RUSH: And here we are again, ladies and gentlemen, all lined up and ready to go. It’s us versus the Washington-New York Corridor conventional wisdom. It is us versus the Drive-By Media’s mainstream media narrative of the day. And it seems like that is always what it is. They have a view of the country and the world that is 180 degrees out of phase. We will continue to illustrate that on Friday. Let’s hit it!

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!

RUSH: The end of yet another busy, historic broadcast week here from the epicenter of broadcasting, the EIB Network, the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Thinking, Advanced Studies. Happy to have you here. Open Line Friday means that you can ask anything, you can bring up anything. You don’t have to talk about all the stuff that’s up front in the news. It’s just an opportunity. The program doesn’t sound any different. It’s just a little internal difference in the way we screen phone calls. So, again, 800-282-2882 is the number. The email address is ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

Okay, so let’s do a little side-by-side comparison. Last night, President Trump had a raucous, upbeat, totally positive, encouraging “America is great and let’s keep it that way” rally in Dallas. There were 20,000-plus inside. There were that many outside. It was a view of the country that many of us wish was the norm each and every day. And then on the exact other side is the picture painted by the mainstream media, which is that Trump is a buffoon.

“The Syrian ceasefire has not held! Trump got snookered by Erdogan. Trump is out of his league. Trump doesn’t know what he’s doing! The Democrats are marching onward to impeachment.” Trump should quit if he knows what’s good for him, says a Wall Street Journal piece today. “In addition to that, Mick Mulvaney is absolutely sabotaging the president,” they say. “Mulvaney knew what he was doing in the press conference yesterday.

“He went out there and said, ‘Yes, there was a quid pro quo. Trump definitely withheld aid unless the president of Ukraine dug up dirt on Biden.'” That’s not what happened, by the way. It’s not anywhere near what happened. It’s that nobody can keep up with Mulvaney. Mulvaney’s a classic illustration of the problem I would have if I were having a press conference with the media. He assumes too much. He assumes they have a base level of understanding and then proceeds from that point.

Rather than acknowledge not only do they not know, they don’t want to know the truth of the White House or Trump perspective. The media had only one purpose in that press conference yesterday, and they were gonna announce that it happened regardless what Mulvaney said. They were gonna say Mulvaney sold the president out. So now Mulvaney’s out having to backtrack, and now everybody’s parsing what Mulvaney said, which we’re gonna do today, too, because you need to know because he didn’t do that.

He was three or four steps ahead of them. Now, you could say, “Well, that’s ultimately his fault. He’s got to assess the audience and deal with them on their level.” That’s awfully hard to do. You’re chief of staff of the White House. You know things that are going on. You know things that you’re doing. You know what the future plans are. You’re trying to deal with these people in any number of ways, but they are only interested in politics of the destroying Donald Trump, and Mulvaney did not acknowledge that that was their purpose.

Mulvaney actually tried to feed them the truth. They’re not interested in it. There is no truth. The latest Project Veritas reveal from CNN, found CNN’s got people all over these secret videos saying they’re not stopping until Trump’s dead. They’re not gonna stop ripping him, they’re not gonna stop criticizing him, they’re not gonna stop destroying him until he dies. Some of them even… Yeah, I mean, if you read the transcript of what some of them are saying in these secret videos you almost get the impression they want to be the reason Trump dies.

So here. Let’s go to the rally. Let’s go back to the rally and the picture of America that that paints. There isn’t a Democrat in the country who could do that last night. Forget for a moment the substance of what was said in the rally. I’m just talking about generating that kind of excitement, generating that size of crowd inside and outside. There’s nobody that would line up two days in advance to attend anything sponsored by any of the Democrats running for president.

Right now, the chief Democrats trying to destroy Trump — if you had to put a face to it — would be Schiff and Pelosi. And I will tell you that if Schiff and Pelosi announced an impeach-Trump rally, there wouldn’t be people showing up two days in advance trying to get into it. You might have some hard-core leftists who would show up at anything that had impeachment in it and getting rid of Trump. But it wouldn’t be because of Schiff or Pelosi. Schiff and Pelosi, the two leading Democrats right now, could not draw flies if they had a bag of manure standing next to them.

