RUSH: No, no. Don’t get confused here. What I’m saying, folks, is the New York Times op-ed, that piece by Anonymous — whoever wrote that — and the Bob Woodward book, they’re nothing new at all. In fact, you could make the case… Now, the Woodward book has been in the planning stages for a long time; he’s been working on it a long time. So it’s not… The strategy for the Woodward book is not something that just popped up in the past couple of weeks. But, regardless, the New York Times op-ed…

Which is there to buck it up — you know, to get in on the action and to get the Woodward book shown in the New York Times, in another publication. It’s to make it look like this anti-Trump stuff is all over the place, the “Trump is dangerous” stuff is all over the place. I would suggest to you this is just the media and the Washington establishment giving up on any idea that the special counsel is gonna come up with anything to get rid of Trump. I don’t think there’s anything arguable about this.

And the idea here… Oh, do you remember Chuck Todd? By the way, this is another thing. Chuck Todd, the Friday of the last week I was here — I forget how many days ago. Chuck Todd promised that Mueller was gonna have this gigantic bombshell on Friday. F. Chuck was advising everybody to go to work on Friday. This is of the Labor Day Weekend. “Don’t take the day off. Mueller is gonna have a bombshell!” There was nothing. So I think they’re resorting here to panic that what they’ve all believed and relied on, there’s no “there” there. That’s what I mean when I say these attacks on Trump are nothing new.

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RUSH: You want to see how crazy — you know, the climate change people find themselves in the same circumstance that the left is finding itself in with Trump. People just don’t care. You look at surveys of issues people care about and climate change is way, way, way down near the bottom. They just don’t care. And it’s frustrating because the Drive-Bys have put everything they’ve got into that, and it really does — all of this with Trump, I mean, it’s much more involved than this.

But I tell you, one of the primary things motivating the New York Times, Bob Woodward, all these people in the media, is their almost incalculable frustration over being unable to alter public opinion on Donald Trump. Do not doubt me on this. It’s something that everybody in the Drive-By Media individually is frustrated by and collectively.

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RUSH: So back to the week I was not here, last week, the Bob Woodward book — well, that’s actually hitting this week. And the New York Times anonymous op-ed piece. And, by the way, just, just to review, I’m sure you have — let me ask you this. How many of you, when that thing hit, how many of you were outraged, angry, or how many of you just thought no big deal, it’s just the latest in a never ending cacophony of panic and fear from the Drive-Bys?

How many of you thought, “A-ha. They’ve admitted it. There is a silent coup. There actually is a deep state, and they’re trying to sabotage the Trump presidency”? And then how many of you after that got livid or how many of you didn’t think it was that big a deal at all because it’s nothing really new? I went through a gamut of emotions. When I first saw it, I can’t tell you how mad I was.

When I first saw it, I went through the — and I was conscious in the process, okay, let’s imagine how I feel if I really believe this is true, and I went through that. I said, “Okay. Suppose this is made up, not true. This person that wrote this doesn’t actually exist, it’s actually written and composed by somebody at the New York Times, and they’re claiming that it’s somebody in the Trump administration, but we will never know because it isn’t somebody in the Trump administration.”

So I considered that. And I thought how many people in the Trump administration don’t even know the guy but lie about their rank and their level of importance and all this. But when I saw, folks, when I knew the whole thing was rotten to the core is when I saw toward the end of this anonymous piece the veneration for John McCain.

When I saw that whoever wrote this, “Why couldn’t we have somebody more like John McCain?” And then I thought, this person has to be a Millennial, it has to be a young person, because this person writes as though this is the greatest challenge to the modern American presidency ever. And it isn’t. It’s nothing of the sort. Trump is not. I mean, these people may be, but Trump isn’t.

But this person, you know, my belief that everybody’s historical perspective begins with the day they were born, that nothing before that really matters to most people, that’s just old-fashioned fuddy-duddy stuff back then. What matters is what happened when I was alive and when I am alive.

And then I just openly went back and considered, you know, I wouldn’t put it past the New York Times to have made this whole damn thing up and to have somebody on their editorial board write this thing. How many anonymous sources have we had from intelligence people for the past two years claiming to have evidence that Trump colluded with Russia?

