RUSH: Once again, ladies and gentlemen, your host all over the news proving that it is the media attempting to politicize this coronavirus. There can’t be any doubt about it. I am being lied about, misunderstood on purpose, taken out of context. I got the audio sound bite roster today, and I’m all over it.
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RUSH: Then there’s a headline here at TheHill.com: “Limbaugh: Bernie Sanders And The Democratic Party Pose ‘Far Greater Threat To This Country’ Than Coronavirus.” There’s no doubt. Socialism, if we elect socialism we got four years of an utter disaster on our hands if Bernie Sanders gets elected president. The coronavirus is a virus — I just saw somebody on Fox — you know, everybody’s talking about this in certain ways like they’re experts, and some are admitting that they’re not.
Somebody just said, “Okay, look, if I get this you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna stay home, stay home for two weeks and get healthy and I’m gonna go back to work. Just ’cause you get this does not mean you’re automatically hospitalized, does not mean you’re automatically quarantined, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna die,” she said, not me, she. Not gonna name who. Doesn’t matter.
Now we’ve got a story that comes out of Northern California, the Washington Post and the Sacramento Bee, they can’t help themselves. They’ve got a story out there, my friends, of first case of a person with no travel link. No sooner had Trump finished reassuring the — and, by the way, did you see Trump’s press conference yesterday? Did you watch it? It was awesome. I’ve had people tell me, you know, if he behaved like that the rest of the year, he’d win by 10 points. He’s gonna win by 10 points anyway. He’d win by maybe 15 or 20.
It was a great press conference. It calmed everybody down. It assured everybody. And let me put something in perspective for you, folks. Take a look at Donald Trump. Donald Trump’s life has been solving major problems, as they popped up in his business, in his family, whatever. He has a lifetime of this. He becomes president and people say, “Well, my God. We’re in dire straits. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s incompetent. He’s a fool. He’s an idiot. He’s a lunatic.”
All he’s done is rework massively complex trade deals finally to the advantage of the United States. He has resuscitated the largest economy in the world inside of three years. He has restored control of the southern border. But now all of a sudden Donald Trump cannot manage a virus outbreak.
But who can? The Democrat Party. Why, Nancy Pelosi could. Mike Pence has no idea what he’s doing. Trump shouldn’t have appointed him. But every Republican that they name is likewise incompetent. Every Democrat that comes forward should be in charge of it. And they tell me that I’m the reason this has been politicized?
I’m sitting here minding my own business reacting to what these people do, and I’m the one claiming they are politicizing this. And there’s no question about it. And they still can’t get over the fact that I won the Medal of Freedom. Wait ’til you hear the audio sound bites on this. They are spitting mad over this. They’re probably secretly hoping I get the coronavirus with everything else I’ve got.
So we were told Donald Trump was an idiot. We were told that Donald Trump was a traitor. We were told that Donald Trump stole his election. We were told that Donald Trump colluded with Russia. We were told that Donald Trump was an agent of Vladimir Putin. We were told that Donald Trump tried to dig up dirt on the opponent in Ukraine and therefore should be impeached.
We were told all these rotten, horrible things about Donald Trump. He’s illiterate, that he wasn’t mentally fit for the presidency, and the people who told us that are now telling us Donald Trump can’t organize a rational response to a health issue. At this point Donald Trump’s competence and abilities ought to be a nonstarter.
Everybody ought to realize now, after three years, we’ve got somebody that finally who knows what he’s doing. And you know what else? He knows how to surround himself with the best people to get the job done. He didn’t even make any pretense last night in that press conference that he was doing it, that he was the expert, that he knew everything about it, like they caricature the guy.
The very people who predicted that a Trump presidency would crash the economy, people like Paul Krugman and Pelosi and Schumer, the very people who spied on the Trump campaign, the people that organized that silent coup, the people who made absurd, false impeachment charges are now predicting that Trump is gonna botch the response to the coronavirus.
