RUSH: You know, I know I’m naive. I admit this many, many times. I don’t know how these people sleep at night. I honestly don’t know how these people sleep. Folks, if I, on this program, day in and day out, knowingly lie to mislead you, for whatever reason, I could not live with myself. I couldn’t stop worrying about it.

And it wouldn’t be worrying that I would be caught. It wouldn’t be concerning that I had been exposed. It would be worry that I had done it in the first place, that I would be misusing a platform that admittedly I’ve earned, but still I hold on to by way of trust. People in the audience trust that what they’re getting here is the real me and what I think.

I bring this up because CNN, on a daily basis, lies to everybody in this country. And everybody at CNN engages in promulgating these series of lies when the subject matter is Trump on an ongoing basis. Now, one thing I haven’t mentioned up ’til now in the program today is that the Washington Post or New York Times, some columnist, Aaron Blake I think, in a column asks if Donald Trump has actually worked for the Russians, if Donald Trump is a Russian agent.

Now, I don’t know this guy. I don’t even know if I have his name right here. I think it’s Aaron Blake. But Aaron Blake is one of two things. He either knows that he is totally full of excrement or else he is a duped, entirely closed-minded, uncurious leftist who has bought hook, line, and sinker this Trump collusion with Russia stuff. He’s in media; so it could well be.

They’re not the brightest people anymore. And they clearly are not well-rounded in terms of education. They’re propagandized, and they are indoctrinated. They’re not taught perspective or history anymore in journalism school which I think are fundamental requirements for being a journalist. You’ve got to have some foundational knowledge of history and so forth.

So this guy writes a piece basically questioning Trump. Have you ever worked for Russia, are you a Russian agent? Which has now inspired incoming Democrat congressional chairmen to want to subpoena translators who have been present for Trump and Putin conversations at G20, G8, G this, G that, gee whiz. Because it’s on the table now that Trump is a Russian agent. And there may be proof for it if we can get the translators up there under oath. That the translators have lied, essentially, in their reporting and translation of the conversations between Trump and Putin. That they’ve covered up the fact that Trump is a Russian agent and want to get to the bottem. This is — I don’t know how to describe how horrible this is.

And so CNN right now has a graphic at the bottom of their screen: “United States president: I never worked for Russia.” And they’ve got their little infobabe there with a series of guests coming in to discuss the premise. They have to know this is an out-and-out lie. This is where my naivete comes in. I couldn’t do what CNN’s doing. I could not do it. I could not be this infobabe walking in to work today and the producers give me a premise, “Yeah, Trump worked for Russia. New York Times has a piece and we’re gonna explore whether or not Trump worked for Russia.”

And there’s no questioning of it, apparently, because CNN is doing nothing but accepting this premise. Like they’ve accepted every other bogus premise from the very beginning of this starting with the Steele dossier and the golden showers story and whatever other lies have been told about Trump that they unquestioningly accept and believe. And so a series of guests have come in to talk about how serious this is.

Now, Trump decided to respond to it, said it’s the most insulting question he’s ever been asked, which has to be pretty insulting. I would assume Donald Trump’s been asked a lot of stuff in his life, and he says this is the most insulting. There’s no win answering this question. If you answer this question, you prolong the premise, but Trump reacts to this stuff.

I’m just sitting here, you know, I’m a partisan guy. But, folks, I cannot bring myself to blatantly misrepresent what I think per se about liberals and leftists. I tell you what I honestly think about them, and then I back it up. They cannot back up any of this stuff. That’s why they have to go to these sources in the intelligence community or sources at the FBI, but it’s all a game because they’re all buddies, they’re all friends, the media, the FBI, the Washington establishment, the ruling class, the elites, whatever you want to call ’em.

And they sit there on their network every day. And it’s not just there. It’s the New York Times and CNN and the Washington Post and MSNBC and just knowingly make it up because furthering the agenda, defeating Trump is the objective. And since they’re in politics, then everything’s fair. And since they in the media have First Amendment specified freedoms, there’s nothing anybody can do to stop them. And in effect because they have First Amendment specified freedoms they can’t lie. By definition, whatever they do is not a lie. They are reporting.

But I couldn’t do it. And after two years, if I were forced to do it — look, I’ve been fired for playing the wrong music when I was a deejay. I’ve been fired for using the word “therefore” too many times. And I’m not making that up. Now, they wanted to fire me and I had not given them a reason so they kept giving me more and more restrictive things on my vocabulary to the point that I could not avoid violating their requirements. I mean, like somebody says, don’t think pink. What are you thinking right now?

“You’re using the word ‘therefore’ too many times,” I was told. “It’s confusing to the audience. It does not promote clarity. So cease using the word ‘therefore.’” The next time I used to it, demerit. Enough of them, “Sorry, you fail to take direction. You are not following you’re instructions. You’re insubordinate, and see you later.”

I couldn’t survive in a place that required me to lie 24/7 every time I’m on the air about a political agenda or premise while I’m supposedly in a business of simply telling people that which they did not know before, the news. But there isn’t any news anymore. That’s not what the media is.

The story plainly says there is no evidence. In the ninth paragraph — again, let me read it to you, nine paragraphs into the New York Times story the reporters admit that there is and was literally no evidence to support the idea Trump worked for Russia.

CNN’s headline: U.S. president: I did not work — They can say, “Hey, we’re not lying, we’re not making it up.” Don’t lie to us and tell us you don’t know what you’re doing! You’re putting up a little headline there for the casual viewer to read as, “Oh, wow! Trump’s working for Russia! CNN’s saying he’s denying it.” You know exactly what you’re doing here. You are misinforming people. This is what I would not be able to live with. You’re lying to people. You’re misinforming ’em, you’re deceiving your own audience, on purpose.

Right there it is. There is and was no evidence to support the idea Trump worked for Russia. But they make the allegation so as to allow reporters to ask it. “Did you work for Russia? Our reporting says there isn’t any evidence of it, but did you?” This is kind of like how they got the dossier in the news. Everybody knew about the dossier for six months before it had gone public. Everybody Washington did.

So James Clapper ordered Comey to tell Trump about it, and that was news. “FBI director informed Trump today of the Trump dossier. He warned him that these are the kinds of things that are going around, and this is why you need to accept an intelligence briefing every day.”

After that, Clapper called CNN and said, “Okay. The president has been briefed on the dossier and thinks it’s full of it.” CNN runs a story, and they got a Pulitzer for it or some kind of an award. And the whole thing was manufactured and set up. I couldn’t do it. I could not knowingly, under orders, ’cause these people have bosses.

You may think that there is freedom to say what they want there, but at CNN you’d better toe the line or you’re gone — and even if you are a so-called Trump strategist or Republican strategist, if you veer too far off what they will accept, you’re gone. How many Trump strategists have there been on CNN that you can’t find now? So they make these people do this. But I don’t think the people they’ve hired have any problem with it. I could not do it. This is just so horrible to me, it is so reprehensible to me, that I’m sure it sounds like naivete to you.

“Come on, Rush, you know who…” I do. I do. I just… The fact that they get away with it each and every day — the fact that there is no price to pay for this — makes a mockery of all the things we have grown up believing about truth and lies morality and immorality, because clearly… Now, CNN’s not winning any ratings races, but even the fact that they’re losing audience — and that if it weren’t for airports, they wouldn’t have one — doesn’t change what they’re doing. ‘Cause the people that own CNN have used it as a loss leader for other things.