RUSH: Ray in Livermore, California. Glad you waited. You’re up next. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Fundamentally erasing the last president’s fingerprints dittos to you. Rush, the president has assembled a fantastic team, much like your crew there at EIB, including Mike Pompeo. I watched the full three hours yesterday through a Fox feed on the internet, and, Rush, it was fantastic. This guy, he’s like Norm from Cheers.
He not only looks like Norm, he speaks in this calm, cool, collected kind of everyday man voice, and just one by one slapped down these neosocialists, whatever they are, Democrat socialists who are trying to box him in. They were trying to outsmart him and they were trying to have a game of wits with somebody and they forgot to bring their own.
RUSH: Yeah. They weren’t even on the same playing field. And of course, Pompeo is from Kansas. They think already that makes them smarter than he is. They’re from New Jersey, they’re from New York, this is Bob Menendez, who barely didn’t go away to jail cavorting around with the donors, babes in foreign countries and so forth.
And he’s sitting there with his air of superiority, they all had it, they think Pompeo is like an Archie Bunker type. Like you say, he’s an overweight guy walking in there, doesn’t speak particularly like you think he should. He just mowed ’em down. We’ve got the audio coming up. You’re right. He mowed them down. They set themselves up to be mowed down!
CALLER: Trump couldn’t have picked a better lead blocker than Mike Pompeo. I would put Mike Pompeo in every single secretary’s seat in Trump’s office, in his cabinet. The guy is just fantastic and it was a pleasure watching it. I would say to the Rush listeners, go to YouTube — well, I guess unfortunately that’s the only place you can go — and pull up the Fox feed and watch the full three hours if you can. It’s better than anything on network TV, I’ll tell you that.
RUSH: Well, since you have recommended it so highly, we have a significant number of sound bites, examples from that which you devoted three hours to yesterday watching. And it is choice. And Pompeo, for example, he told these people that the United States is not gonna recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea. And they’re all thinking they’re gonna entrap Pompeo.
I’m not kidding. He’s the secretary of state. They thought they were gonna entrap him into somehow admitting that Trump and Putin had colluded. I mean, this is how arrogant they are. And I don’t know whether it’s dumb, stupid, genuinely stupid, but after all this time to still act like that there is some secret smoking gun bit of evidence that Trump and Putin did collude to steal the election of Hillary, they still literally believe this, and that somebody knows it, and in this case it was Pompeo, and they were somehow gonna trick him into admitting it.
And instead he comes up and basically says Putin can go to hell. We are not gonna recognize Putin’s annexation of Crimea. They didn’t know what to do! They really think that this guy and Trump are in bed with Putin! Now, first off we have a montage. When you listen to this, I want you to imagine what it would be like if every elected Republican and every member of the Trump administration defended the president the way Pompeo does here.
POMPEO: This is President Trump’s administration. Make no mistake who’s fully in charge of this and who is directing each of these activities. There’s a narrative that has developed that somehow President Trump is weak on Russia. I’m sorry, the president has a prerogative to choose who’s in meetings or not. What matters is what President Trump has directed us to do. I don’t need secondhand understandings of what President Trump is instructing his administration to do. You somehow disconnect the administration’s activities from the president’s actions. Every sanction that was put in place was signed off by the President of the United States. The president’s been unambiguously clear. The president called the ball over 200 times to sanction Russian entities. That’s pretty strong. Oh fear not, Senator. Fear not. This president runs this government.
RUSH: You see in this montage what we’re able to illustrate here is that these people — these are senators — some cases Democrats or Republicans, too, like Bob Corker, they really think that Trump is such an idiot that he’s not doing anything. That he goes out and he tweets, and he does the rallies and he has the public things at the White House, but it’s really the people behind the scenes, really the smart people, like Kelly, the chief of staff, and like Pompeo here and Wilbur Ross, they’re really running this country. It’s not Trump, he doesn’t know enough, Trump doesn’t care enough, Trump isn’t smart enough. In fact, Trump, if we let him get too close to the levers of power it could actually be dangerous ’cause he’s so stupid, he doesn’t know who our enemies are. Trump thinks that Americans are the bad guys and our enemies are the good guys.
And this is what they think, and this is the position they took in their questioning yesterday of Pompeo. And he just swatted back at this stuff. He was aghast hearing this stuff. (imitating Pompeo) “I assure you President Trump is running this administration. The president called the ball over 200 times, sanction Russian enemies, 200 different sanctions. The president did it. Not me, not the chief of staff, he did it.”