What does it tell you? The people who’ve been wrong every step of the way about Trump are now telling you and everybody else that Trump’s the one that doesn’t know what he’s doing in managing health care. Then they say I am politicizing it, when all I’m doing is calling them out. Which is what I have done for 31 years and counting here on the EIB Network behind the Golden EIB Mic.
Let me get back to this story about this phantom — not phantom. This uh-oh, we need to be really frightened case, in Northern California. No sooner had the president finished that press conference last night reassuring the nation that things are under control is when the Washington Post and the Sacramento Bee report that someone in Northern California got the virus even though that person supposedly has had no contact with anybody who’s traveled outside the USA.
In other words, someone in Northern California got the disease and it originated with them. They haven’t been to Wuhan, China. They haven’t done anything. They haven’t gotten it from anybody. They just got it. That means we need to be really scared because the virus is out there lurking somewhere in Northern California, spotted this person and jumped right into their respiratory system. And that’s, oh, frightening stuff, folks. That means the virus is out there lurking like a bunch of locusts ready to attack. That’s the story they told.
And that report gave everybody in the Drive-By Media an excuse to get even more panicked. But if you read down two sentences, just two sentences in the Washington Post story, you get this. Quote, “The health agency –” the CDC, “– left open the possibility ‘that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.'”
Well, now, then what’s the point of the story? If you write a story saying a patient in Northern California has contracted the disease with no contact with anybody and then two sentences later, “Uh, the health agency, the CDC, left open the possibility —” Let me tell you where this happened. This happened in an area I’m very familiar with, Northern California. Travis Air Force Base is there. Do you know what’s happening at Travis Air Force Base?
Americans have been flown back to Travis Air Force Base from the Virus of the Seas cruise ship that was over in Japan, and other Americans who supposedly may have come down with a disease and are quarantined. They’ve been flown back and land at Travis Air Force Base. It’s likely that somebody landing there has had contact with somebody, and the CDC has left… So we have this panic-driven story that it’s “the first case in the United States with no known origin.”
Meaning: The person that has it has never been to China, has never been in contact with anybody that had the disease. Two newspapers run the story, and then — again — if you just read two sentences down, “The CDC left open the possibility that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.” Well, then why run it? What’s the point of the story in the first place? You know what this is like?
It’s just like every one of those stories the New York Times for two years after the election results with all these nameless, faceless intelligence officials assuring us that Trump was an agent of the Soviet Union and that Trump colluded with Russia and stole the election from Hillary Clinton. And then in every story there was a line, “So far, no evidence has been found to conclude that these allegations are valid.” Every story had that line, if you read far enough down.
And they realized nobody was gonna read that far down so nobody ever got to those sections of the story which said, “By the way, we can’t prove any of this. By the way, there’s no evidence for any of this. But we trust our anonymous sources that we’re making up here at the New York Times.” Here’s what the CDC statement said, “At this time, the patient’s exposure…” This is the Northern California patient who supposedly got coronavirus with no contact with anybody.
CDC statement: “At this time, the patient’s exposure is unknown. It’s possible this could be an instance of community spread of COVID-19, which would be the first time this has happened in the United States.” Could be, could be, could be. “‘Community spread’ means spread of an illness for which the source of an infection is unknown. It’s also possible,” says the same statement, “however, that the patient may have been exposed to a returned traveler who was infected.” Most of the media have ignored that part of the CDC statement.
Travis Air Force Base is where returning patients from China and Asia are being flown back to the United States. It’s not the only location, but it is a location that people are being flown back to, and it’s where this person that got infected from no known origin happens to reside. Folks, they’re doing the same garbage they did during the Trump-Russia collusion story. They’re running stories for which there isn’t any evidence, and they run the correction in the middle of the story.
They say, “By the way, there’s no evidence for this yet, but we’re pretty sure that our sources that we’re making up are telling us the truth.” It’s the same thing here. They’re leaving out… They’re running a story based on a statement that doesn’t say what it says. The statement allows that the patient in Northern California may have come in contact with somebody. So what’s the point of the whole story in the first place? Panic!
