RUSH: Can I go back again? I want to air you something from this program, something I said back on April 11th. This North Korea story, we need to batten this down, too, because there are two different administrations that have a role in leading this North Korea situation where it is. The first one is the Bill Clinton administration, and the second one is Obama.

Obama is related to it because, imagine down the road, instead of talking about North Korea, now we’re talking about Iran, ’cause that’s where we’re headed. The Clinton administration gave us a diplomatic solution. The brainiacs, the sophisticates, the cosmopolitans. Yes, they all have said throughout the years, led by Bill Richardson — who is one of the negotiators, apparently a North Korean expert, the ambassador to the U.N. for Clinton. He did a number of things, including he had a private email server kind of like Hillary did back in the day.

Anyway, we were told throughout the Clinton administration that we were safe, that we had negotiated (Madam Albright was also a significant role player here), and we have been told that diplomacy was the only solution here. There isn’t a military solution. There isn’t a solution that resides in alpha-male behavior. I mean, they were telling us this all through the nineties. I mean, the Pajama Boys have been evolving for quite a while.

They came to fruition and full maturity during the Obama administration, but they were actually “blossoming,” shall we say, during the Clinton nineties on the liberal Democrat side. And they kept telling us, “You know, brusque behavior, tough talk, alpha-male behavior, that is not a solution. No! That will not accomplish anything. All that will do is serve to irritate and provoke the North Koreans. We don’t dare do that.” So we got negotiation, and so we got diplomacy. So we got all the brilliant, smart people.

The same people that have been telling us how to get peace in the Middle East and who have been failing to do it our entire lives. They were telling us they and they alone were the same experts who only could bring peace with North Korea. Only the same kind of striped-pants diplomacy, spoken-word, doctors-nurses-and-clean-water negotiations could limit the behavior of clinically insane people like Kim Jong-un and Pot Jong-un and all the other Jong-uns. And look where we are today. While we have furnished the material for supposedly nuclear electricity, power plants, they are now building nuclear weapons.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, no, no. My instincts on this are right. The Russia story was dying down. I’ve been telling you this for a couple weeks. If you’ve been paying attention, the Russia story, there isn’t anything there anyway, and as time goes by, nothing that has been alleged has any evidence behind it. It’s only human nature. Nobody can continue with an emotionally filled reservoir indefinitely.

At some point enthusiasm for even your most loved thing, even your most appreciated thing, enthusiasm wanes. It’s just human nature. And the Drive-Bys are no different. Even though there’s a whole slew of ’em on this, they’ve been at this now basically intensely for seven or eight months, and even longer than that if you count the run-up period going back to the 2016 campaign, the period of months prior to the election.

After the election when the Clinton campaign signaled that that was gonna be their area of focus to explain their loss, then it really ramped up. And it was intense, and it didn’t end, and it didn’t lighten up, it didn’t let go. It went on and on and on for months.

But as it went on and on and on, nothing of substance ever appeared. It remained a story fueled by anonymous sources and illegal leaks, and even those contain no evidence. They simply haven’t turned up any evidence. The story was beginning to fade away. And then this North Korea thing happens, and I will guarantee you something, folks, guarantee you.

The anti-Trumpists, wherever they are, whether they be in the Washington establishment or anywhere, the last thing they want is for an external event to pop up that would allow Trump to behave in such a way to project American power in a way that would unite the American people behind his effort or the cause.

And, as you know, as in the case of 9/11, after that event happened the country was unified for a couple weeks until the Democrats decided it was time to break away and blame Bush for it. But there was unity for a couple weeks. People do come together. That’s the last thing the Never Trumpers want. They don’t want anything happening. And external events like the Norks they can’t control.

So this Nork thing continues to build. The little pot-bellied dictator keeps launching his missiles. And we had a story yesterday, the story that launched all of this on North Korea since last night. It’s a Washington Post story: “North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons — North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.” And the information was provided by U.S. intelligence officials in a confidential assessment.