And yet Trump can and does routinely. And then when people are there, they don’t want to leave. They don’t want the thing to end. So Trump goes on for two hours and never loses a soul. And everybody inside and outside that thing watching it is having just greatest time. And many of them say that it goes way beyond their expectations. And it’s kind of weird because it’s just a guy at a podium and a microphone. It’s not like you’ve got Mick Jagger in there strumming and running around singing with the guitars and drums being played.

I mean, it’s just one guy, and yet this kind of charismatic excitement… I’m telling you that there isn’t anybody anywhere in the Democrat Party who could muster anything like that, and yet we are told to believe that the country hates Donald Trump. We’re told to believe the country wants Trump gone. We’re told to believe the country’s embarrassed as hell and regret really regretful of the decision they made back in 2016 — and this is a giant disconnect.

Brad Parscale, who is campaign manager for Trump, just this morning sent out a tweet. Let’s see. I got this about 11:30, I’m guessing, 45 minutes ago. The Trump campaign is data driven like nothing has been data driven. It’s data driven more than anything Obama and Google did together. Parscale has this wired, and they collected an incredible amount of data from the people who attended the rally last night. I don’t know how they do it. But here’s what Parscale tweeted: “53,985 voters were identified from last night’s rally.”

Now, wait a minute. The capacity of that arena is barely over 20,000. What is this 53,985, almost 54,000 people? Well, there were a lot of people outside, and there was a lot of activity around the arena for the day of and the day before. The point is they made contact with 54,000 voters. Twelve percent of the 54,000 who attended the rally have not voted in the last four elections, 16 years. They plan on voting in 2020. Get this: 21% of the 54,000 voters identified at the rally and outside were Democrats.

Twenty-one percent were Democrats? How can that possibly be? We’re told the Democrats hate Trump and are embarrassed of Trump and are chomping at the bit to get rid of Trump. Eleven percent of the 54,000 identified voters at the rally were Latino. So 21.4% Democrat, 11% Latino (probably some overlap there), and 12% have not voted in the past four elections. As Parscale tweeted, “These are winning numbers that will help win #FourMoreYears for @realDonaldTrump!” and then he added: “We continue to outperform 2016.”

Look, if this is right, if they’ve identified 54,000 voters, what he means by this, they’ve identified 54,000 Trump voters last night, not just people gonna vote, 54,000 Trump voters, 21% are Democrats? Folks, if this is right — if this is even close — the Democrats can’t win anything with that amount of defection, if that’s really percolating. Now, this is Texas. I’ll tell you something about Texas. The Democrats will tell anybody who will listen that they’re wean win Texas.

They’re not gonna win Texas, but they’ve got the Drive-Bys out there putting it out there as a possibility. They’re doing it on the basis of a lot of people having left — a lot of liberals leaving California, a lot of liberals leaving the Northeast. And then of course the illegal aliens crossing the border. They will find a way to get them to vote. The counties all along the Texas-Mexico border are turning blue. So the Democrats in the media are out there saying, “Hey, Texas is in play.” Well, it’s not in play.

But if this is anywhere close to accurate, 21% of the people that showed up last night — or 21% of the voters identified are Demorats, 11% Latino, this is numbers — and I guarantee you the Democrats aren’t gonna know. The Democrats aren’t gonna study this. I mean, they may read Parscale’s tweet. Some of them may be alarmed by it. Most of them in their hubris and arrogance will simply ignore it, thinking it’s a bunch of partisan BS, just Parscale trying to keep the troops up and positive, that none of it’s true.

They’ll continue in their denial here. Trump had tweeted also at 11:45 this morning, because the news of the day is the ceasefire in Syria’s falling apart, that Erdogan played Trump for the sucker and the fool that he is. Mitt Romney knew what was gonna happen. Mitt Romney, as soon as this program ended yesterday, went to the floor of the Senate and gave a speech on basically how unfortunate it is that Trump is president, what a buffoon.

