RUSH: The inauguration’s one day from today, and we’re gonna be doing something special on Inauguration Day. We’ll have details coming up later, but basically we’re gonna start the program early on Inauguration Day, and we — (interruption) what did I say? I said it’s a day away? Well, everybody knows I meant that it’s a week. Everybody knows the inauguration’s not tomorrow. Well, I take it back, there might be some low-information people out there that I shocked. Sorry. Verbal dyslexia.
The inauguration is a week from today. I’m trying to save time by eliminating syllables, and, instead of saying a week from today, I said it’s today. Or tomorrow or next day or whatever. You all know when it is, January 20th. All right. So this next week, if this past week’s been any indication, next week is going to be panic filled because I think you need to seriously consider that the left is still seriously trying to prevent Trump from being sworn in. They are trying to stop him. They are delusional. They have lost their minds. But they are still engaged in that effort. And they are not going to stop. They have, I think, lost all grounding.
It’s not just the left, folks. It’s anybody in the Washington establishment. You’ve got Republicans in this group. You’ve got intelligence community people in this group. You’ve got all the various cabinet departments. I mean, they’re populated still with a bunch of Clinton and Obama people in there. You have elements of the military scared to death that Trump is coming in. I mean, the left has populated the bureaucracy, the judiciary for decades with career appointees.
The media is just the face of it, but the entire anti-Trump or the Never Trumper brigades, which are found everywhere, are still at this very moment devoted to the concept of stopping his inauguration. I have no idea how; scandal, the media being able to shame him into resigning or his cabinet refusing to be seated because he’s such a liar. Who knows what they’re thinking. Let me show you what I’m talking about audio sound bite-wise. Start here at number two. This is on CNN today. CNN is really involved in this effort, by the way. CNN exists now to get rid of Trump.
In fact, there’s a New York Times story. Don’t worry, I will not lose my place. Our old buddy Jim Rutenberg, who’s also losing his mind. You know, Rutenberg at the New York Times, we used to like him. Well, I still like Jim Rutenberg, and, even in all this, Rutenberg has still not treated me unfairly. Rutenberg is one of the few people in the Drive-Bys that’s actually quoted me correctly, consistently, and in context. But Rutenberg is the guy who wrote the piece in the New York Times last August that all journalism now is over as we’ve known it. Journalism must throw out everything it’s ever been and must unify around the concept of denying Donald Trump the presidency.
And that was a front page New York Times story. And, since it was the front page of the New York Times, it was a clarion call to the rest of the media to get rid of all the objectivity — as though there still is any — get rid of the objectivity, get rid of the fairness, and totally devote yourself to opinion journalism, the purpose of which is to deny Trump the election. And so they did. But he still won.
So now it’s the same thing. And Rutenberg is back, has a piece: “As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him.” So what we’re reading here is that the previous strategy announced, I think it was last August, that all great journalists, all journalists of good faith must abandon everything they’ve ever learned at journalism school, forget the who, what, when, where, why, forget objectivity, forget fairness, forget impartiality, Jim Rutenberg of the New York Times urged media to devote themselves entirely to stopping Trump.
In other words, all opinion, all the time. If you have to make it up, make it up. Getting rid of Trump is so important that anything we do is warranted, anything we do to get rid of Trump is justifiable and okay, whether it’s journalism or not. It obviously didn’t work. “As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him.” And the story goes on to explore various techniques the media might now try to stop Trump. Now, this headline: “As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him.” That’s a misleading headline. They’re not interested in covering Trump. The objective is to destroy Trump.
And when I say destroy, I mean destroy his presidency, destroy his political career, destroy whatever he hopes to accomplish. Prevent that. They’re not interested in covering Trump at all. In the story, our buddy Jim Rutenberg refers to Trump as a “master manipulator.” Trump didn’t manipulate anything. It was BuzzFeed with the assistance from CNN and Senator McCain that manipulated facts, made up facts, and exploited a libelous fiction.
Trump did not manipulate anything. They call him a master manipulator because they can’t figure out a way to destroy him. Every technique they have ever used successfully on any Republican they’ve tried to take out doesn’t work on Trump. Therefore in their world Trump is a masterful manipulator. In their world, taking out a Republican is as easy as getting up and deciding to do it because Republicans traditionally cower and cave. If you accuse them of something, they’ll probably resign or they’ll stop being a problem. They’ll tone down their criticism of Democrats and Obama or what have you.
It’s been easy to manipulate and control Republicans. And they’ve tried tried-and-true techniques that have always worked against Republicans and they don’t work on Trump. And so since they’re the smartest people in the room, and since they’re the brilliant ones, and since they have all the power, it must be they can’t be failing, just like Hillary didn’t lose the election, therefore Trump has to be this master manipulator.
What’s Trump manipulating? He’s manipulating the minds of news consumers. Trump is actually enabling trickery. Trump is tricking people into not believing what the media says about him. Can you believe that? The audacity. Don’t you know that when the media attacks you you’re supposed to sit there and just absorb it. When the media attacks you, that’s the rule. When the media attacks you, you use the time-honored decorum of decades and accept it.
That’s the way it works in the establishment. Media comes after you, well, you take it. Trump fights back, and in their world, Trump is now convincing people to not believe the media and to do that you have to be using tricks. So he’s a master manipulator. It wouldn’t ever occur to them to actually try to cover Trump with honesty and integrity and objectivity and accuracy. It would never occur to them.
Why does it never occur to them? This is the second attempt from Rutenberg at the New York Times to revise journalism, to redefine how it’s done and in neither of these two, shall we say exposes, in neither of these two instructional documents is it ever suggested that journalists try honesty, try integrity, try objectivity, and try a little accuracy. No, those are the things being thrown out. Those are the things being discarded. Those are things that are said to be the problem. We cannot engage. When you start throwing out traditional journalism, that’s what it is.
Folks, I have to tell you, and I don’t want to jinx anything here, but it’s been a long time I’ve had this much fun reading and watching the news. They’re a bunch of Wile E. Coyotes. Everything they try blows up in their face. They’re calling the Acme bomb company, they’re calling the Acme scandal company, and whatever Acme is delivering them, it blows up in their face. And I love watching. I love having Trump say, I love seeing Trump say to Jim Acosta, “No, no, you’re not getting a question. You’re fake news.” I love it because it’s true.
I spent a little time yesterday asking, “Why should these people be afforded respect, these time-honored protocols and the decorum and the principles? Why? Why should the victims of this kind of bullying, lying behavior sit there and take it and be nice about it and accept it? What’s wrong with that?” It’s like the same situation with L.L. Bean. You have a woman that donates to Trump. A bunch of sniveling, pajama-clad leftist bloggers organize a boycott against L.L. Bean.
So Trump decides to help L.L. Bean, and the Washington establishment erupts by saying, “You can’t pick winners like that! That’s not presidential. Presidents don’t mention anybody!” It’s not picking winners and losers. It’s defending a supporter against a boycott, for crying out loud. Since when did a boycott become something that’s untouchable, unapproachable, and you can’t resist it? Every technique they try is being exposed.