RUSH: Sound bite number 1 is a montage of the media unable to go the full day yesterday without ripping Trump. You know, they praised his great speech at Normandy, but then he did the interview with Laura Ingraham and started calling Pelosi insane and a lunatic with the cemetery in the background, and they’re just outraged. We’ll go ahead and play it. This is the Drive-By Media criticizing Trump for ripping Pelosi and Mueller with the Normandy cemetery as the backdrop.
AMANDA CARPENTER: You look at the shot (dramatic pause) and what I see, just as an American, is a draft-dodging president using the graves of World War soldiers who saved the world from Nazis as a prop.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Mr. President, do you recognize what our backdrop is here?
DONNY DEUTSCH: (background noise) We can’t normalize this! He’s despicable. He is a despicable human being.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA: (background noise) The White House, they arranged the interviews and they arranged the backdrop!
EUGENE ROBINSON: (background noise) Look at that backdrop. It’s just, uh, appalling.
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: He used soldiers’ graves as a backdrop to attack Robert Mueller and Nancy Pelosi!
JULIAN ZELIZER: He speaks about Robert Mueller, who served in the U.S. Armed Forces, and using that as a backdrop…
CHRISTINE ROMANS: …against the backdrop of the fallen soldiers at D-Day, really bucking all decorum.
DOUG BRINKLEY: …to sit with the backdrop of the graves of our fallen heroes and to act like a used-car salesman…
JAKE TAPPER: The president, seeming to not fully comprehend the sacred ground on which he stood…
BRIAN WILLIAMS: (whispering) It’s sacred, hallowed ground! The president came so close to having a good day.
RUSH: Ha-ha-ha. Brian Williams there at the end. Now, folks, you know, it’s… I know what your reaction is. These people don’t care where they are. I mean, they have been in the house of God-d. They have been at the Washington National Cathedral during the funeral for McCain, and what was that? That was a bash-Trump sermon, a series of bash-Trump eulogies, from the house of God, using the house of God as a backdrop. “How insensitive. How outrageous!” We have to mention all of the times?
I mean, Trump never escapes this kind of character assassination no matter where the Democrats are. In addition, Trump didn’t choose the backdrop. Everybody was there. There was even an original story that went out. The lovely and gracious Hallie Jackson of NBC News tweeted out that Trump delayed the start of the Normandy ceremony so that he could do an interview with Fox News. (paraphrased) “Trump kept everybody waiting so that he could do the interview with Fox.” Let me see if I can find that — and it was a tweet. It got retweeted all over the place.
Here is her tweet: “French television cameras spotted President Trump sitting down with Fox’s Laura Ingraham — fourteen minutes *after* the ceremony in Normandy was set to begin. Thousands of people waited as an announcement overhead came on, declaring the program would be delayed until 11:15a.” It turns out Trump wasn’t the reason for the delay. He had finished the interview and he was just waiting for (dadelut dadelut dadelut) that little French tyrant to show up, “Macaroni.”
“Macaroni” was late, not Trump. So Hallie Jackson sends out a correction tweet: “As @JonLemire notes: from pool’s vantage point, the president appeared to be done and ready before Macron arrived, at which point ceremony began.” So 4,000 retweets of this thing. It’s all over the world that Trump is this ogre — this self-absorbed, egotistical, maniacal guy — who kept the Normandy ceremony from beginning so he could do a Fox interview. And it turns out, he was there and waiting and the Fox interview was over.
It was French President Macron who was tardy — and, of course, the retweet correction is not even really a correction. It’s not heralded. It’s not nearly as widespread: 209 retweets to 4,000 retweets. These people dare and sit here and criticize Donald Trump when they have, for 2-1/2 years, done nothing but lie about the man every day? I’ll tell you something else. The White House didn’t choose the backdrop for the Laura Ingraham interview. It’s where everybody was. Everybody was at the cemetery for a ceremony!
They would have you to believe that Trump told Fox, “Look, we’re gonna do the interview at the Normandy cemetery. I’ll tell you what I’m do. I’ll arrange the Normandy ceremony so it can happen where we’re gonna put your cameras.” They really want people to believe this. Everybody was there. It was prescheduled months ago. Trump didn’t have anything to say about where the cameras were. Fox chooses this stuff. The White House may have some input in it, but where were they gonna go?
