RUSH: This business that Trump doesn’t like scrutiny.  And, folks, you’ll forgive me.  I’m really not trying to interject myself into this, but in order to actually be complete and trying to make my point, I think I can trade on personal experiences I’ve had with the media that make the point that I’m trying to make here.  I predicted what happened, and it happened.

I 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, and 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 had one explore 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 comes 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, for all intents and purposes, have one. Where Obama’s concerned, we have it.  We have State-Controlled Media, as far as we’re concerned. We have it with Hillary, and I think that’s what I heard yesterday.  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’s back at it, as usual. Their descriptions of yesterday’s press conference read almost like they’re determined to prove that Trump is right about them.  You know, you can’t imagine… Hillary Clinton has had a press conference.

They’re counting the days now. It’s 170 days. Hillary Clinton hasn’t 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 the other.  And they were, ’cause it 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.” It was 40, 50 times. Cheryl Mills: “I don’t know. I don’t recall (stammering), I — I — I — — I — I didn’t know. I — I had no idea. I wasn’t aware.”  But there’s no scrutiny of that; there’s just reporting of it, and then 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 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.  Brit Hume.  Listen to this.  This is not criticism of Brit Hume. 

This is fascinating, in fact.  Brit 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 Megyn 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 gonna be after I’m in the White House? You keep treating me this way, and this is how it’s gonna be.'”  And this is what Brit Hume said.  Listen carefully…

HUME:  Why he would 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.  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 a way by someone who obviously takes it all so personally.  And if he has that frame of mind as president, he will have a terribly hard time.

RUSH:  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 are 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. 

The media called and talked to me about the two protesters, not what happened at my event, not what I said, not the 3,000 people loved it. But they wanted to know my reaction to the two people, the mother and daughter who showed up outside the event.  It was a pathetic protest.  And in their coverage, “Limbaugh claimed only two people showed up.”  I didn’t claim anything.  I stated it.  It was true.  The use of the word “claim,” I am convinced, in taught in journalism school.  So whoever the media’s covering says something.

They assert something or they explain something, it’s immediately treated as a claim, which means, “It isn’t true, necessarily.  It 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 me, “How large is your audience?”  I’d give them the numbers that come from radio research, audience research groups.  “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 heard of.  “No, no, no, Limbaugh’s audience is about half that.  Limbaugh claims his audience is what it is.” 

But the story ends up being that I am lying, that the expert at the trade magazine is a guy who knows really what the truth is.  This is how they do it.  That’s why I’m upset when anybody in the media claims I said something ’cause it’s an automatic statement of: “We think you’re lying and we’re gonna tell our readers that you’re lying. And we’re gonna tell our readers that we don’t trust you. And we’re gonna tell our readers that we’re gonna be investigating you. And we’re gonna 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 Brit Hume says here: We journalists, 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 Schweizer claims in his book… Peter Schweizer claims that Mrs. Clinton… Peter Schweizer claims that Bill Clinton…”  But Hillary Clinton never gets a question about the specifics.  And all Peter Schweizer’s doing is what we’re told journalists are supposed to do.  He’s investigating Hillary’s claim 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, Schweizer’s out there investigating it, and Schweizer’s the bad guy in the Drive-By Media, Schweizer’s the bad guy. Look, it’s all Trump is doing here.  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 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 it, but 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. You might have a problem with Trump calling a guy a sleaze to his face.  You might. 

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?  It’s the thing that’s always bugged me. These people get to sit in total judgment on everybody else.  You try to turn it around on them.  “You can’t do that, we’re journalists.” 

Yeah, why is that any different?  We can’t look at your past, find out how many illegitimate kids you might have had, how many DUIs you’ve got, how many women you might have had knocked up in college, we’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.  You’re out there making claims on everybody else’s misbehaving.  If you’re gonna set yourself up as the arbiter of propriety and morality and goodness and decency and all this 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 fire back. Don’t respond. Don’t react to people who buy ink by the barrel. You can’t win no matter what you do. They’re gonna 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 the media narrative, against their will.  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 it’s what Trump is doing.  He’s showing how you combat this unfairness, this 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.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Now, the ABC reporter that Trump called a sleaze is named Tom Llamas, and there’s a backstory there.  Tom Llamas is one of the reporters who, a couple of weeks ago, said that Juanita Broaddrick’s rape charges against Bill Clinton have been, quote, completely discredited.  And they haven’t been discredited.  Tom Llamas on ABC News Thursday, May 19th, pronounced the Juanita Broaddrick rape accusation “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, man, they’re the heroine of the story and whoever did it is the target.  But not now.  Now Juanita Broaddrick 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 tried to dismiss Trump’s ad which used quotes from Juanita Broaddrick. 

But they’re never gonna report the context of Trump’s sleaze remark.  They’re just gonna think that it came out of left field and it’s not attached to anything and they’re just gonna say it’s Trump being Trump ’cause Trump’s mean.  This is the kind of in-depth that you can never expect to happen.