So, once again, it was nothing official. In other words, the Trump administration didn’t officially announce this. It was more of the same. The Trump administration essentially confirmed it, however, with their following behavior. The analysis was said to have been compiled by the Defense Intelligence Agency and it came “on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.”

Well, with the Russia story — and by the way, don’t misunderstand me. I’m talking about as a media event. I’m not saying that Mueller is relaxing or letting go. I’m strictly speaking as a media event, it was beginning to wane. Human nature. Mueller isn’t leaking anything he’s learned here. They are leaking that they raided Manafort’s house, for example. Then this North Korea rears its head, and this is the last thing, the last thing that the anti-Trumpers and Never Trumpers want.

Anything that would allow Trump to behave as a unifying strong and steadfast leader, that can’t be tolerated. So when the Nork situation happens, guess what’s leaked? The Manafort raid. And what’s put right back on the front page? What’s the lead at the Drudge Report today? FBI: Manafort Raided Bank Records. Bammo. It’s back. Russia and Trump and collusion is back within hours of whatever the North Korea story was.

The Manafort raid happened back on July 26th. So take the North Korea thing off the front page, move it down below the fold, bring Russia back with Manafort, FBI raid, bank records, documents, predawn, wow, “Matilda, it must really be bad,” is the hoped-for reaction. Then the way they’re gonna deal with the North Korea thing is, “Oh, my gosh, it’s bad enough that Kim Jong-un is insane. Now Trump, oh, my gosh, it’s two insane people.” And that’s how they’re gonna try to portray Trump and his policy on North Korea. They’re already doing it.

They’re trying to blame Trump for his fire and fury comments last night for Kim Jong-un’s further saber rattling. It’s astounding. They’re trying to blame Trump for the way North Korean’s acting. Because Trump’s unstable, Trump doesn’t understand, he’s not sophisticated or cosmopolitan enough. Trump doesn’t know that you just don’t go out and taunt these lunatics. You just don’t do it. You don’t try to alpha male ’em off the front page. You just don’t do it, and yet Trump’s doing. And that’s why we’re in this North Korea situation precisely because of —

But I’ll tell you, Rex Tillerson, you hear what Tillerson’s saying? Tillerson says, “Sleep easy. There’s nothing here. There’s nothing gonna happen here. Don’t worry about it.” I understand exactly what he’s talking about. We’re dealing with media-created frames of mind, states of mind here. The North Koreans have been who they are for months. The North Koreans have been launching missiles for months. The North Koreans have been doing this and testing this. They’ve been failing at everything they’ve been trying for months.

Then all of a sudden we get a Washington Post story claiming they’ve miniaturized nuclear warheads, they got about 60 of ’em fit inside their missiles, and bammo, everything changes. It’s exactly how they lead you down the primrose path. It’s exactly how they get you all emotionally fired up and invested in something. It’s exactly how they take a story that’s not got anything really new in it on either side, good or bad, nothing really new, but you write a story, make it look like, “Oh, my gosh, he’s got 60 miniature nuke warheads, oh, no!”

And then you’ve got a brand-new theme, a brand-new narrative, and then from that you can go “Trump’s unqualified, Trump himself is a lunatic like this guy is. And the evidence for that is Trump’s talking big with this guy and it’s just further stoking this guy, he’s threatening this guy, he’s challenging this guy. Trump’s gonna be responsible if there’s any warfare that breaks out.” Then they take that and they go back to the Russia story. Here’s what I said about this back on April 11th on this program. See if you remember this.

