RUSH:Let me ask you, if the crowds…? This is not the case, but if the crowds for Trump’s inauguration were among the smallest, what does it matter? What does it matter? It matters not a whit to Trump’s agenda. It doesn’t change the fact that he won the election at all. What it does is present the media with a bunch of narrative opportunities to carry forward the lie that a small crowd equals “the Russians stole the election.”

A small crowd equals “there never really has been that much enthusiasm for Trump.” They ignored Trump’s crowds at his rallies throughout by saying, “They don’t matter.” You know, Trump would fill the arena, 10,000, 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 people. He’d fill the arena! It was overflowing, standing room outside. The media would say, “It doesn’t mean anything! You can’t look at crowd size and have it mean anything about votes.” They routinely told us this as they wanted to ignore the fact that Trump filled arenas and Hillary couldn’t fill gymnasiums. Crowd size didn’t matter.

Now all of a sudden, crowd size is everything — inauguration crowd size. Never mind the fact that Washington, D.C., and the surrounding environs voted Hillary 70%. People who wanted go to the Trump inauguration had to come in from way far away and nevertheless did. But the media was lying and faking side by side photos. They would take a picture of a Trump inauguration three hours early, and they would show some areas that were never gonna be populated with crowd. They were security areas.

They would show them as empty, and then put that side by side with an Obama inauguration from 2009 at the moment he was sworn in and they would try to say, “See! See!” The point is, “Nobody cares about Trump! This is all a joke. This shouldn’t have happened. Trump’s illegitimate!” That’s all it means. It’s not gonna change one thing. Now, here’s the question for you. Trump fights back on all of it. He pushes back on what he thinks are lies they are telling about crowd size, lies about TV audience for his inauguration, lies on everything.

Does it make you nervous or not? Do you wish he would ignore it? Do some of you think, “I wish he would be above this — some of it ignore; some of it hit back”? He hits back on all of it. Does it bother you? I’m asking those of you who voted for Trump. Does it bother you that he hits back? Do you wish he’d forget it and move on, or do you like it? But it doesn’t matter. This is… The media is picking things that don’t matter to the substance of anything. They’re trying to use symbolism over substance.

They’re trying to take advantage here of pictures — lying pictures that they can create — and then assign meaning to them. Folks, it is all oriented toward making you doubt what happened if you’re Trump supporter. It’s designed to make you think, “Maybe this is illegitimate. Maybe there isn’t that much enthusiasm for Trump,” and then that is supposed to make you less devoted to Trump because… Here is an important point and this does matter. Peggy Noonan made the point in her column. You know, Peggy’s always upset. Peggy’s always wringing her hands about things.

She made an observation but it’s right. You go back and you look at Obama when he’s inaugurated in 2009. He’s got a lot of people on his side. He had the media. He had the media big on his side and the whole the Democrat Party on his side. He had a lot of people backing him up. He had a lot of people pushing him forward and validating. Trump has no one except the people that voted for him. Trump has no one in Washington. He’s got his advisers. He’s got some Republicans. But the entire Washington establishment is opposed to him. The media is trying to undermine him.

The Democrat Party’s trying to undermine him as they set up what will no doubt be impeachment proceedings when they think it’s time to do it. That will happen. Trump has nothing but the people that voted for him, and if the media can soften some of their verve — if the media can succeed in separating some Trump supporters from him — then their theory is he will be weakened even further and exposed even more as fraudulently and illegitimately elected and illegitimately serving. And it is a big point. You know this the minute I mentioned this to you.

When I say, “Obama had the media behind him,” you know how much that was worth. You know Bush didn’t have the media behind him. He had his party behind him, and he had the people that voted for him, and look what they were able to do. They were able to drive Bush’s approval numbers… It took ’em five years, maybe seven or six years, but they got Bush’s approval numbers down to the high thirties. A constant, daily drumbeat of negativism and assaults, and it finally worked. That’s what they’re trying here. This election is not over. This election is not cemented. It is not validated.

It isn’t real, because Trump is illegitimate, and the only thing Trump has — and it’s important, it’s the most important — the only thing he’s got are his supporters. And therefore his supporters have got to stay as energetic and as front and center and as supportive as they were during the campaign. That’s all he’s got. He’s got the power, he is the president, don’t misunderstand, but in this PR battle, in the image battle, in the buzz battle, in the narrative battle, he doesn’t have anybody.

Well, I take that back. Look, he’s got this program for the most part, and he’s got enough people at Fox News. And he’s got some magazine, but he doesn’t have the so-called mainstream media. So it is really important that the people that voted for him maintain their support and be publicly willing to demonstrate it. If Trump does a rally, a personal appearance, show up. ‘Cause now they’re looking at crowd size.

Now all of a sudden they’re paying attention to crowd size? Well, jam it down their throats. This is what it’s gonna take. And my guess is that Trump’s supporters are up for this. My guess is that you in this audience who supported Trump say, “Bring it on, I’m in,” as long as Trump does what he said he’s gonna do, and so far no doubt. I mean the message so far from just two or three days of Trump, “I meant it.” Things that he said he was gonna do, he’s doing ’em.