Romney’s trying to set himself up. I guarantee you this. He’s trying to set himself up as the unifier. Romney is gonna present himself as the guy that can bring the country together. Mark my words. Romney is representative of the group that thinks (sobbing), “This partisanship is just horrible! The partisan divide is — is… (sobs) It’s intolerable, it’s unsustainable, it’s bad! We gotta something about it.” Well, what are we gonna do about the partisan divide? How is Romney gonna solve the partisan divide?

How do mainstream Republicans solve the partisan divide? They throw in with the Democrats. They don’t try to defeat them, and they don’t try to persuade them to join us. They cave and throw in with them — and they acknowledge that the problem is Republicans. That’s how it’s always been done, and that’s what being a moderate Republican’s all about. So the objective will be, “We’ve gotta put the country back together. We can’t handle this division.

“We can’t handle the country being at war with each other no matter what policies are in place, no matter what issues are forefront. We’ve got to come together.” Well, the Romney-type Republicans attempt to pull that off by caving. He was out there on this Senate speech berating Trump. “This ceasefire is not gonna hold. It is not a real ceasefire. This is a bunch of chaos that we don’t need to be going through. We wouldn’t be going through this if Trump weren’t president. If we had somebody who knew what they were doing, we’d have never pulled the 50 troops out of Syria.

“We would have never had this happen, and this is example of the chaos that our country has to face every day because we’ve got a nincompoop incompetent in the White House.” That’s the Democrat line, and that’s what people like Romney are gonna sign on to. Here’s Trump’s tweet. “Just spoke to President @RTErdogan of Turkey. He told me there was minor sniper and mortar fire that was quickly eliminated. He very much wants the ceasefire, or pause, to work. Likewise, the Kurds want it, and the ultimate solution, to happen.

“Too bad there wasn’t this thinking years ago. Instead, it was always held together with very weak bandaids, & in an artificial manner. There is good will on both sides & a really good chance for success. The U.S. has secured the Oil, & the ISIS Fighters are double secured by Kurds & Turkey. I have just been notified that some European Nations are now willing, for the first time, to take the ISIS Fighters that came from their nations. This is good news, but should have been done after WE captured them. Anyway, big progress being made!!!!”

This tweet is to counter the media narrative that there is no ceasefire, that Pence and Pompeo don’t know what they’re doing. “They’re out there doing whatever Trump wants. Trump’s doesn’t know what he’s doing! There is no ceasefire because nobody respects Trump. Nobody respects the U.S. Trump’s a sucker, Trump’s a buffoon, Trump’s a clown. The rest of the world can play him for a fool and a sucker, and they are.” That’s the media narrative.

Can I play a sound bite for you from the rally last night? I’m gonna play for you what I thought was the loudest ovation of the night. Now, I’m admittedly not the best person to decide this. My hearing, as you know, is not natural. I hear via bionics, cochlear implants. But, believe me, I hear noise better than I hear speech. I hear noise better than I hear anything. Most of what I hear sounds like noise to me. You couldn’t stand to be around me, because wherever I am, I demand no sound, because everything just sounds like noise.

So, therefore, when I hear a lot of noise, I’m aware of it — and I want to play for you what I thought was the biggest applause or the loudest noise ovation of the night last night. Audio sound bite number 1. This is it…

THE PRESIDENT: In everything we do, we’re fighting for the faithful citizens of this country. This includes putting a stop to the catastrophic era of endless wars. Endless wars.

CROWD: (cheering)

THE PRESIDENT: They don’t stop. They don’t stop. They go on forever. We become policemen. We end up becoming police. We’re policing these countries. That’s not what it’s about. American combat troops should not be at the center of ancient sectarian conflicts all over the world.

CROWD: (cheering grows)

THE PRESIDENT: Bring our soldiers back home.

CROWD: (wild cheering and applause)

THE PRESIDENT: Bring our soldiers back home.

RUSH: See, here it is.

CROWD: (chanting) U! S! A!

RUSH: What do you think? I don’t think anything was as sustained or louder than that last night: “Bring our soldiers back home.” Of course, you know, this used to be the Democrat mantra. But now the Democrats are in favor of war and ending our soldiers everywhere. Ha! Imagine that.