RUSH: Greetings, my friends, and welcome. Rush Limbaugh. Happy to be back once again firmly ensconced in the big chair, the mac-daddy chair, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, advanced Anti-Media Studies, and Advanced Anti-Leftist Studies. Telephone number is 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.

Folks, there is no way that I can get to everything here in the first segment. Snerdley came in, “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait. I want you to get to everything in the first segment!” I can’t, folks. It simply isn’t possible to get to everything in the first hour. Just be patient. We’ll get to it all. It’s just a matter of prioritizing.

I think the way to get started, let’s do a little bit of a news update on something you may not know. At this dirty, filthy restaurant in — what was it, Lexington, Virginia? Have you seen the picture of the place? Trump was right. The awning, the canopy’s kind of filthy and so forth.

It turns out that the proprietor of this place is somehow related to or very close friends with Meryl Streep, and this place, Lexington, Virginia, is a blue blob of people who have left the Northeast and moved south and what they’ve done is they’ve brought their corrupting liberalism with them.

The place where this restaurant is, the county, voted 62% for Trump. So this little blue blob of about 7,000 people is heavily leftist and socialist and so forth. And this is one of the dangers, you know, the people in the Northeast, their governments are ruining living conditions. And so people who can afford to are leaving. Which is all well and good, except they’re bringing their corrupting politics and culture with them to wherever it is they settle. And it’s an ongoing problem.

Now, they are surrounded in places like this, but still they’re there. And there’s a little bit of a parallel. The mass migration up from Central America through the U.S. border — and, by the way, do you know who is really behind that? Do you know who’s really, in my humble opinion, I can’t prove anything here. I mean aside from the Democrats encouraging it and all that, for previously stated reasons — the drug cartels are the big pushers — no pun intended — for this.

The drug cartels need mules and coyotes and pack rats to get their product into the country. And the drug cartels are taking the greatest advantage of liberal Democrat policies they can to get drugs into this country. And you don’t hear too many people talking about that because this has all become so politicized. That is why what is going on at the border is a security issue as much as it is criminal or anything else. It is a massive security issue.

You know, aside from whatever this never-ending migration is doing to the cultural identity of the United States, the fact of the matter is the drug cartels are behind this as how they get their product in the country, and they’ve got big-time Republican donors and liberal Democrats to thank for this open border policy, and they are taking great advantage of it to get their product into the country. It’s something to consider.

Anyway, about this Red Hen restaurant, Mike Huckabee was on Laura Ingraham’s show today, and Mike Huckabee, who is the father of Sarah Huckabee — oh, and do you know this? Sarah Sanders, her in-laws do not like Trump. Her in-laws are anti-Trumpers, Never Trumpers or liberal Democrats. I think her husband — don’t quote me on this, but I think her husband is from outside Kansas City in a very tony suburb of Kansas City called Mission Hills, Kansas.

Now, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything if it’s true or not. But this owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, not only told Sanders to split, to get out of there, according to Sanders’ father, Governor Mike Huckabee, the Red Hen owner followed Sarah Sanders family across the street to harass them at the other restaurant they ended up going to.

Had you heard that? Huckabee made mention of this today, and also the fact that his daughter’s in-laws are Never Trumpers. They are liberal Democrats. So they got a taste of the faction they are a member of, they got a taste of how this outfit operates.

Now, you can make book on it, the immediate comparisons to the gay couple that went into the bakery and said, “Hey, we’re gay, you must love us and you must love us so much you must bake a cake for our reception. And if you don’t, we’re gonna sue you out of existence.” And the guy said, “I’m sorry, I do not accept your practices. My religion forbids me participating, so I will not be baking cakes.”

These people sue the guy out the wazoo. And so the leftists now want to draw this comparison. There’s no comparison whatsoever, which I’ll get to the details here in just a second. But that analogy is so flawed that it invites being exploded. But that’s what the left is relying on. I think what I want to do here, aside from these few little details, is to set a broad brush, paint with a broad bush, just recount things that have happened since I was last here in a way that will set the table for what is to follow.

So let’s see. Since I was last on, literally in the last three days, the leftists have exploited a little girl. They put her on the cover of TIME magazine. They misrepresented this little girl as having been separated from her mommy, and they interposed Trump massively towering over her as a tyrannosaurus rex monster while she is crying in abject fear.

What we now know — grab audio sound bite No. 1. Audio sound bite No. 1. I predicted. Let’s go back to last Monday, a week ago on this program before we knew the truth I warned everybody about this picture and what TIME magazine was doing, and this how.