This is what I meant yesterday when I said, “The media is weaponizing this story against Donald Trump.” I did not say, as it has been reported, that the deep state created the virus to weaponize it against Trump — and yet that’s what BuzzFeed is reporting. BuzzFeed is reporting that I said the deep state created the virus to weaponize it against Trump. I got nowhere near saying that. I don’t believe that. I know this virus came from Wuhan, China. I do not…
I never associated the deep state with this at all. What I said was the media is taking the occasion of this virus and story to weaponize it and the reporting of it against Trump, much as they did the reporting of so-called Trump-Russia collusion. That is all I said. Now, BuzzFeed is lying through their teeth and purposely distorting this. Purposely. They know that’s not what I said, and then there was a guy at the press conference who asked the president about this.
The fact that they are lying about this and making up out of whole cloth something I said that I didn’t say about the deep state creating the virus to weaponize it against…? Where do they get this stuff! They make it up, not me, and then they run with it. Now the rest of the Drive-Bys see the BuzzFeed story and they believe it’s true. Nobody calls me. Nobody calls me from the media and asks, “Did you really say X? We’re running this story down. We want to find out. Did you really think the deep state invented and created the virus to use against the president?”
Nobody ever called me to ask.
They just say, “Deep state creates virus!” on BuzzFeed and they run with it. Why? Because they can’t stand that they haven’t gotten rid of Trump yet and they’re gonna use this and anything else. The plunging stock market. The economy, they hope, will follow suit. They’re gonna use anything they can to get Trump because that’s what they are obsessing… They don’t care about the public health aspect of this, most of them. They are care about how this can be used to damage Donald Trump and build up whoever the Democrats nominate here in November.
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RUSH: I checked the email, as I often do during the break here. “Rush, what do you mean, they’re accusing you of saying that the deep state created the virus to weaponize? I’ve never heard this.”
Right here, folks, BuzzFeed. “Trump’s Biggest Supporters Think The Coronavirus Is A Deep State Plot — While Donald Trump has tasked Mike Pence with leading the country to safety.” And then here’s the relevant portion of the story. “Trump at the press conference said he agreed with claims that Rush Limbaugh made during his radio show this week, that the deep state had created the coronavirus as a political weapon to ‘to bring down Trump.’
You know, it is hard over the course of 31 years to even remember all the lies that have been fabricated, made up about me, things I’ve said, things I’ve done. This would have to rank in the top 10, if I can remember. The deep state created the coronavirus? Any of you people listening yesterday know that we have talked about the origin of this virus coming from Wuhan, China. I’ve told you how the virus was spread because of the diet of the Chinese. Makes people sick when I tell ’em. Don’t make me repeat this.
The idea that the deep state created it, that’s not at all what I said, but that’s what they’re running with, and the Drive-Bys believe it. What I said was that the virus, coronavirus, the media is weaponizing the reporting of it against Trump. Now, let’s go to audio sound bite number 2. This is a question from a reporter trying to make the case to the president. They just couldn’t resist. Very concerned about the health and safety of the American people, but they always have time for a question about a certain guy on the radio.
REPORTER: A number of your supporters online have embraced these theories or forwarded these theories that the CDC may be exaggerating the threat of coronavirus to hurt you politically. Rush Limbaugh, the other day, said this has been advanced to weaponize the virus against you.
THE PRESIDENT: I agree with it. And I’d like it to stop. I think people know that when Chuck Schumer gets upset — he did the same thing with a couple of trade deals that are phenomenal deals. He didn’t even know the deal and he was out there knocking it, because that’s a natural thing to say. But when you’re talking about, especially something like this, we have to be on the same team. This is too important. We have to be on the same team.