RUSH ARCHIVE: What’s everybody so concerned about here? This Little Kim guy had been launching his putrid little missiles trying to hit us for how many years now, and then his father prior to that. And they keep plunking in the Pacific Ocean someplace. Look, keep aiming, Little Kim. I think our message, “Keep aiming, Little Kim — and if you get close to us, you’re gonna pay the price for it.” The North Koreans should have been taken out years ago. Clinton should have taken them out. You remember Madeleine Albright and some of the ridiculous things she said about the North Koreans, and it then it continued with the Bush administration really just huffed and puffed. I think what Trump is employing — and you leftists ought to love this. I think Trump is employing the madman strategy. These are genuine madmen in North Korea. These people are literally off-the-charts insane, and it might be something as simple as inbreeding. Who the hell knows. These people are odd. You have to admit it, folks. So Trump may be thinking, “You know what? I’m gonna make them think I’m unpredictable. I’m gonna make them think that I am a madman. I’m gonna reverse the table on ’em, and I’m gonna make them think I’m the one that’s unpredictable.” Because they have been able to launch their putrid little missiles here for decades with the knowledge that nobody’s gonna do anything about it.

RUSH: Bingo. Folks, this is all the way back on April 11th. And what’s Tillerson out there saying? Tillerson’s making my point. He’s saying Trump is speaking to them in ways they understand.

“Fire and fury” rather than, “Please don’t. We need a new round of bilateral talks! Unilateral isn’t gonna do it. We need bilateral talks.” This has been the solution ever since this issue surfaced, and it’s gotten us nowhere! In fact, it’s lost us ground because now the little guy may actually have some warheads that are nuclear. And all the while, Madeleine Albright and Bill Clinton and Bill Richardson, they were promised over and over again that they were not gonna build nukes, that we’re just gonna try to ramp up our power grid.

Same exact thing the Iranians told Obama. This situation, we’re gonna see this play out in a few years except for North Korea, it’s gonna be Iran, and we’re gonna do this all over again. We’re gonna be shocked one day that the Iranians have 60 miniaturized nuclear warheads that will fit inside nukes. “Wait a minute! Wait a minute. They said that they were just gonna build up their power!” Well, I know, and that was the agreement, but look. You see how history repeats itself here? I guarantee you, North Korea’s gonna become Iran because we have had the same policy with the same ideological thinking behind it: Bill Clinton, Barack Obama.

“We can trust them,” they said. “We are superior at diplomacy. We’re the greatest diplomats, negotiators. We understand,” and we’re made fools of. We’re mocked and made fools of at the same time. So Trump comes along with an entirely different approach, which has the swamp just in a feverish, vaporish state. They’re panicking. “Oh, my God, Trump’s…” Trump’s talking to them, Tillerson says, in ways they understand.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me ask you a question. Those of you who were listening to your local news in the top-of-the-hour break, let me guess what happened. Aside from your local news (if you get any of that), when they got to the local news, the first national story you heard about on your local news just now was the Manafort raid by the FBI and then they went to North Korea, right? I’ll lay you 10 to one if you had ABC’s radio news, Mutual News, whoever does local news now for these affiliates at the top of the hour.

Whoever it is, I guarantee you that the Manafort raid by the FBI on July 26th was the lead story in your local newscast, followed by whatever’s going on in North Korea. Right? And, of course, why do I predict that? Well, because I predicted it in the first hour, essentially saying the Russia story was starting to fade. Meaning: Daily leaks. Meaning: The five p.m. bombshell every day. They’re starting to fade. The Mueller investigation isn’t, don’t misunderstand.

I’m talking about a daily breaking news, daily bombshell news from the deep state. And then this North Korea thing happened, which, what’s the North Korea thing? A Washington Post story yesterday saying that they have developed 60 miniaturized nuclear warheads that will fit inside their missiles. Well, that prompted a reaction from our government from Trump, from a number of people. And the establishment, the swamp, whatever you want to call ’em, they can’t…

“Pshew! No way, Jose, are we gonna allow Trump to appear presidential, to act presidential, to coalesce, to be a leader and assemble Americans. We’re not gonna let this happen!” So here comes the Manafort leak that the FBI raided his house in a predawn raid that made it look like it happened overnight. It actually was on July 26th, and in that way they get the Russia story back on the top. Bammo. That’s how it happens.

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RUSH: We start with Kathy in Chicopee, Massachusetts. Great to have you. How are you?