So now let’s go to questioning from Bob Menendez, disgraced Democrat senator from New Jersey. His questioning here is about the president’s meeting with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. And Pompeo’s being asked what really happened in there? So far only the translators know. But we know Trump is an idiot, so who was really in there protecting the United States? What really happened in there? You tell us, Pompeo. What did these world leaders do? How did they take us to the cleaners ’cause Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing. That was the umbrella under which the questioning took place. So here is Menendez asking Pompeo about Trump’s private meeting with Putin.
MENENDEZ: I’d like to ask you some questions. Has the president told you what he and President Putin discussed in their two-hour closed-door meeting in Helsinki?
POMPEO: Presidents have a prerogative to choose who’s in meetings or not. I’m confident you’ve had private, one-on-one meetings in your life as well.
MENENDEZ: Did he tell you what — whether or not what happened in those two hours?
POMPEO: Yeah, Senator. I had a number of conversations with President Trump about what transpired in the meeting.
MENENDEZ: Did he tell the — Putin that I’ll release or ultimately relax sanctions?
POMPEO: Senator, what you need to conduct your role, your appropriate role, I will provide you today — that is United States policy with respect to the issues you request. You asked me about U.S. policy with respect to sanctions. And I can confirm to you that no commitment has been made to change those policies in any way.
RUSH: Okay, so here’s this stupid question. So these guys think Trump is giving away the store. They are the ones that give away the store! So Menendez says, “Did he tell Putin that that he’ll release or relax sanctions?” They are hell-bent. They believe that Putin runs Trump as a secret agent. They have got themselves believing that Trump is an embedded spy doing the work of Russia as president of the United States.
So Menendez (imitating Menendez), “You can tell us, you can tell us. Did he tell Putin that he was gonna relax these sanctions? Is that what he told you?” And you can hear Pompeo (imitating Pompeo), “Senator, what you need to conduct your role, your appropriate role, I’ll provide you today. But I’m not gonna get into this kind of thing. You have no right to know this. This is not what you need to do your role here. I know what was said in there and you’ve got nothing to worry about, senator, but I’m not gonna deal with you this way.”
Imagine if it all happened this way. Here is Pompeo and Menendez continuing. Menendez then says (imitating Menendez), “When he had a chance, when the president had a chance, did he confront Putin and say we do not recognize your annexation of Crimea, we do not recognize your continuing hostilities with eastern Ukraine and there’s consequences for that. Did he tell Putin that or is he really a spy?”
He didn’t say those words, but this is what this all means. Did he tell Putin what-for? Or was he just in there making fine, fun times with Putin? That’s the insulting premise behind the question. Here is Pompeo.
POMPEO: Senator, the president was very clear with Vladimir Putin about U.S. positions there — the U.S. positions that are the Trump administration’s positions — and he spoke about them very firmly and clearly when he met with Vladimir Putin.
MENENDEZ: (stammer) A-a-and he told you that?
POMPEO: Senator! I’m telling you what he had a conversation with Vladimir Putin about, and I’m telling you what U.S. policy is today. I understand — Senator, I understand the game that you’re playing.
MENENDEZ: No. No. No.
POMPEO: I get it.
MENENDEZ: You know, Mr. Secretary —
POMPEO: I do. I get it. Yeah.
MENENDEZ: With all due respect, I don’t appreciate you characterizing my questions. My questions [sic] is to get to the truth.
POMPEO: Senator, presidents are permitted to have conversations with their cabinet members that aren’t repeated in public.
RUSH: Yeah, see, he called him out on this, and here’s Menendez acting all outraged. (impression) “I resent that! I do not appreciate you characterize my questions.” Well, he nailed his purpose because Menendez was indeed playing all kinds of games here. (summarized) “Senator, I understand the game you’re playing. I know what you’re trying to do here. You’re trying to make it look like Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing, that he’s a blithering idiot, that we’re all at risk and he’s acting as a secret agent for Putin — and I’m telling you, I was in the meeting. I know what happened. I answered your question. But the conversations he and I have are none of your business! Don’t you call your donor and head back down to the Caribbean or wherever you were, and if you want to get serious, then come back.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Up next is Ed Markey. Ed Markey, former member of Congress from Massachusetts. Now he is a senator — and this, remember, is the Senate Foreign Intelligence Committee. Here’s Senator Markey asking Pompeo about Trump’s private meeting with Putin.