RUSH ARCHIVE: Now there’s this guy who’s taken a picture of a young girl, supposedly Guatemalan, crying at the border. Classic. We don’t know what the picture is. We only know what the guy who’s on CNN is telling us the picture is. So all he’s gotta do is say, “Yeah, this young girl’s just been separated from her mommy and daddy, and she’s been told she’s never seen gonna see them again, and she doesn’t understand why. (crying) How can we let this go on? How can we do this? Doesn’t anybody care anymore? (wailing) What’s… what’s… what’s happening to us?” This is how it all starts, when nobody knows. The girl could have just asked for some ice cream and somebody said “no.” You don’t know. You’re a prisoner to whatever they tell you it is, and everybody involved in this has a political agenda.

RUSH: One week ago, I forewarned everybody not to buy this, and I ended up being validated. As everybody knows now, the picture was not even taken at the border. And she had not been separated from her mom. And her father stepped up and said so. And TIME magazine found out about it and decided to stay with the picture. They issued some minor little correction but stayed with the picture to make the overall larger point. Never mind that their overall larger point was a lie, based on a lie, something totally made up. They stuck with it!

Proving once again TIME magazine isn’t media, and media isn’t news. We’re dealing with full-fledged adjuncts of the Democrat Party, propaganda operations. She wasn’t separated from her mom. She was not afraid of Trump. She’s never seen Trump. She had nothing to do with this border crisis at all, this little girl crying. TIME magazine finds out goes, “Ah. Okay. Well, still we’re gonna stick with this ’cause it makes our point.”

Then the left and the Drive-Bys threw a hissy fit over a $39 jacket worn on an airplane by Melania Trump. It had a message her husband said was for the Drive-Bys. The Drive-Bys said it was Melania Trump secretly sabotaging her husband by saying, “We don’t really care about this border crisis, do we?” The attacks on Melania Trump continued. I have yet to hear any defense of her from either of the previous first ladies who have seen fit to attack her.

Then the left, as you know, refused service to Sarah Sanders and her party at a restaurant. I guess this thing it’s three hours from Washington. You ask, what were they doing there? No, no, no, they’re entitled to go anywhere. I’m just wondering, you live in Washington, why would you drive three hours to some little shack like that? They had their reasons.

One of the great myths about that is that Sarah said that the ethics counselor for the Obama administration, some guy named Shaub, has been all over social media just excoriating Sarah Sanders. She just was so unethical. She should not have tweeted the name of that restaurant. She should not have tweeted the experience. She should not have done that because she carries a White House email address and title and it is exploitative and it is using her power.

Sarah Sanders didn’t do anything. What happened was the owner of this place was shocked to find out — her staff called her. She was home. The owner wasn’t even there. They called her at home, Stephanie Wilkinson, so she shows up, takes a vote of the staff. The staff says, “We gotta get rid of ’em. We gotta get rid of Sarah Sanders.” Why?

“Well, we just do because — because — well, because we hate ’em. Yeah, that’s right. So we gotta get rid of ’em.” So they asked Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave, and she politely leaves. And the rest of her family and the party, they walk out. Sarah Sanders didn’t tweet a thing about this until a waiter tweeted what had happened in there, complete with a photograph of the white board explaining the policy and some other things as evidence.

And it was only then that she responded. She didn’t start anything. She didn’t exploit anything. She didn’t use the power of her position in the White House to condemn a private business. It’s the other way around. And I doubt that she will be suing this restaurant to make them serve her and her party the next time she goes back. Like happened in the bakery and the photo shop examples here.

The left has also harassed Kirstjen Nielsen and her guests out of a restaurant. They have published the phone number of Stephen Miller, who is one of Trump’s highest ranking aides, particularly on immigration. They harassed Pam Bondi. She is the attorney general in the state of Florida. She was at a Mr. Rogers documentary. (imitating Mr. Rogers) “Hi, neighbor. To want wear my Cardigan? I would love to see how it looks on you, neighbor.”

They’re watching some documentary on Fred Rogers, and the left lunatics went nuts and harassed her out of the place. Then they demanded that the left harassed everybody connected to Trump. Then Maxine Waters gets in on the act and says it’s the only proper thing to do. And the never-ending evidence of the great illness of Trump derangement continues. It is on display.

Now, I’ll tell you what I think. I made this analogy once, and I’m going to double down on it again. When you take a look at what’s happening with sanctuary cities, for example, here are Democrats, liberal Democrats in open defiance of federal law, just like the old Confederates were in the slave days. It was the Confederacy, it was the South that geared up for war so that they could continue to violate federal law. The present day Confederates are the Democrats, the Democrat Party.