CALLER: Hello, sir. Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: My only thought when you said that the media was saying that Trump shouldn’t express how he does about a situation or what he calls Kim Jong-un, that he shouldn’t do that, he shouldn’t bait him. But what has the past administration done? I mean, nothing gets you nothing. And we all like Trump’s style of calling things like they are. I mean, everybody appreciated “Little Marco” and “Crooked Hillary.” We like that he calls people out for what they are.

RUSH: (laughing) Little Marco, Crooked Hillary. Yeah, true, I think Trump’s supporters like it. This, though, was the “fire and fury” comment. Trump had a statement that was issued about North Korea. What he basically said, he gave an ultimatum: We’re not putting up with this anymore. We’re not tolerating this. You guys can piddle around, play around, we’re gonna deal with this one way or another if you keep this up.

And it was clear he wasn’t talking about sending more negotiators over there or trying to get Kim Jong-un and the Norks to the table. And this of course caused a hissy fit in Foggy Bottom and the striped-pants crowd and elsewhere inside-the-Beltway. You do not saber rattle and you do not talk this way.

CALLER: Nothing else worked.

RUSH: Well, the situation is now at a fever pitch, and they’re trying to blame Trump for this. This is the next wave here of trying to show Trump is incompetent and unfit. “This is not how this is done. You do not provoke mad men. You do not challenge them. You do not promise them. You do not commit your nation to military action. We cannot tolerate this. This president is simply unfit.” This is what they’re saying, as they seek to blame Trump. So now what they’re trying to do is set it up so that Trump is responsible for whatever Kim Jong-un does.

CALLER: Yeah, but it’s not gonna hold any water with us. Like you just said, you just walked back the whole situation like it’s been for decades. So nobody’s gonna believe anything they say. At this point we just need to move forward.

RUSH: True. All that’s true. But they’re not concerned with you. I think the Drive-Bys, they would love if they could separate you from your support for Trump. But I think they more and more realize that that’s not in the cards. That’s why they’re sending reporters with visas out to flyover country. Have you noticed that more and more reporters, newspapers and TV, are actually going out there, under the guise of the opioid crisis or something, and they’re talking to Trump voters and they’re trying to understand, “Why do you still support this schlub? What do we have to do to get you to renounce the guy?” is what they’re trying to find out.

And what they’re finding out is that there’s nothing that they can do that will cause Trump supporters to renounce him. So they are looking beyond you, Kathy, and they’re looking at others and trying to influence others that Trump is unfit and now poses a real danger. I mean, if this Kim Jong-un guy does something they’re gonna full well, I guarantee you, blame it on Trump. They can’t let Trump get away with unifying the country. They can’t allow that to happen. So that’s the objective now. Appreciate the call very much.

Jake in Rochester, New York. Welcome. You’re next, sir. How are you?

CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing? I’m doing great here.

RUSH: Great. Thank you for the call.

CALLER: Oh, thanks for taking it. Hey, I’ve been listening to you for years. And I was prompted to call in because I had a few things I wanted to do. But I don’t have a concern about Trump. In fact, when he was running I was looking for a Trump sign for my yard, and you couldn’t get one in Rochester. So I spray-painted a three-by-six piece of plywood that said “Trump for President: Make America Great Again.” I sent him a Christmas card and I mailed it to Trump Towers, New York City because I didn’t have the address, exact address. It came back to me for insufficient address.

At any rate, I have a concern. I’m watching the news lately, and this Korean dictator with a girl’s first name, is on the left side of crazy. And he’s like a kid at Christmastime and birthday all wrapped up into one when you get all the gifts you wanted to get and he’s there clapping his hands and he’s marching along and he’s looking at his soldiers and everything. I’m a little concerned that he might just push the button that everybody said Trump would push.

RUSH: Well, that’s what he wants you to think. By the way, Kim is the family name. They pronounce the last name first. So Kim is the equivalent of Jones, and Jong-un is the equivalent of Jim. So it would be Jones, comma, Jim, if we pronounce names the way they do. (interruption) What are you laughing at? You didn’t know that? Yeah. Everybody’s first name’s not Kim over there. Every last name is Kim. So it’s Jong-un Kim, Jong-il Kim, Jong Ding Dong Kim, whatever it is, but Kim is the last name. They pronounce their last name first. Several Asian countries do this as well, not just the North Koreans and South Koreans.

