lie that is making all of this, all this protests at the town halls, all of this anger in the media, every bit of opposition to Trump is rooted in this false premise that the Russians prevented Hillary from winning by cooperating with Trump and that he welcomed their help.
	It's a big total lie.
	And it is the fuel for every story that the left is running against Trump, and it's the fuel for all of these protests against Trump in the streets at town halls, or you name it.
	That one thing.
	So here we come with a bunch of flags planted in CPAC today, before Trump's speech.
	Russian flags that say Trump on them.
	People are excited, Trump's coming, they're waving them around.
	And the media headlines, AOL, Russian flags waved, confiscated during President Trump's CPAC remarks.
	WCVB Boston, Russian flags branded with Trump waved, confiscated at CPAC from a website called the Mike.
	While Trump delivered his latest speech, people in the audience waved Russian flags from the Raw story.
	CPAC scrambles to control damage after attendees wave Russian flags from the week.
	CPAC attendees wave Russians.
	Now the media knows.
	You got to admire the trick.
	I mean, you I mean, Kramer gets in there somehow and he gets these flags planted, and he's eager to be for CPACs are waving around because the flags say Trump.
	Okay.
	Kudos to you, Kramer.
	Good trick.
	The problem here is the media knows this is all BS, and they're treating this as though it is literally true that Trump supporters are pro-Russia, that Trump supporters are gratified for Russia, and they're very happy that Russia helped Trump win the election.
	And if they don't get a handle on this, I'm telling you, Trump people, Republicans, if they don't get a handle on this and shut this down.
	I can only scream this so many times.
	And frankly, I'm getting tired of screaming it.
	Because it's so damned obvious.
	It has got to be nuked.
	It's got to be exposed, and everybody in the media that's behind this thing has got to be exposed as well, knowing full-fledged that they are they are they are reporting and carrying a series of lies.
	As Trump said in his speech, they're making up sources, and they're unnamed, and both New York Times stories and the Wall Street Journal story on this Have the famous cadre of unnamed sources, U.S. officials say, intelligence officials say it looks very authoritative, and it looks extremely wavy.
	It's all BS, just like the CNN story.
	Now, I want to get back to this and wrap this up, because this is another example.
	Headline FBI refused White House requests to knock down recent Trump Russia stories.
	What does somebody who read that headline think?
	What they think is that somebody in the Trump White House got so ticked off at all of these stories filled with lies about the Russians that they called the FBI and they asked the FBI to tell the media to stop.
	I checked with my little tech blogs today.
	Every damn one of these foolish kids thinks that's what happened here.
	They think it's the greatest assault on the rule of law they have ever seen.
	And of course, they never thought anything Obama did was an assault on the rule of law.
	The drive-bys, CNN, millennials everywhere think this is the greatest outrage they've ever seen.
	Why Trump actually had somebody call the FBI and tell them to tell reporters to stop reporting lies?
	That's not what happened.
	There's a name involved in this story by the name of a man by the name of Andrew McCabe.
	McCabe is the deputy director or a senior deputy director or the third fourth sectorate deputy director or whatever the FBI.
	Does the name Andrew McCabe bring a bell to any of you?
	Oh, come on.
	Let me take you back to October 24th.
	Sunday night, Wall Street Journal, October 24th, a couple weeks before the election, reported that Terry McAuliffe, the governor of Virginia, Terry McCaulaff's political action committee gave nearly five hundred thousand dollars to the election campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe in her failed effort to win a seat in the Virginia State Senate in 2015.
	Dr. McCabe was reportedly recruited by Governor McCawliff and other state Democrat Party officials to run for the seat.
	Her husband, Andrew McCabe, was serving as an associate director of the FBI during the state Senate campaign.
	He was later promoted to deputy director of the FBI and assumed an oversight role in the Clinton email investigation.
	Well, that happens to be the guy who told Rines Prebis that the new the FBI knows that these stories in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are not right.
	What really happened here, and CNN story even says it.
	It's the headline that's filled with lies.
	FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump Russia stories.
	What's anybody to think reading that?
	Okay, here are the first two graphs of the CNN story.
	The FBI rejected a recent White House request to publicly knock down media reports about communications between Trump's associates and Russians.
	Known to U.S. intelligence during the presidential campaign, multiple U.S. officials briefed on the matter, tell CNN.
	Here's the next paragraph.
	But a White House official said late Thursday that that request was only made after the FBI indicated to the White House it didn't believe the reporting to be accurate.
	The CNN story never says that the Trump administration lied.
	The CNN story doesn't allege anything other than the opposite of what happened.
	Let me construct for you a hypothetical.
	Let's use Rhein's previous because he's a central figure in this story.
	Let's say you're Reinz Prebus, and you're in the White House, you're either in your in your West Wing office or you're somewhere, and Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, comes up to you and Says that they know that the reporting in these New York Times stories on Trump and Russia isn't accurate.
	Okay, so you're you're pre- you haven't done a thing yet.
	You're minding your own business.
	The FBI McCabe comes over and tells you this.
	And this story says that this is what happened.
	They write it later on in such a confusing way that even though they report factually what happened, it's under a very misleading headline.
	And then deeper into the story, and it they purposely confuse it so that you're not sure after you read the story who initiated contact.
	But if you know how to read these things as I do, because I'm a professional, highly trained in these matters.
	All of this was the was the equivalent of Priebus minding his own business, not bothering anybody.
	And somebody the FBI came along, hey, writes, we know the stuff in these New York Times stories isn't accurate.
	Now, if you're Prebus, what do you do with this?
	You're minding your own business.
	You you haven't called the FBI.
	This headline is not correct.
	Well, it might be correct.
	FBI refused White House requests.