They’re in the cemetery, and that’s where the interview took place because that’s where the ceremony was taking place! This is so much ado about nothing. But I’ll tell you, the snarkiness of these people in this bite. John Heilemann: “Mr. President, do you recognize what our backdrop is here?” “We can’t normalize this. He’s despicable!” This is Donny Deutsch. “He’s despicable! He’s a despicable human being.” From people who themselves are despicable and classless, mean-spirted, extremist and clueless, all rolled into one.
So a gigantic report, gigantic tweet from Hallie Jackson at NBC News (wailing), “Donald Trump! (Sob!) He had to do this interview! He delayed the ceremony! Trump’s an ogre! Trump’s horrible.” Turns out, it wasn’t the case at all, but nobody knows — at least people who follow Twitter. Now, what really bugged ’em, what really bugged ’em was that during the interview at the Normandy cemetery, Trump just launched into Pelosi. He called her nasty, called her vindictive, called her horrible.
He described Pelosi in ways that no elected Republican has before, and that’s the reason why there is this reaction. You’re just not supposed to attack Democrats that way. It’s the Republicans that get attacked that way, and it’s Republicans that are supposed to sit there and take it if they to want stay members of the deep state. “Why, you don’t dare attack Pelosi this way, and you don’t dare do it in the cemetery with graves as the backdrop!”
Again, he did not delay the D-Day ceremony. So they’re already ticked off that Trump has ripped into Pelosi.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, the Trump backdrop at the Normandy cemetery? Didn’t those men die for the right of free speech, freedom and liberty and so forth? Didn’t they die for the right to elect a president and have him serve his full term? Huh? Huh? (interruption) Yeah.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We will start in Columbus, Ohio. This is Brett, and I’m glad to have you with us, sir. Hi.
CALLER: President Rush, how are you?
RUSH: I’m doing great, sir. Thank you.
And President Trump — just as always — is a hundred percent correct before he landed in Britain, saying that the CNN mass media… Can you imagine what those residents think of America? I mean, they probably think that we’re under attack right now, and, “President Trump, how did he get elected?” When he is correct, the silent majority of the people… You know, there is no Fox News representing when you travel overseas. It’s all CNN, and —
RUSH: Right. We’ve been discussing this all week. Have you not heard us talking about this?
CALLER: Oh, yes, Rush. I’m so busy with my work and all that good stuff and —
RUSH: Okay. Well, let me bring you up to speed on this, because one of the things that happened, you know, Trump even referenced his approval numbers in U.K. are 20/30%, and that’s because all they’ve got over there is CNN International. Fox… I get conflicted. I think Fox was… It’s owned by Murdoch, which also owns Sky News. Sky News is the so-called conservative complement. It really isn’t, but it’s not the BBC. It’s better than the BBC.
I think Fox News either toto or some Fox programming was attempted for some time. It didn’t last. I can’t find out exactly why. The popular reports are that (impression), “Well, it doesn’t attract an audience, Murdoch had nothing to (muttering) cutting the loss. No chance!” And it’s this way throughout Europe. It’s CNN International, I think, that allows CNN domestically here to be the loss leader. CNN International makes the money CNN doesn’t make that funds CNN ’cause they’ve got no viewers here.
In large part, the U.K. media is like every other media in the United States. They follow the lead of the New York Times. So whatever the New York Times does, everybody follows, and that’s what the Brit media was doing too. There are some British papers sympathetic to Trump. The Daily Mail, on balance, would be… Speaking of that, guess what happened to Daily Mail? Google just changed the algorithm here that used to put Daily Mail search results near the top of any news story you were searching. They’re gone now.
The Daily Mail is not being returned to the top of search lists, first pages, on many stories, the U.K. Daily Mail, precisely because of this. But my point is the British media actually did a 180 on Trump. Oonce they had him there, once they saw him in person, once they saw the queen’s reaction, the British media started doing very positive, pro-Trump stories. Trump can’t go everywhere, but that’s the only way of countering it. But what’s happening over there (media-wise) does not affect personal appeal.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) actually asked Pelosi if Trump’s policies threaten what D-Day troops died for. Oh, man.
Related Links