The New York Times has led that charge! There isn’t anybody! They haven’t named names. They haven’t produced any evidence whatsoever. Mueller doesn’t have it. There isn’t any. And yet the New York Times has written as though it’s fait accompli, it’s only a matter of time. And these people are telling us it’s there, it’s gonna come out, it’s gonna be revealed, the Washington Post has been doing the same thing. CNN has been following the Post and the New York Times. And nobody’s got diddly-squat.

So why couldn’t it be logical to assume they made this up? And then, like it probably hit most people, it hit me. They’re admitting it. Whoever did this, whoever’s responsible for — you know what? I even, for a brief moment, considered that it was somebody in the Trump immediate circle who did it on purpose, claimed to be a ranking official, said this thing to the New York Times knowing that there’s no way they wouldn’t write it, publish it, run it, when in fact because what it does is proves that there is a silent coup going on. It proves that there is a deep state. It proves that there is a Washington establishment trying to destroy Donald Trump.

And over the past year and a half, two years when any of us have discussed this they’ve mocked us and they’ve laughed at us and they’ve said that’s absurd, that’s crazy. And yet now they come forth and admit it. What a brilliant trick the Trump people could have pulled here. I went through every possibility.

And at the end of it all, I decided there isn’t anything new about it no matter where it comes from. It’s not an event. It’s not a news story. It doesn’t change anybody’s opinion of the great work that Trump is doing as president. His approval numbers remain steady and solid no matter what they throw at him. It’s got to frustrate ’em. And then I ran across the U.K. Daily Mail.

Now, the Daily Mail is a source, they run hot and cold. In many ways they’re very reliable for decent journalism, and then other days they have their unabashed liberalism. But their reaction to the Daily Mail was amazingly pro-Trump. And the guy who wrote this, I think Jon Sopel of BBC, North America editor, the BBC. For those of you that don’t know, the BBC is the New York Times in the U.K. It may be more left than that if it’s possible.

The BBC is so far gone there’s no saving ’em. And yet the North America editor makes three points in this Daily Mail piece. One, Trump is being proved right that there is a deep state trying to stop his agenda. Two, Trump is only doing what he was elected to do. And the third point is that the author of this op-ed wasn’t elected; Trump was. That’s another thing, the arrogance behind these people. They weren’t elected. They couldn’t get elected if they tried! The guy they venerate, John McCain, he tried twice. He didn’t win.

If you missed my comments in the first hour on the McCain funeral, please consult RushLimbaugh.com later today. I don’t want to be repetitive because there’s so much to discuss here. But that was mind-blowing to me too. So now we have the realization here by many that this thing has backfired. And then I started reading Drive-By Media reaction. And they went in phases. The first phase was, “Oh, man, they were so excited. They couldn’t see straight. Oh, my God. There it is. Somebody that just…”

And then they realized what had just happened. What had just happened was that the deep state had been admitted to from within the deep state. And that the silent coup to get rid of Donald Trump had been admitted to by somebody claiming to be engaged in the silent coup. And then I started reading Drive-By Media people who were disgusted because the thing was backfiring. And it’s pretty much where it stayed.

Have you noticed, folks, that after each of these events, the Woodward book and then the — well, the Woodward book is hitting this week, there have been some excerpts, but this anonymous piece, nothing changes. And the reason nothing changes is because it isn’t really news. It’s nothing more than an attempt to change your mind. It’s yet another flailing effort by a media paranoid, fearful that they have lost the ability to manage and shape public opinion.

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RUSH: This takes me back to the anonymous New York Times op-ed, which I still… I’m not gonna definitively say with ontological certitude that I think whoever wrote it doesn’t exist. Some people think that it’s a mid-level National Security Council staffer or somebody in the State Department, because whoever wrote the thing loves McCain. Folks, look: John McCain is all over this anti-Trump, Never Trumper, whatever it is, movement. He’s all over it. He even allowed his funeral to be used for the purposes of anti-Trump. (laughing) It was mind-boggling watching it. I can’t…

I cannot be any more definitive than I have been up to date. It’s just the whole mind-boggling thing. McCain was instrumental in getting that dossier publicly disseminated. McCain had and obviously harbored a hatred for Trump that did not abate. You know, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but poor Senator McCain was given this brain cancer diagnosis — and it’s the kind of diagnosis that is final. It’s a kind of cancer that’s terminal, and then the objective here is to treat it where you can live as comfortably and productively for as long as you can.