RUSH: It’s exactly right. Now, this guy, this reporter didn’t exactly repeat the lying claim of BuzzFeed, but he got close enough. “CDC may be exaggerating the threat.” That’s not what I said. I said that the media is weaponizing this. The media is using this like they used to Hurricane Katrina against Bush. The media is using this like they used collusion with Russia against Trump. That’s what I said. And everybody knows it, by the way, particularly all of you in this audience. And the fact that they are having to lie and distort this is actually making my point.
You know who this was? A woman named Dr. Nancy Messonnier. When I saw this, when I saw that story, I commanded the research guy here, “Find out who she donates to politically.” You know what came back? She’s Rod Rosenstein’s sister. Rod Rosenstein’s the deputy director of DOJ that hired Mueller to run that bogus investigation against Trump colluding with Russia, so forth and so on.
So I said, a-ha! So we got Rosenstein’s sister making this blanket statement. It’s the only time she’s spoken out. There’s somebody else that speaks for the CDC. This woman came out and said it’s not a question of if, it’s when, take your kids out of school and do not go to your office. I said whoa, whoa, what’s this? That’s what the media, the media wanted Trump to react to that. They wanted Trump to throw his own CDC under the bus.
But he had a different person from the CDC at the press conference with him. He did not have Rosenstein’s sister. He did not have Nancy Messonnier. He had somebody else. And he did not throw her under the bus, but they were trying to set him up. That woman, that Messonnier came out and said that outrageous stuff, and it was designed to set Trump up and here comes the media asking about it, “Are you gonna throw your own CDC under the bus, have any problem with the CDC and what they’ve said?” And Trump said, no, I got no problem. He did not fall for it, did not take the bait. It was clear as day what they were trying to do. That same reporter said, “Do you have any evidence the CDC is trying to hurt you?”
THE PRESIDENT: No. They’ve been working really well together. They really are. They’re professional. I think they’re beyond that. They want this to go away. They want to do it with as little disruption, and they don’t want to lose life. I see the way they’re working. These people behind me and others that are in the other room, they’re incredible people. No, I don’t see that at all.
RUSH: Now, that is a direct attempt to set Trump up, to get him to criticize the Centers for Disease Control by criticizing Nancy Messonnier, and he didn’t fall for it. But this is proving my point. This is how they’re weaponizing this again Trump. They’re trying to set him up. They’re trying to get him to discredit his own CDC. They’re trying to get him to speak out against the people there that he has working on this problem.
He has somebody different. He does not have Nancy Messonnier standing up there at the press conference. It was somebody else. Her name is Schuchat. And she was good. And she didn’t come out with any of this outrageous stuff: you can’t go to school, you can’t go to work, you gotta do it all on FaceTime. And that quote from Nancy Messonnier still shows up on almost every mainstream news article about the coronavirus.
That’s why they’ve kept asking Trump, “You think this is inevitable?” ‘Cause they’ve got one person from the CDC who’s told kids, “Don’t go to school, use FaceTime with your teacher.” And the same thing with people, “Don’t go to the office, use FaceTime with your boss.”
That was a setup! Messonnier is part of the setup. Do not doubt me, folks. They are still arrayed against Trump, and they’re doing everything they can to try to trip him up, and he was ready for it.
Let me grab a quick phone call. St. Petersburg, Florida. This is Yvonne. Glad you waited. Welcome to the program. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. My point is that where else in the world would you want to get sick with something like this? You know, if you’re gonna get sick, you want to be in the United States of America because we have the best health care system in the world. This bodes so much against socialized medicine and what the Dems and the libs are trying to do with our health care system.
I mean, the experts from the CDC, the National Institute of Health, they’re in the United States for a reason, because we do have the best and the most innovative group of professionals in the world. So I just say to anybody who’s thinking of voting for the Democrats and they want to socialize medicine and have the government run our health care system, if you get sick, where in the world do you want to be and where do you want your family to be? And that’s just my point. And thank you for letting me make it.