Now, back in the slave days, Confederates went to war to defend the unequal treatment of African-Americans. The Confederates, the Democrats of the old South went to war. It was called the civil war, for, among other things, to defend the unequal treatment of blacks, to maintain them as slaves.

Present-day Confederates, today’s Democrats are gearing up for a war over the unequal treatment of Trump supporters and Republicans. They will eventually put up signs — they already are — “Republicans not welcome.” “Republicans must move to the back of the bus.” “Republicans, Trump supporters, must not show up here.” It’s eerie, the similarities here. The open defiance of the federal government, the demand to be able to treat unequal and unfairly people with whom you disagree with politically.

The Democrat Party attracts secessionists. You’ve heard California talking about seceding from the union, other Democrats have talked about that. They set up sanctuary cities that defy federal law. They’ve begun discriminating this time by party affiliation instead of race. It all feels very familiar. And if there is a civil war in this country, some think it has already begun and that we’re in the midst of it now. It sure looks like it’s going to be over political affiliation.

Because the Democrats sure seem hell-bent on running a single-party country and punishing anybody and everybody who is not in their party. Their anger and their hatred know no bounds. They have been fully poisoned by the hatred they harbor. And the hatred they harbor is multifaceted and has many reasons, and I will explain when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So what has happened to the left? They were deranged to start. The devotion to socialism is an exercise in futility. It doesn’t work. It never has worked. Their best shot at it was the eight years of Barack Hussein Obama, and that has been demonstrated to have been a disaster. They are beside themselves. What they believe in doesn’t work. What they believe in has been resoundingly blown to smithereens, and they know it.

They won’t admit it, but they know it. Every weapon in their arsenal to destroy Donald Trump has failed, despite every one of those weapons working against most Republicans they have deployed those weapons against. Trump survived it all and triumphs. Trump is rocking. Trump is rolling. The country is in a rebirth. Public opinion polls of the country at large show a contented population, an optimistic population, unaffected by what the left is doing in terms of their support for Trump.

They cannot drive Trump supporters away from him.

They cannot drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters.

They are frustrated and angry. You put it all together with the fact that everything they believe in fails and is failing and has failed, and they are beside themselves. They are never happy to begin with, and this is just piling more shocking disappointment and rage on top of itself. Barack Obama politicized and weaponized the government while in office. He tried to fix the election in 2016. He tried to choose his successor. Bernie Sanders and Trump were the victims, and they both — well, Trump especially — not only survived and triumphed, but has illustrated the attempts made by the Obama administration.

He’s exposed the fraud everywhere on the left.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I was just looking at CNN. They’ve got a discussion going, or they had. The chyron graphic: “Bad weekend for civility in America.” You know, who’s responsible for this? Let’s take a look at this. She may not be the best example, but I’m gonna go use it, it will work. Let’s take the proprietor the Red Hen, that little shack restaurant that threw Sarah Sanders and her party out, Stephanie Wilkinson. Okay. Where is she learning this hate?

I believe hate is a learned thing. You’re not born hating things. That’s something that evolves, develops or whatever. Where is this incivility, this hate, where’s it coming from? It’s coming in the media, and it’s coming anywhere you look in the media. It’s coming from Hollywood. It’s coming from prime-time television shows, it’s coming in music, it’s coming in many books, and it’s coming in what is called the news.

People are being lied to about pictures and Trump and little girls separated from their mothers. People are being lied to every day by the media about things. And their hatred is being ginned up. It’s why I said one week ago today that I have a real fear that if they don’t stop this, somebody’s gonna get killed over this. There are people at their wits’ end over having lost everything politically. They are deranged to begin with. They’re unstable. And all of that derangement and instability is being fed. It’s being promoted.

The Democrat Party has obviously decided that anger and hatred and a mob mentality is the way back to winning the House and the White House, the presidency. It has become a strategy. It has become their policy. So everywhere you look on the left, in media where people are influenced, you see anger legitimized. You see rage legitimized. You see hate promoted and rewarded, as in Maxine Waters encouraging more of it. By the very people who used to profess their opposition to it.

They used to be love of and for everyone, and they used to demand that everybody love. And they were the sole arbiters of who the haters were, and they called out the haters, and they tried to destroy the haters. And you were a hater if you disagreed with them. Well, who is it that are the sole owners of hatred in America today? Who is it that have become the sole practitioners? Your average Trump supporter is not filled with an enraged hatred for his country, and for the president, not like left’s hatred is.

Now, what’s it getting them? I think this is a bit of evidence as to why they are becoming further deranged. This immigration, this so-called immigration debate, this is another totally manufactured-out-of-whole-cloth crisis. Nothing new has been happening in this country in the last 10 years in this regard.

