RUSH: They’re still livid that Trump said “it is what it is” about COVID cases and the number of deaths. So if they ask Trump, “Mr. President, it’s been said that you’re not gonna leave the White House if you lose. Will you leave?” “Well, it’ll be what it’ll be.” It will just drive them crazy.

Now, this business of “it is what it is,” folks, is there any other alternative than accepting the reality of the situation? When it comes to COVID-19 and the virus, is there any alternative to accepting the reality? What is the reality? The reality is we have a pandemic. The reality is we have a virus for which, at the moment, there is no vaccine.

And, for all intents and purposes, there is no magic, therapeutic pharmaceutical that, if you take it, you’re guaranteed to recover. We’re getting close but we’re not there yet. What alternative do we have other than to deal with it? What does that mean? “Deal with it” does not mean hide from it. You can’t. You can’t hide from this. You can’t hide from any virus.

At some point you’re gonna have to face it. I mean, you can quarantine yourself all you want. You can vow to stay holed up in your home, your hovel, your shack, your hut, wherever you live, for as long as you want, but you gotta come out at some point. And when you come out, you’re vulnerable if there hasn’t been any change on the vaccine or therapeutic side. So there’s no other alternative but than to deal with it.

This is who we are, as Americans. We don’t cower in the corner in fear. We don’t run away from these challenges. We face them head-on and try to solve them. But we adapt. That’s what we do better than most because we have freedom and liberty to adapt more than most in the world have. There’s no other choice but than to accept it.

So if 45,000 new cases a day, we can wish it weren’t true all we want, but ain’t gonna change anything. So the idea that we have a pandemic, we have the virus, gonna face it. The idea that this is somehow insensitive and controversial is absurd. In fact, it’s the only adult way of looking at it. We can’t afford to all act like children with this, folks. We can’t.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: No, no. I’m not trying to rile anybody up. I’m trying to be straightforward with this. Folks, there’s no other option we have other than to deal with it. It’s here. It’s affecting every aspect of life. You can’t wish it away. You can ignore it if you want, you can try that. But it eventually isn’t going to work out for you. We Americans traditionally have never run away from anything — attacks from outside our borders on us, attacks on us from inside our borders.

Whenever brand-new diseases pop up we get on the case like we’re on the case with this, with COVID-19. But for Donald Trump — I’ve got another sound bite, a montage today, the media is literally beside itself that his attitude is “it is what it is.” Thank God we’ve got somebody in power who does have the ability to face reality and doesn’t try to wish it away or doesn’t try to cover it up with fake emotions that are designed to relate to people but be essentially dishonest with them.

“It is what it is.” Sorry if it’s a cliche, but the coronavirus is out there. It’s doing what it’s doing. And we have to deal with it. It’s a sad thing that it’s affecting the numbers of people that it’s affecting. We wish it weren’t. But there are things out there that are more lethal than coronavirus. There are things that are far more risky in terms of normal, everyday behavior. The number of deaths from the wheel, for example, the number of deaths from the flu. There are far many more things — imagine if you were near those explosions in Lebanon. I mean, you can’t wish it away. And you can’t flood it with emotions and you can’t flood people with emotions and have anything about the virus change.

So dealing with it and figuring out a way to go about our lives is paramount. It is crucial. We have to figure out a way of continuing to open up the economy, getting people back to work, saving their businesses, their dreams, their livelihoods. I’ll tell you one of the big problems we’ve got is that most of the decision-makers are people that will never be out of work. They will never lose a dime. They will never have a problem with paying their rent or their mortgage. They will never have a problem buying food. They will never have a problem keeping their automobiles fueled with whatever powers them.

It’s stunning to realize it when you look at it that way. Not a single person that’s involved in creating and making and enforcing policy on this is gonna be affected by it the way most people who are affected by it are affected. They’re not gonna lose their jobs. They’re not gonna suffer a loss in compensation. Therefore they’re not gonna be kicked out of their homes or their apartments. They’re not going to starve. They’re not gonna miss any meals. They’re not gonna be unable to get in their car, go wherever they want to go. They’re not gonna be unable to get on an airplane and go wherever they want to go.

And this is a factor. It’s relevant. They talk about Trump and his inability to relate to people. It’s crazy. If there’s anybody in American politics today that has the ability to relate to more people than anybody, it’s Donald J. Trump. Joe Biden could not do what Trump did on Fox & Friends today. Biden is incapable of replicating the kind of dialogue that Trump engaged in. The contrast in energy, the contrast in knowledge of events and issues, mental acuity, the contrast between Trump and Biden is striking. It’s why they’re keeping Biden in the basement. And more on that as the program unfolds.