RUSH: Well, I’m glad you did. Thank you for calling, because it is an excellent point. Trump said this at his press conference. I think I said something like it on the program yesterday. The safest place in the world to be with anything like this happening is right where you are, the United States of America. You have access to the best research, the most advanced research. You have the most advanced research on pharmaceuticals and drugs.
Forget the cost for a minute, just the availability, you have the most advanced research available anywhere. You’ve got the best health care in the world. You’ve got the place where the rich of the world, when they get sick, where do they come? They come right here to the United States of America. You are already here. You are in the best place you can be.
And the Democrat Party would do great damage with Bernie Sanders or any of their efforts here to make the government in charge of all of this? Hello, China. Hello, the U.K. I mean, hello, Canada. You would have people trying to escape this health care system rather than come to it. Except there wouldn’t be anywhere else to go. If you destroy the United States health care system, then there’s nowhere else to go.
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RUSH: I’ll tell you what else, folks, is evidence that the Drive-Bys are politicizing this — and I mean this seriously. I understand how media works, but why…? In the case of a virus that threatens the health of mass populations, what does it matter what a guy on the radio is saying? What does it matter what I’m saying? The only reason it matters is because I am a way to politicize this for these people, ’cause I react to their attempt to weaponize this, and so they have to fire back and discredit me.
But in the big scheme of things, what does it matter what a guy on the radio is saying about it if the reporting on this is straight down the middle, strictly medical, strictly public health, strictly this or that? Why does it matter what I’m saying? But they have to go to great lengths to distort what I’m saying, to lie about what I’m saying, to make up what I’m telling you I’m saying and then to rip what I’m saying. Why? Why’s it so important to discredit me during a public health thing like this? Why should what I’m saying even matter?
Well, the question answers itself.
‘Cause I’m a powerful, influential member of the media who threatens them.
I call ’em out.
By the way, regarding our last caller, you may have heard — and Dr. Fauci talked about this last night in the press conference. There’s already a vaccine ready to go into testing, and he talked about how testing works and that there are three phases before you get to approval. It could be a year and a half before there is approval for the vaccine. So people who saw the story saying this biotech firm announced that they’ve got a vaccine ready to go for testing, and they thought, “Wow, it’s imminent!”
“We need to really sock it to ’em!” But when they want a new vaccine, when the Democrats and socialists want a new vaccine or a new antibiotic, they suddenly stop calling these people names, they stop calling for them to be driven out of business — and then, all of a sudden when they’re not gonna get approval fast enough, they start blaming other people. But the hypocrisy here is renowned. I just want you to know that the people already ready to test the vaccine — which is gonna take a year and a half to go through all the various clinical trials to get FDA approval to use it on humans.
The vaccine, it’s gonna take a year and a half, and the same outfit doing this is routinely criticized. At every Democrat debate they have been savaged, they’ve been pointed out and targeted as the enemy that needs to be damaged greatly because they’re gouging people like you.
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RUSH: Here’s Mike in Indianapolis. Welcome, sir. Great to have you on the EIB Network today. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, thank you, Rush. My brother called in to your show during the Clinton administration. It’s only taken me 20 years to even the score. So thank you for that.
RUSH: You bet, sir.
CALLER: Okay. Hey, I just wanted to follow up on the comment you made about President Trump and the press conference. You know, I was 10 years old when Reagan came into office. I’ve seen six presidents now and how to handle that. I’ve never seen a president that takes all questions in Q&A, can talk on all subjects in detail and with intelligence, as President Trump does. It’s really truly impressive, especially when you look at all the distractions that are thrown at him.
RUSH: He’s almost as good at that as I am, you’re right.
CALLER: (chuckles) For sure.
RUSH: I mean, on the wide variety of topics and subjects and expertise.
CALLER: Exactly.
CALLER: Well, I mean, I agree to an extent, but I think the other thing, you know, I think of other presidents, too, and how, you know, Clinton tried to control the narrative all the time. And, you know, Trump’s winning at that game as well. So, I mean, he needs —
RUSH: You know, that’s a great point. How did…? If this were happening — and some things like it did during the Clinton years — how would he handle it?