Whatever length of time that was, there’s a part of me that really feels sorry for Senator McCain to be so… Maybe not consumed, but so still festering with dislike or hate for Trump. It’s a shame. But it was real, and we know it was real because of what happened at the funeral. And then this anonymous Times piece that venerates McCain and praises McCain. I think this stuff is all connected, and then this anonymous New York Times piece comes out right before the Woodward book. So it’s supposed to be a double whammy.

So we have the Woodward book, and then this piece is supposed to make it look like the Trump administration is totally out of control, that Trump is so bad they have to hide documents from him. They steal documents off his desk and he’s so stupid and dumb he forgets they were ever there. Have you heard that part of this? They’ll have a piece — some memoranda or pieces of legislation — that Trump has to sign and if they think it’s bad stuff they’ll just take it off his desk and he’s so stupid he forgets it was there. This is what they tell us.

He’s so dumb… Trump is so dumb — I mean, so dumb, so amoral — that they’re able to steal things off his desk and he will forget that he ever intended to do that. And it’s always things that they think are horribly wrong that Trump has no business being there. It’s the existence of a coup. Anyway, my point is that it’s all happening, this and the Woodward book because these people have had a shocking awakening to the fact that had to no longer determine public opinion. If they did, Trump’s approval numbers would be in the twenties!

Let’s be honest about this. If these people determine public opinion, Trump might have been hounded out of office by now. I don’t remember a president in my lifetime ever so consistently denigrated, and if the American people bought this garbage that they’re being fed every day, Trump would be gone long ago. But his approval numbers hover between 44 and 48. It’s gotta be driving ’em nuts! So this New York Times op-ed… I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if anybody at the Times wrote the it and everything we’re being told about it is an out-and-out lie, that there isn’t somebody in the Trump White House.

I’m not denying that there are people there who are capable of writing it. I think the federal government is infested with career leftist rats and vermin that no single president can entirely erase or clean out of there. It’s entirely possible there’s somebody in there within the so-called Trump administration who could have written this. I’m just saying if it ever came out that nobody did write it except a couple of New York Times employees and then they claim they got it from an anonymous government source?

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that’s what this turned out to be.

The proof, by the way, that these people no longer determine public opinion is a Pew Research survey: “More than half of social media news consumers expect the news on social media to be inaccurate,” and it’s a sizable majority of people who think that.

Let’s start with some audio sound bites. We’ll get to Papadopoulos in a minute. I want to give you a couple here with Bob Woodward, who wanted to weigh in on the New York Times anonymous op-ed. This is yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning. David Martin, the correspondent, was talking to Bob Woodward. Question: “Do you know who the author of the anonymous New York Times piece is?”

WOODWARD: I have no idea who it is. It’s very important who it is. It’s very important whether this is somebody who witnessed and participated. And, quite frankly, if there was a person in the White House or the administration who wanted to tell me what’s in that op-ed piece, I would say, “Okay, name me who was there, what is the specific incident,” as you know, from having read my book, there are dates and times and participants. I wouldn’t have used it. Specific incidents are the building blocks of journalism, as you well know.

RUSH: Ho-ho! Is this not rich! Bob Woodward attacking the New York Times for anonymous sourcing! This is the guy who claims William Casey, CIA director in the 1980s, woke from a coma to tell him that Reagan stunk on Iran-Contra! He was in a coma! And Woodward (imitating Woodward), “Yeah, I snuck into the room when nobody was looking.” And Casey magically awoke from a coma! He wasn’t asleep. It was a coma!

Anyway, a number of the people Woodward has named in his book, such as Mad Dog Mattis, defense secretary, John Kelly, chief of staff, are denying what Woodward has written. And we’re told they are men of impeccable integrity, impeccable honor. And if they had said these things, they would own up to it. But they are publicly denying it. Here’s more Woodward from the same day, it’s the Today show. Oh, I’m sorry. It’s this morning, not yesterday. Today show today, Savannah Guthrie. Woodward’s book, the name of it’s Fear. Question: “You’ve been around a long time, Bob. You’ve covered eight or nine presidents. Were you shocked by what you uncovered in this book?”

