RUSH: This is Bill in Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. Great to have you, Bill. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Happy Friday to you, sir.
RUSH: Thank you, sir.
CALLER: Yesterday, you were pretty excited about going on about the common cold, as they put it, with all these other reporters mentioning you in all their stories. And I have an answer for you because you didn’t understand why, like Hoda Kotb and these reporters from CNN, MSNBC —
RUSH: Oh, no, I understand why they do it. But I’ll be interested to hear your theory.
CALLER: Well, my thoughts on this are, they have less than 600,000 viewers at one time all the way down to zero. You mention them, the report that they have done has now instantly got over 20 million people hearing their names and what they are reporting, right or wrong.
RUSH: No. You’re not wrong. Bill is on to something here. In fact, this is exactly why I don’t play audio clips from PMSNBC: Why promote these people? There is validity to this point. It’s not the only reason, and it’s not “the big” reason. But it is a reason that they called me out is that they hope I’ll respond and mention their name and maybe even play the sound bite of them saying it on this program so they’ll have exposure to an even larger audience than their own little Podunk audiences they have on cable news.
But I guess the top reason why they do is because I’m the only one initially who says what I say and it’s always at variance with the points they want to make, and it’s always about attacking the credibility of effective opponents of theirs. That is the primary reason, but Bill here is right. It’s also about having their names mentioned to an actually big audience.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Grab audio sound bite 24. This is this afternoon, a CNN international program called The Express. It’s John Harwood. This guy has been an anti-Republican, anti-conservative as long as I’ve been doing this and heard his name. He’s been at the Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, New York Times. Now he’s at CNN. And the host of this CNN international show called The Express is somebody named Julia Chatterley. Is that not a great name for somebody hosting a mindless talk show? Julia Chatterley.
She says to Harwood, “Mick Mulvaney was at CPAC this morning saying that the media is focused on the coronavirus because they think it will take down President Trump. There’s a balance between spreading panic, but also providing information, and some would argue there’s been a lack of information from the White House in particular, Mr. Harwood. What do you say to that?”
HARWOOD: That was nonsense from Mick Mulvaney. The panic that people are seeing is coming from investors, it’s coming from Wall Street. Those are not people who are trying to bring President Trump down. President Trump delivered significant tax cuts and deregulatory policy for those people. This is the White House, through Mick Mulvaney, like outside allies, Rush Limbaugh and others, like the president, like Republicans on Capitol Hill, who are trying to make excuses for a situation that is going badly for the White House.
RUSH: What exactly is going badly for the White House, Mr. Harwood? What exactly is going badly? The response to the actual program has been good. It’s people like you running around talking about this being “an opening for the Democrats.” It’s people like you ratcheting up the panic, talking about the inevitability of the apocalyptic nature of this. What actual problem, what response are you talking about? Trump’s press conference?
Folks, I’m telling you, this is how big this is. I go through the news and when I go to any story on the Democrat primary or any of the Democrat candidates, there’s not a single reference to coronavirus. Not a single one. By the way, you people in the media wondering where Mike Pence is today. “He’s at a fund-raiser!” He’s going to be right here in this studio in a matter of ten minutes. As I say, it’d be a good day to go to the Apple TV app store and download the new Rush Limbaugh app.