But all it took was the publication of one photo that itself was misrepresented and filled with lies, all it took to ignite an outrage, but not in the general population. The outrage is contained. It’s contained to basically the media. The media is where the outrage is. It’s where the outrage is reflected. It’s where the outrage and the hate is promoted. It’s there that it is seen and acted upon.

So you would think that in the midst of this debate where you would think the media is winning and that they succeeded in characterizing Trump as a hater and a racist and somebody separating kids from their families, you would think that Trump’s poll numbers would plummet and that the Republican Party’s poll numbers would plummet and you would think the Republicans are in bad shape because the Democrats are winning all this, right?

Well, CBS.YouGov is one of the polling units that continues to survey the generic ballot. And you know what’s happened in the last two weeks? The Democrats have lost two more points in the generic ballot in the midst of this all of this immigration stuff.

This is another reason why they’re deranged and beside themselves. Nothing that has always worked is working. Nothing works on Donald Trump. Nothing. It’s stunning. They’re not used to this kind of abject failure. You might disagree, “Rush they’re not failing. Turn on the news and all of this –”

They are failing, folks, and this is why their derangement is multiplying by geometric proportions. They are failing. Socialism around the world is an abject failure. Venezuela is the latest example. It never has worked. They had eight years with the dream socialist in the White House. They had eight years to get it done, and they got none of it. And most of what Obama did get done did not get done via legislation because he never had the American people behind him. It was all executive orders and Trump has unwound 90% of it. And they’re livid at that.

But they didn’t get it because the American people were never for it. I don’t care the image the media projects. I don’t care the pictures that you get and the impressions that are made about how the liberal Democrats run and dominate and control everything. That’s true in the media. But Donald Trump got elected. And Donald Trump continues to thrive. Donald Trump continues to erase Obama policies and replace them with things that are working in ways that they haven’t worked in over 15 or 20 years. They know all of this.

Can you imagine being a liberal Democrat and you’ve mounted what you think is this overwhelmingly, slam dunk campaign to destroy Trump — why, he hates kids, he hates families, he hates people of color, he’s separating ’em and he doesn’t care. You would think that you would be gaining ground in whatever poll that’s out there. To find out today that you’ve lost another couple points in the generic ballot? In their minds, there’s no justice. This just can’t be. They can’t explain it.

There’s also a column on this today, and it’s by our old buddy Roger Simon, Roger L. Simon at PJ Media, “Why the Left Is Having a Nervous Breakdown.” Let me give you the lead here and then some excerpts, some pull quotes. I’m not saying I agree with every bit of this, but it’s a good summary. I agree with a lot of it. Don’t misunderstand. Some of the analogies I wouldn’t make, but those are just personal things.

“The left is having the worst flu season ever.” I don’t think it’s the flu. I think what they have is incurable. Whatever it is, it’s terminal. It may not look like it now. Folks, they’re eating themselves alive. They’re literally eating themselves inside out. This kind of rage and hatred cannot go on and people engaging in it remain healthy. And they aren’t. They’re not happy, and this is no way to find happiness. There’s no happiness at the end of the road they’re on.

“Almost all of them have been infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome to such a degree that they can’t see or think straight. It’s a plague year — make that two years — and we’re living it. Oh, how we’re living it! Self-destructive, nincompoop behavior is rampant with members of the so-called Resistance … now showing up at restaurants to harass members of the administration while they eat. Do these clowns have any idea how that plays in Middle America? Do these people think they are accomplishing anything but their own defeat?”

Yes, they do! This is why they’re sick and deranged! Because it’s applauded by people like Maxine Waters and Bill Maher and whoever else they figure is important, they do continue it. Exactly. They do think they’re accomplishing great things. Folks, they live a constant illusion. You know what it is?

The constant illusion or delusion that they live is that they represent the majority of thinking in America. And they don’t. Do not doubt me on this. I know external data make it look like they are the majority, but trust me, they aren’t. There’s too much evidence all over the place to prove it. The best evidence is they’re not happy. The best evidence is they’re going crazier. But they live this illusion that they are the majority. They live this illusion that whatever emotion, anger, thought they have is the same as that of a majority of people in the country.

So when you ask do they have any idea how it looks when they kick a harmless woman and her family out of a restaurant, do they think they’re accomplishing anything but their own defeat? That doesn’t occur to them. This to them is their morality.

You know, they oppose religious morality, but this kind of morality where they get to push people around simply based on whether you agree or disagree with them, that’s their morality, which isn’t morality at all. This is a totalitarian Stalinism, if you will. And it is a great open window to what America would be if these people ever regain total control of it.