	But that headline doesn't get into the timeline or the actual genesis of this story at all.
	So you're Prebis.
	And you know that this is the story that's propelling every other lie about Donald Trump and his presidency since the day after the election.
	Well, even during the campaign they tried to sell this.
	And so here comes the number two guy at the FBI, and he tells you that they know the FBI is sourced in these stories, by the way.
	FBI's party intel community, FBI's credible sources, uh nameless sources.
	The FBI comes up and tells you that they know that what's in these New York Times stories about Trump and Russia are not true.
	What do you do if you're prebis?
	Do you say, you know, it'd be really great if you guys would tell the New York Times this.
	Or do you say, gee?
	Uh, why are you telling me this?
	Well what I can I can't quote you.
	I can't, this is kind of things off the record.
	I can't go out there and say that you're telling me this.
	So Priebus' hands are tied.
	There's not much he can do with this.
	And if he asks McCabe to go to the media and tell the media that the FBI knows what they're reporting is BS, well, then all McCabe has to do is tell the media, you know, Priebus is asking me to talk to you guys about this.
	And then you get a headline.
	FBI refused White House request to knock down recent.
	The way this happened, it was initiated by McCabe at the FI, and the CNN story makes that clear.
	A White House official said late Thursday last night that the request was only made, meaning the request to the FBI to tell the media that we'll then fix it.
	That request was only made after the FBI indicated to the White House, i.e., told the White House that it didn't believe the reporting to be accurate.
	So I'm thinking, is there a setup here?
	Why would McCabe even tell Priebus this?
	It could be any number of folks.
	The possibilities here are limitless.
	Maybe Comey's getting tired.
	Maybe McCabe wants to run the place.
	Maybe McCabe is trying to get close to Priebus for who knows.
	If I wanted to speculate on I could spend the rest of the hour coming up with credible sounding reasons for this to happen.
	The direct communications between the White House and the FBI were unusual, CNN reported, because of decade old restrictions on such contacts.
	Such a request from the White House is a violation of procedures that limit communications with the FBI.
	Well, the FBI originated this.
	And by the way, the AP backs this up.
	White House Chief of Staff ranked Priebus, asked a top FBI official to dispute in media reports that Trump's campaign advisers were in touch with the Russians.
	The official said that Prebus request came after the FBI told the White House it believed a New York Times report last week describing all this was not accurate.
	So AP and even CNN both say that all of this was started by the FBI.
	And it ends up in a headline.
	FBI refused White House request and knocked down as though the stories are true and the White House wanted the FBI to lie.
	Not so.
	CNN doesn't even say PREBIS lied.
	They don't allege anything.
	They're just playing a game here with the timeline and their headline.
	And trying to make like we got a bunch of authoritarian Russian associates bending on the FBI, leaning on the FBI to hammer the media.
	This is, folks, this is a classic demonstration of collusion.
	Because CNN knows exactly what happened here.
	They know the FBI initiated this, and that doesn't matter.
	All that matters to them is what reportedly Prebis did.
	Put yourself in Prebus' place or anybody else, and the FBI comes, hey, look, you know, we know what they're saying about you, isn't it true?
	It's the FBI saying this.
	It's not some aid, it's not some junior associate, it's the FBI, the deputy director coming in, telling you that they know what's in the FBI story, the New York Times stories B.S. What do you do?
	Gee, thanks.
	Have to take a break here, folks.
	But I had to get this stuff off my chest.
	This is just outrageous, these two things here today.
	you This is why Donald Trump refers to CNN as fake news.
	Okay, now two questions here.
	First question is FBI tells Prebus, hey, wink wink, we know that the reporting in the New York Times story about you guys and the Russians is not accurate.
	How does that conversation get to CNN?
	Who told CNN that this even happened?
	Did McCabe call CNN and tell them?
	Did Priebus call CNN?
	Well, we rule Prebis out.
	Who might have overheard this?
	I have no idea.
	But how does CNN learn about this?
	McCabe knocks on the door, comes into Prebus office or wherever it happened.
	I don't know if they were in the Oval Office.
	I have no idea.
	But McCabe says to Prebus whatever he says, CNN reports that how does CNN know?
	In other words, who's leaking this?
	How does CNN find out?
	And the second thing is, why isn't the headline of this story?
	FBI backs White House, says New York Times stories about Trump Russia contacts is not accurate.
	Why isn't that the headline?
	Because that's the story.
	The story is that the FBI told Preebus, we know that these New York Times stories and the journal, too, about your dealing with Russia is not accurate.
	That event produces a headline at CNN FBI refused White House request to knock down recent Trump Russia stories.
	How do you get there?
	Well, you get there because apparently Prebis responded somehow.
	I don't know if he if he asked McCabe to can you tell the media that?
	Why are you telling me?
	Can you tell the media?
	Or, well, hey, can I?
	I mean, can I share what you've just shared with me?
	Who knows, folks?
	I'm this is above my pay grade in terms of.
	But the thrust of the story, the real news in this story is that the FBI knows the story is flat out BS.
	That's the story, and CNN knows that's the story.
	Yet, not if you read CNN or watch, and they spend hours with panels discussing how the Trump administration's flouting the rule of law and trying to co-opt and politicize the FBI.
	This is why people say the media is in bed with the opposition to Republicans.
	There's no question about it.
	There's no doubt the media is like the flag business at CPAC today.
	Anyway, uh it's open line Friday.
	I always try to get a call in the first hour.
	Failed, but that'll be fixed.
	El Quico.
	Don't go away.
	Okay, we have uh Donald Trump's speech at CPAC.
	We'll have some excerpts.
	Uh there's a request for me to replay some excerpts of my speech there nine years ago, so I might.

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