Anyway, he wants you to think that. He wants you to think he’s unstable. He wants you to think he’s a madman that might run around, push the button. That’s his whole objective. Trump, I’ve actually heard say, that the guy’s smarter than anybody knows. It’s just when you look at him, sorry, folks, that just becomes hard to believe.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Grab sound bite number three. This is Trump. I should have played this way back when I… In fact, let’s do this. For those of you just joining the program, I want to go back to something I said on April 11th about North Korea and the way this is all developing. I want you to keep in mind this is back in April, because what’s happening is Trump had his “fire and fury” speech last night. He said we’re tired of putting up with it with you people in North Korea. We’re not gonna do diplomacy anymore. You keep this up, and you’re gonna face the fire and fury of the United States.

And, of course, the left and media are going nuts. “Threats! Trump’s trying to start a war. It proves Trump’s incompetent, proves Trump’s unfit,” all this stuff. Meanwhile, the genuine failures in our foreign policy are Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Clinton in 1994! I mean, this is his second year in office and he’s going on and on and on about how he’s beaten the North Koreans and we’ve solved the problem with diplomacy. We have a new deal here, and they promised to get rid of their nukes — and they didn’t.

Obama has told us the same thing about Iran. The point is that diplomacy and negotiations never win conflicts. They never do, and they never cause surrender. They never bring about surrender. It’s absurd to think so. So I want to play what Trump actually said that got this latest round going, but I want to preface it with a reminder/replay. For those of you who heard it in the first hour, I beg your indulgence, because this is pretty spot on from last April.

BEGIN RUSH ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH: What’s everybody so concerned about here? This Little Kim guy had been launching his putrid little missiles trying to hit us for how many years now, and then his father prior to that. And they keep plunking in the Pacific Ocean someplace. Look, keep aiming, Little Kim. I think our message is, “Keep aiming, Little Kim — and if you get close to us, you’re gonna pay the price for it.” The North Koreans should have been taken out years ago. Clinton should have taken them out.

You remember Madeleine Albright and some of the ridiculous things she said about the North Koreans, and it then it continued with the Bush administration really just huffed and puffed. I think what Trump is employing — and you leftists ought to love this. I think Trump is employing the madman strategy. I think he’s trying.,. These are genuine madmen in North Korea. These people are literally off-the-charts insane.

nd it might be something as simple as inbreeding. Who the hell knows? These people are odd. You have to admit it, folks. So Trump may be thinking, “You know what? I’m gonna make them think I’m unpredictable. I’m gonna make them think that I am a madman. I’m gonna reverse the table on ’em, and I’m gonna make them think I’m the one that’s unpredictable, because they have been able to launch their putrid little missiles here for decades with the knowledge that nobody’s gonna do anything about it.”

END RUSH ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH: Right. Tillerson followed this up and everybody had their conniption fit. Tillerson said, “Hey, the president is speaking the language they understand.” Here’s what Trump said. This was at his golf club in New Jersey, and it was toward the end of the business day yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury — and, frankly, power — the likes of which this world has never seen before.

RUSH: Okay. So what’s your reaction to that? One thing Trump’s right about. This little guy has been running around, the Kim family… Kim Jong-il, which is his dad, Kim Jong-un’s. Kim Il Sung, which is the grandfather. We’ve had all of these people saber rattling, threatening. This guy is actually trying to hit targets with his little missiles, and now the news is out in the Washington Post yesterday that they have found a way to miniaturize nuclear warheads. They have 60 of them that will fit in the missiles that they’re firing, and we’ve been trying the swamp way ever since the Clintons got in office.