If they ever do win it back, they’re gonna exact a form of punishment against all of you Trump supporters, you can’t even imagine yet. You think Lois Lerner and the IRS were tough on you? Wait ’til these people get back in the White House and it’s time to settle some scores.

“How about yet,” Mr. Simon writing here again, “And how about yet another Fonda hoping Trump’s young son would be locked in a cage with pederasts? Does that aging Hollywood nitwit actually think he’s influencing public opinion in his direction by saying that?”

He does! He thinks he’s doing what his side wants. He is a hero to his side. They do applaud that. They do think that it is valorous. They do think that there is virtue in opposing Trump and all things Trump. They think this is their route back. It has become a strategy, as much as it is a knee-jerk reaction to things.

Now, I think even though it’s a strategy, it is still the result of them knowing. They thought they would get rid of Trump in six months. They thought they had this wired. They were saying to each other, “Don’t sweat it. We got this.” They thought Comey would take care of it, Obama would take care of it, then Mueller’s gonna take care of it. Everybody is striking out!

Nobody who was supposed to accomplish the mission has gotten anywhere close. The best and the brightest the left had to assign this task to have bombed out spectacularly and royally. And now it’s up to people like Peter Fonda and a restaurant owner in Lexington, Virginia, to carry the water for this movement?

Mr. Simon continuing here, “The problem is that it’s not just Hollywood lamebrains and jejune social justice idiots that have been infected, it’s the entire liberal/progressive side of the country, starting with the literary/media elites who give them their marching orders.”

Well, that’s just another way of saying that the hate and the rage and the anger is being promoted in the media. But I don’t think this is anything new! I think this has been who liberals have been for years! And it began to surface en masse shortly after Obama was elected.

They all came out of the proverbial closet. I’m not talking about a sexual closet. They came out of wherever they were hiding, and it did appear within six weeks of Obama winning, it appeared, “Oh, my gosh. Did 25 years go by here while we were sleeping and this country became totally left-wing nutcases?” It’s how it appeared.

This is who they have always been. This is what I’ve been trying to remind people and inform people of the entire time I’ve been on this program. This isn’t a new level that the left has reached. This is who they’ve always been. What’s different is that they have taken over the Democrat Party, and they’ve taken over these elite organizations like so-called media. Because the young move up and the old go out to pasture. And even some of the old have been converted now into pure radical leftism.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: “Bad Week for Civility in the U.S.,” CNN says. Tell me, who on the Trump side has been uncivil? Are there any news story about any Trump supporters being uncivil? I can’t think of any. All of the incivility, all of it begins — as CNN’s discussing it — on the left. Look at Trump. This is a lesson for Republicans I keep trying to get them to learn. Trump issues an executive order keeping families together. Obama never did that. Bill Clinton never did that. George W. Bush never did. Laura Bush never told George W. Bush to do that.

Donald Trump did it. In violation of existing law, Donald Trump issues an executive order keeping families together. Is there any appreciation for this? If you are a leftist deranged lunatic and you really believe… If it’s really tearing your heart out that families are being separated, if it really is bothering you, and Donald Trump issues an executive order to end it, shouldn’t you be glad, if not happy?

And if you’re just totally gone, should you not be out claiming victory for having forced Trump to back down, to cave? Where is the satisfaction, where are the thank-yous, where is the happiness? Where is the sense of achievement? It’s not even there, because they don’t care about these kids and these families. They love the issue. And to them the issue is Republicans are heartless, mean spirited, hatemongers. That’s the issue. That’s all they’ve got. They don’t have anything else. They’re doubling down on it now.

And, believe me, it’s not going to work. The left is having a nervous breakdown. Trump is what the psychiatrists call “the presenting complaint.” The real problem, as is often the case in psychotherapy, is something entirely different. “The real problem,” as Roger Simon writes here… “The real problem is… The left is dead. It’s not only dead, it’s decomposed with no there there or anywhere.”

Everything it believes is being rejected around the world, when people have the chance, it’s being rejected — and they know it. And so they’re lashing out at people who they think are responsible for it. “No, socialism just hasn’t worked ’cause we haven’t had enough money. Socialism hasn’t worked because the right people haven’t done it. Communism hasn’t succeeded because we haven’t yet been in charge of it,” whatever.

It doesn’t work because it doesn’t work. This they know.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Want some more evidence? New York Times, headline: “Numb to Outrage. Republican Voters Feel a Deepening Bond to Trump.” The New York Times is shocked. They cannot believe that Trump supporters are not abandoning him after all of this.