WOODWARD: I’ve never seen an instance when the president is so detached from the reality of what’s going on. The president’s complaining about all this money we’re spending on U.S. forces abroad. James Mattis says to him, we’re doing this to prevent World War III. Now, the idea that a secretary of defense has to tell the president that all of these actions are designed to prevent the ultimate catastrophe and then Mattis goes on and says, you know, if we don’t keep these programs, which are very sensitive, the only deterrent option we have will be the nuclear option.

RUSH: Sorry, folks, none of this makes any sense to me because Trump for the longest time campaigned talking about rebuilding the military, building it back from its destruction under Obama or deterioration under Obama. But now we get this piece that Trump doesn’t know what the purpose of the military is? You know, we never get things like this about Obama, who doesn’t know how to pronounce corpsman, who didn’t know that there are not 57 states.

We don’t have any questioning of what Obama knows or doesn’t know. There’s just this acceptance that he is a genius because of, again, the arrogance of liberals toward themselves and each other. But now we’re supposed to believe that Donald Trump doesn’t know why we have an army. Donald Trump is so detached, he doesn’t know why we spend money on defense. Really? Then what was all the business of talking to Kim Jong-un about?

Now, in a way this is the same way they approached Ronald Reagan: dunce, idiot, detached, asleep, doesn’t know what’s going on, thank God for his advisers. They even tried this about Nixon. I’ve heard stories told by Nixon administration officials that Nixon would get drunk and order the bombing of Damascus and it was only the sobriety and seriousness of his defense officials knowing that Nixon didn’t mean it and therefor didn’t carry out the order to bomb Damascus and the next morning Nixon did not ask “so how did the bombing go?” so they all knew that Nixon knew that he was drunk the night before.

This stuff is common, the way they try to do this about Republican presidents. Bob Woodward, the idea that a secretary of defense has to tell the president that all — how stupid do they think we are? One more from Woodward. Jump forward to sound bite number 9, going back to February 28th of this year. This is on Anderson Cooper’s show on CNN. Question: “Nixon had a chief of staff who was a general who was relatively new in the administration just like John Kelly. What do you think of what’s going on here?”

WOODWARD: Haig told us.

BERNSTEIN: Mmm!

WOODWARD: It was astonishing, the interview. He said he was so worried about Nixon, that Nixon might take his life —

BERNSTEIN: Right.

WOODWARD: — that he took away Nixon’s pills, that at one point, Nixon said, “In your business, Al, they leave a revolver –”

BERNSTEIN: “In the drawer.”

WOODWARD: “– in the drawer.” The emotional —

BERNSTEIN: Toll.

WOODWARD: — distress —

BERNSTEIN: Right.

WOODWARD: — and toll that a president under investigation where there are continuous stories. How do you think Trump looks at this? It’s a witch hunt by Mueller. It’s a witch hunt by the press.

BERNSTEIN: Right.

WOODWARD: — and so we’ve gotta be careful about being as accurate and adopting a tone that’s reportorial rather than adversarial.

RUSH: Right ’cause we gotta be really careful that Trump doesn’t commit suicide. Do you believe Nixon, they had to take the pills away, just like here with Trump, he doesn’t know the purpose of armies. Nixon. they had to take his pills away, and Nixon supposedly told Al Haig, “You know, Al, if your business they’d leave a revolver in the drawer.” This is embarrassing. It is completely embarrassing. These people are melting down and they have been melting down for I don’t know how long. It’s gotta reach a bottom point.

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RUSH: Now, look. One of the things that Woodward is doing here by claiming that Trump doesn’t know what the purpose of armies is, gotta make sure to keep the pills away from him and stuff, this is all about the 25th Amendment. This is all about trying to rouse the cabinet to get rid of Trump ’cause he’s not cable of going on. That’s what they’re shooting for here. They know Mueller’s got nothing. David Hogg has bombed out, Camera Hogg. Everybody’s bombed out; so this is it, 25th Amendment, back to that.