MARKEY: So I am afraid that at this point the United States, the Trump administration is being taken for a ride.
POMPEO: Uh, fear not, Senator. Fear not.
MARKEY: (stumbles) There’s no evidence to the contrary.
POMPEO: Fear not. Fear not, Senator.
MARKEY: There’s no evidence.
POMPEO: Senator, fear not. May I? May I?
MARKEY: Yeah, please.
POMPEO: I guess you didn’t ask a question, so I’ll —
MARKEY: No, that’s all right. Please.
POMPEO: Yeah. Fear not. This administration has taken enormously constructive actions that have put us in a place that is far better than either of the previous two administrations, one Republican, one Democrat.
RUSH: Pshew! But again the question (impression), “I’m afraid! I’m really afraid. I’m really scared. I’m really worried. I’m really concerned at this point about the United States, Trump administration being taken for a ride by Putin! (stammering) By — by — by — by Kim Jong-un because — because, uh, Mr. Secretary Trump’s an idiot, doesn’t know what he’s doing, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, can’t talk. He’s just embarrassing us.”
Pompeo says, “Fear not, Senator. Fear not. Fear not.” The disconnect here — and then lowering the boom on them. “This administration has taken enormously constructive actions that have put us in a place far better than either of the two previous administrations,” and that’s happening all over. That’s happening economically. That’s happening in foreign trade. That’s happening here in foreign policy. It’s gonna happen on immigration. In the meantime, Scott in Austin. I’m glad you waited. You’re next. You want to weigh in here on Pompeo.
CALLER: Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh. It’s an honor to speak with you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you very much.
CALLER: The Pompeo hearing was an absolute step forward for the people and our American policy. If you actually watched that and were able to decipher between the questions on the Democratic side and then the actual normal question from the other side, you actually kind of were deciphering between the actualize and the sketchiness and the jealousy of their party right now, actually just self-imploding. It looks like them self-imploding. Jealousy is a stinky cologne, and if they’re not a part of it, I feel that they’re just falling apart. It was amazing to see this hearing on all major news networks and the fact that the American people see all that and decide for themselves.
RUSH: Well —
CALLER: It’s and sad that… I’m a Millennial and unfortunately the Millennials probably won’t see that ’cause they’re getting their news from Facebook. It’s very sad that other individuals are not being able to pay attention to that.
RUSH: Well, you know, more than you think will see it. But your point is still well taken. Look, you made another good point. The networks televised this because they thought that Pompeo was gonna get buried. They televised this because they thought the Democrats were gonna expose Trump as a know-nothing danger, through Pompeo. See, Pompeo’s one of them. He used to be in the House of Representatives. So he’s from that class. He’s from the political class, and even though he’s a Republican — and he’s a conservative Republican — you can tell his…
In fact, Scott’s observation of the questions that the Democrats asked versus what he said were “the normal questions” the Republicans asked… (chuckles) This is really my point. The Democrat side, the questions were the result, were the product of believing every mindless cliche that you see on CNN or MSNBC. Pick your cliche, that Trump is an idiot, never expected to win, doesn’t really know what he’s doing, and everybody around him knows how dangerous his ignorance is, and so he’s not really running things.
They trot him out there. He looks like it. It’s other people are actually doing this, and you can tell us, Mr. Pompeo, you can assure us that that’s the case here. And these question, “We’re really, really worried that Kim Jong-un and Putin are really running rings around the president. We’re really worried he’s being taken for a ride.” Again, that line of questioning betrays the contempt and the arrogance. This is why they lost the election, and it is why they are nowhere near understanding why they lost, which means they are nowhere near fixing why they lost.
As I say, I’ve been following this stuff for a whole lot of years, longer than I’ve been doing this show. And the arrogance of people in the left and the Democrat Party, the contempt that they willingly show — which really masks and hides their own prejudice, bigotry, and, at the same time, real ignorance. These people truly are ignorant. It has always amazed me how and why they have gotten so much support.
It always boils down to they’re seen as Santa Claus more than anything else when it comes to social issues. But this is embarrassing to me, the side-by-side nature of the questioning from Republicans and Democrats. How unprepared they are, how unserious and how everything is still to this day oriented around and devoted to exposing the hidden truth that Trump and Putin are a team and are working together to undermine United States. The fact that they believe this — and I know they do.