CALLER: Exactly. Yeah, I mean —
RUSH: He wouldn’t handle it as it’s all business and we’ve got it handled. He’d go out there and fake a tear —
CALLER: Be political.
RUSH: — and say he feels people’s pain. He’d get all choked up and he would try to relate to people based on compassion, like liberals always do. They never fix anything. They just convince you they care more than anybody else about it.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: But there would be some reassurance. (impression) “We’re working hard as we can on this, and I feel your pain. People been suffering and hurting, and we want to do everything we can to help people get affect by this.” But you wouldn’t have heard much about actual solutions ’cause that’s not what liberals do. That’s a great point.
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RUSH: All right. Welcome back. Rush Limbaugh, America’s Real Anchorman, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day, even though today I felt like — get the guest host in today. This is gonna be a rocky day. But I came in when I noticed how my name and the president’s are being impugned and maligned by the Drive-By Media, which we dealt with in the first hour.
I did not see Washington Post version of the BuzzFeed story that I think the deep state created this — did the Washington Post publish that? (interruption) The Washington Post claims that I have created a conspiracy theory that the deep state created the coronavirus in order weaponize it against Trump. (interruption) The Washington Post?
You know, the Washington is calling all over the place trying to get hold of people who know me to do a sympathetic story of me getting cancer and what it must be like. And I’ve told everybody I know, “Do not talk to these snakes ’cause it can’t possibly be anything good.” (interruption) Aw, Greg Sargent, that guy lives angry. That guy lives enraged all the time. He used to send me snarky little notes back in the day when he thought I misquoted his radical liberalism in his stupid columns.
The idea that I actually said — they can’t even prove it! I didn’t say it. They really report that I claim the deep state created the coronavirus to weaponize against Trump? (interruption) You know, Trump’s suing the New York Times for libel, the Trump campaign is. I mean, this is outrageous. I mean, it’s one thing for some cockeyed internet firm like BuzzFeed to do it, but for the Bezos Post to repeat this slander, they can’t prove it. They can’t go anywhere, any archive of this program and find me saying that because I didn’t.
Look at all the people on the other side of the glass just smiling at me, “Oh, this is fun, Rush.” Yeah, let ’em say it about you, we’ll see how much fun it is. (interruption) It is absurd, but people read the Bezos Post and believe that garbage.
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RUSH: How could something like this even survive an editor? “Rush Limbaugh says the deep state created the coronavirus so it can be weaponized against Donald Trump.” And nobody checks that out? Not a single editor at the Washington Post or BuzzFeed is so shocked by that that they want to run it down and — is there nobody at either publication, “No, this can’t be true. Nobody would say this”?
How much trouble would it take to go to RushLimbaugh.com and get the monolog and read what I said? It would be easy for these people to do, and they don’t do it, proving they want to run lies and disinformation if they think they have a chance at attaching it to me because they think they have sufficiently destroyed my reputation among people that don’t listen to me to be able to get away with it.
And then they get a reporter at the press conference last night essentially asking the president about it. “Do you think the coronavirus being weaponized against you?” And he says, “Yeah, I think it is,” but he didn’t understand what the guy was asking. The coronavirus is being weaponized by the media. I never said the Chinese didn’t create it. I never said anybody created it, it just happened. But now that it has, the media’s using it for all it’s worth.
It’s the new Russia collusion. It’s the new phone call with the Ukrainian president. It’s the new Mueller investigation. Will there be a Mueller investigation? Will the Mueller investigation look at whether or not the deep state did in fact create the coronavirus and will there be a two-year report that says, “Sorry, the deep state didn’t do it”? I doubt it.
And the Washington Post headline is: “Trump Just Pushed One of His Worst Conspiracy Theories Yet.” And that is based on his reaction to the question he got from that lamebrain, loco weed reporter last night who was asking based on the BuzzFeed story.
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