He started at 150 miles an hour. Freezing federal hire — that’s a big deal, by the way, ’cause I mentioned to you on Friday about the unelected bureaucracy that just grows and grows and grows and how bureaucracies do not want to solve problems because that means eliminating themselves and that they’ll never do.

State Department really never wants to stop anything, Jesse Jackson, the civil rights, they never want racism to end, they’d be out of jobs, they’d be out of work, be out of a purpose for living if racism officially ended. So they would never proclaim it or agree with anybody who did proclaim it. It’s always gonna be getting worse so they can stay in business and fundraise.

Well, the bureaucracy’s much the same way. The bureaucracy’s made up of a bunch people that have never been elected and you can’t get rid of them with an election unless you do what Trump’s doing, freeze federal hiring and then announce a plan to get rid of a certain percentage of the federal workforce. If he does that and if he’s able to cut some spending while doing some other things, that might sound like magic tricks but if he’s able to do some of this stuff his supporters are gonna stay with him regardless. But they are all he has.

“Revenge of the Bureaucrats,” here in Politico, “Federal workers fume over Trump’s vows to freeze hiring and shrink the government. … As one of his first acts Monday, Trump signed an executive order freezing most federal hiring.” He’s done that. “His team is also fine-tuning plans to shrink several agencies focused on domestic policy, according to sources close to the transition.” He’s on the way to doing that. “Now, the president is about to find out how much power these maligned workers have to slow or even short-circuit his agenda,” and they do have some.

They’re invisible, they’re nameless, they can undermine all kinds — they can demand investigations by the inspector general in their various departments, and most of these people are the same kind of people that were on the feminazi march. Most of them are deranged, unhinged leftists whose career objectives have been to become lifetime bureaucrats in Washington. These are the people that issue thousands of regulations every year from the EPA, the FDA, that don’t have to go through Congress, that aren’t subject to presidential signature or any of that. They just do it.

These are some of the things Trump is focusing on, and these people are not gonna sit back and take it. That’s what The Politico story is all about. They make the point that disgruntled employees in the bureaucracy can leak information to Capitol Hill and the media. They can prod inspectors general to probe political appointees. They can use the tools of bureaucracy to slow or sandbag policy proposals. And they do. Conversely, if there’s somebody in office they like, like Obama, they can speed it up and grease skids.

This is not going to be easy is the point. And Trump is gonna need every one of his supporters — well, let’s bring it closer. He’s gonna need every one of his cabinet appointees to be all-in. He’s gonna need Priebus and Bannon and Conway, Spicer and all of these other people, Jared Kushner, whoever is in his inner circle, they are going to have to be with him a hundred percent of the time, all the time, every time, because he doesn’t have anybody else. Well, no, no, no, no, no. He’s not crying over spilt milk. No, no, no. I’m not trying to engender sympathy. I’m just giving you the lay of the land.

This is warfare. The left looks at it as warfare. They always have. There is no compromise, not on core principles. There is no bipartisan. All those objectives are tricks.

All right. Trump and the CIA. That’s another story that is being, I think, totally misreported. Let me take a wild guess. If you have heard about Trump’s visit to the CIA, my guess is that you have heard Trump made a fool of himself, he ended up going off the rails and talking only about himself and saying some really odd things about how his dad knew some intelligence people so he has a great respect for intelligence people. You probably have heard that Trump at the CIA was an embarrassment and that the intelligence community is more scared than ever.

That’s not what happened. What happened is actually kind of important. Trump went to the CIA to tell them he supports them. You know, the CIA is made up just like the Pentagon is, of generals. We have warrior generals who really want to win the war, they want to win the battle, they want to take on the enemy and skunk ’em. And we have the political generals. And these are the people dominated by political correctness and climbing the ladder of success by making sure your superior gets what he wants no matter what happens. It’s basically brownnosing, kiss-assery, whatever you want to call it, you have those kind.

The CIA, same thing. You’ve got the genuine articles in there who are working silently, deftly, to save America, to save American lives. And then you have the politically correct political maneuverers in there like Brennan, the current CIA head, who loathes Trump, who despises Trump, who hates Trump, he’s the current the CIA director, Obama’s guy. Guy used to support communists. I mean, the CIA’s got a lot of people working for ’em who believe the United States is the problem in the world. The State Department, same thing.

So Trump went over to not mend fences but, you know, tell them face-to-face what he thinks of their work and how he appreciates it rather than have them guided by the fake news that’s been reported and there’s fake news coming out of Trump’s visit to the CIA today too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: James here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Great to have you. Glad you waited, sir, what’s happening, what’s up?

CALLER: Hey, Rush, you know, thank God, I’ve been waiting for somebody to get in there to attack the media, and thank God for Donald Trump. We, the people, have his back. I’ll tell you that right now, like you were saying, nobody has his back these idiots are saying. But we, the people, have his back. I am so glad he tweets and he responds to everything the media goes and puts out there, because they do want to lie to us.