Even before that, but the modern era popularized by Clinton and Madeleine Albright, Bill Richardson. “Negotiation and diplomacy are the only way and only we specialists understand the special language required to speak with such personages as Kim Jong-un,” blah, blah, blah, blah. In the meantime, the doctors and the nurses and the clean water and negotiations and diplomacy gets us nowhere, except North Korea nuking up. We give them the money and the materiel ostensibly for their nuclear power industry, the same thing we’ve done with Iran.

Hmm, and they end up with nuclear weapons, and we get a statement by Bill Clinton telling us, “This deal is great for Americans. We have staved off the North Koreans’ pursuit of nuclear weapons.” Obama is telling us the same thing. We’re being lied to. We’re either being lied to or our presidents in the past are genuine, bumbling fools and their diplomats have been genuine bumbling fools. To negotiate with the North Koreans and come home and tell us that we snookered ’em and we beat ’em?

The only thing they’re gonna do and only thing they’re gonna get is materiel and money for nuclear power. They’re nuking up their weapon programs. Are we this dumb, our leaders? Are we this dumb and incompetent, or are we being played? Obama said the same thing with Iran. So now Trump, who’s an outsider, has had enough of it. Like any normal American who’s paid attention to this, he is getting sick and tired of being threatened by some Third World tinhorn despot who has been trying to hit targets with his launches.

There’s a story today that if he targeted Hawaii, they would have eight to 12 minutes warning — which, believe me, that’s not enough time to even save the fish swimming in the streets of downtown Honolulu, much less the human population. So I think Trump’s reaction here is something that, again, your average American citizen understands. But here’s Jake Tapper, moving on to audio sound bite number 4. In fact, play 4 and 5. Here’s Jake Tapper and Jeff Zeleny at CNN reacting to Trump’s “fire and fury” comments.

TAPPER: (haltingly) “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” unquote. That is extraordinary language for an American president to use.

ZELENY: Jake, it is, uhh, like language we have never seen from a U.S. president. For all the, uhh, over-the-top statements this president has made, this certainly is the strongest and most forceful, uh, with consequences.

RUSH: Erin Burnett last night on her program on CNN…

BURNETT: You have an American president speaking, frankly, in words that echo Kim Jong-un, the bellicose belligerent rhetoric that we hear. We see “fire and fury” and assume it’s Kim Jong-un, and we find it’s President Trump.

RUSH: Oh, so this sounds like Kim Jong-un, huh? Now, apparently, White House officials are saying, “Hey, hey, hey, back off. Trump was just improvising. That wasn’t officially telepromptered statement material. That wasn’t written. It was just Trump improvising. Everybody back off.” So they’re trying to cover their tracks. But I want to take you back to 1945, because we were just told by Jake Tapper and Jeff Zeleny that we’ve never heard language like this from a U.S. president. “This is unprecedented! This is language we have never seen from a U.S. president.”

Here’s Harry Truman aboard the USS Augusta in the mid-Atlantic in August of 1945. It’s Harry Truman announcing we’ve just dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

TRUMAN: A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold. It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The source from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

RUSH: And he wasn’t finished. This is more Harry Truman aboard the USS Augusta on August 6th, 1945…

TRUMAN: We are now prepared to destroy — more rapidly and completely — every productive enterprise the Japanese have in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake: We shall completely destroy Japan’s power to make war. It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July the 26th was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms, they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

RUSH: Well, well, well, and here’s old Trump talking about fire and fury and CNN’s girlie boys are going, “Oh, my God! Oh, my! Oh, we never, oh, oh! We never, oh, my God! This guy, oh, jeez!” And here’s Harry Truman detailing the destruction that he seems confidently satisfied that we can project against those who started the war in the Pacific, in this case the Japanese.

True generational differences, no question that they’re generational differences here, but it wasn’t that long ago that they were writing songs about Harry Truman asking, “Harry, where are you? We need you back.”

It’s more than generational too. Clearly there are generational differences here the way the office of the presidency is conducted and managed and represented, but the reaction to a strong-willed and forceful and confident American president, the reaction in liberal media, the blogosphere, with palpable fear and outrage. That’s kind of unprecedented too.