They want to tell us lies every time, and I’m so glad about it, because these people that are trying to tell Trump what to do, no, don’t listen to ’em. You continue to tweet, you continue to respond, and that’s why we, the people, that’s why we voted for him. He’s not a politician. We’re so tired of the politicians. And you know what? As far as I’m concerned he already has drained the swamp by getting rid of Obama ’cause Obama was at the bottom of that swamp, and he’s out. So thanks for taking my call, Rush.

RUSH: Wait. You’re answering my question but I just want to clarify. You don’t think there’s — let me make it a positive. You are totally supportive of Trump responding to every example of media lying or distorting that there is, you think every time it happens, if Trump responds with a tweet or sends Spicer out, you’re all for it, you don’t think he can overdo that?

CALLER: Nope. I’m all for it, and that’s why. We’ve been waiting for this for so long, because you know what, every other politician that gets in there, they allow the media to dictate to the people what they want to tell us, not what we want to hear, and we’re hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth, and that’s from Trump, and I am so happy about that.

RUSH: Since I can’t talk to every Trump supporter on this program, you are one, do you think most Trump supporters are with you on this, or do you think some of them have a limit, “Okay, Donald Trump, we get it, we get, but you can’t respond to every one of these damn things.”

CALLER: Yeah, they love it. The ones that I know, my family, the majority of my family, they love it. I mean, all my family that voted for Trump and are true conservatives, we love it because we’re tired of the media. They’re at the bottom of the swamp also and Trump is just going after them, and it’s something — I’m 52 years old. I’ve been waiting for this for a long, long time.

RUSH: Yeah, let me tell you, a lot of people are, and have been as well. Well, you heard me get all riled up in here just listening to Jonathan Karl. You know, basically accusing Spicer of lying to ’em. Will you ever come to this forum, will you always tell the truth? Of course, the arrogance here is that the media never lies. It’s only Trump that lies. But the media never does, and Spicer just threw a couple right back in his face, and then they start talking about audience size and crowd size.

I guarantee you they’re setting up the narrative for the rest of the day, and it’s gonna be something like childish Trump continues to whine and moan about crowd size. Trump conditions to whine and moan over Obama’s inauguration being bigger. That that’ll be the narrative, something along those lines. Jim, thanks for the call. I appreciate it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay, quickly, Kelly, St. George, Utah. Welcome to the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush! This is how the left and the media act when they feel marginalized, when they’re being sidelined by something big happening. This is how they’ll respond in the future. I hope Trump stays on the push, on the offense. He pushes hard with a great agenda. He doesn’t play with their pettiness and he moves ahead. This is what they tried to do to Nixon. This is what they’ll tried to do to him. He needs to go over the heads of the people just like Reagan did.

RUSH: You know, this is an excellent point, folks. This is how they act when they know they’re being marginalized. They try to recapture the agenda and the narrative and make themselves look normal and whatever they’re covering — in this case, Trump — appear to be the aberrant and the odd and the minority, if you will. You’re exactly right. If he doesn’t stay on offense, if they relax on this… They’re already trying to Nixon him. They’re already trying to do this impeachment thing.

I mean, David Brock is already raising money off it. They’ve already got the plans laid out. They’ve got two or three different plans of attack on it. They’re just waiting for time to take place, for Trump to exist and do his job — and, in the process, they think that he is engaging in impeachable offenses. And they’re taking notes and preparing the case. It will happen, folks. Make no mistake. They are gonna do it. Even if they know it’s gonna fail, they’ll do it for the fundraising, the politics of it.
RUSH: Quickly, Adam in Scranton, Pennsylvania. We have a Millennial here with a good point. How you doing, Adam?

CALLER: I’m good, Rush. How are you today, sir?

RUSH: Very fine. Thank you very much.

CALLER: I just wanted to say, greetings from Scranton, Pennsylvania, home of Scrappy Joe Biden and Hugh Rodham. I just have to say, I can’t believe I’m on the phone wit’cha. Amazing.

RUSH: I appreciate you calling.

CALLER: I’ve been listening to you since 2010, sir. I have to tell you, a lot of my friends and family? I just wanted to mention that the indoctrination is real. It has happened, and I can tell you firsthand that my friends, my family, my wife, in fact, have all been forced to… I don’t want to say “forced,” quite strong word. But they’ve been “persuaded” to vote and register as a Democrat through high school. (chuckles) I myself have had one or two teachers come up to me and present me with the registration form and basically say that the Republicans are for the rich and the Democrats are for the poor, and we don’t suggest you vote any way, but we urge you to vote for Democrats.

RUSH: Right. And the point is all of these are Baby Boomer teachers who are indoctrinating their kids, in some cases grandkids and so forth. They’re from the sixties, and you’re a Millennial, and you see it happening, and I think… I know some Millennials are starting to wake up. It’s a slow process. Indoctrination, propaganda, it’s a very effective thing, especially when it’s made to look like it’s just the everyday normal, the everyday normalcy. Long battle. I’m glad you called, Adam. Thank you very much. Happy to have had you out there since 2010. Hope you don’t go anywhere.