But this 59 minutes on Fox & Friends, I’m telling you, folks, it was all over the place. He didn’t get tricked up once. He wasn’t stumped on anything. They didn’t hit him with anything he didn’t have an answer for. He was really on his game today in this interview. And we’ve got some of the audio clips from it. But this is a guy who knows exactly what we’re dealing with here every day on whatever the issue is, be it illegal immigration, be it COVID-19, be it dealing with the ChiComs.

And more than that is somebody who has the ability to deal with it realistically. And we’re going to have to be able to do that with this. We’re gonna have to be able to get up and go to work every day knowing the virus is out there. There are things we can do to mitigate our risk. We’re gonna have to send kids back to school. We have no choice about this. No, I mean, we do, but there’s a choice that could be made here that would be disastrous.

Keeping kids home? No way. It doesn’t work. It will slow down the economic recovery ’cause parents can’t go back to work if the kids are gonna be at home all day. People are gonna go insane. The kids are gonna go insane, they’re gonna go stir-crazy, parents ditto. But the teachers are holding everybody hostage. The left-wing teachers unions, “You better defund the cops or we’re not going back to the classroom.”

What? “That’s right. Defund the cops or we’re not going back to the classroom. And, by the way, get rid of all private schools or we’re not going back to the classroom. Oh, and get rid of charter schools or we’re not going back to class.” Screw you. That isn’t how it works. But these things have to happen. The United States has to get back to being the leader of the free world. The United States has to get back to being the lone superpower of this planet because we’re the good guys.

I don’t care what Black Lives Matter thinks or says. I don’t care what Antifa says or thinks. I don’t care what the Democrat Party says or thinks. I don’t care what Democrat blue state mayors or governors say. We are the good guys. We do have a moral imperative and a moral superiority to the vast number of nations on this planet. We also have a lot of allies. We have a lot of friends we’re eager to work with. And we’re not running around talking about our moral superiority. We’re talking about the moral imperative. We are by virtue of our existence as a nation, we become the leading light of liberty and freedom in the world. We have become the leading economy in the world.

The world cannot do without us. As goes the United States, so goes the world. He can’t afford to shrink back into a shell. We can’t afford to cower in collective corners and pretend that this thing’s not happening and it doesn’t exist. That’s not who we are. That’s not what the rest of the world expects us to be. We can’t sit here and let a bunch of people who will never be negatively impacted by this tell the rest of us what to do, with all due respect.

The medical community people, Drs. Fauci and Birx, they may be brilliant at what they do, but they shouldn’t be the people telling us whether schools will open or not. It’s not their area of expertise. What do they know about it? What do they even care about it beyond what they think the impact would be on public health.

And there are just a couple examples. There’s all kinds of people that are involved in making policy, like should schools reopen, who are not gonna be affected by the policy they impose on us. You can’t have that, folks. You cannot have people who have immunity from the policy making the policy. You just can’t do it. Then you’re gonna have a lot of people who literally have no ability to relate to the everyday problems this virus creates.

You can’t have people who are not affected by it making policy. Not all of them. “Well, Rush, isn’t that kind of like you always say that the left says that you can’t talk about the defense budget ’cause you didn’t serve?” No. It’s not at all like it. I sit here on the radio. I don’t have any power. I can’t affect the defense budget. I can’t affect defense policy. I sure as hell can talk about it.

I’m talking about people who are in positions of power that allows them to make policy. People who are not gonna be affected by the policies they impose should not be making the policy. At least the people making policy should not be exclusively comprised of those unaffected by what they — and one of the big, big problems of liberalism is that they never, ever suffer the consequences of their own policies. They’re immune. By definition, liberal, socialist, communist leaders don’t want any part of what they demand their populations put up with.

But in a representative republic like ours, the leaders live it, or did. We’re trending away from this. And it’s gotta stop. You know, Obama had a phrase for this. He talked about gotta have skin in the game. (doing impression) “Gotta have a stake hold, skin in the game, can’t be doing this if you don’t have skin in the game.” Why in the world was Obama making policy on health care? He didn’t know anything about health care. He didn’t know anything about the hospital business. He didn’t know anything about the professional medical care industry. He’d never worked in it. None of the people that he had working on it, either, had ever had any experience.

These are people from the faculty lounge at the Ivy League sitting around whining and moaning about the people doing the jobs, doing the work, and these clowns at the faculty lounge talk about how stupid they all are and how much brighter they are and how much better they could do it. Well, they got their chance to try during eight years of Obama. What have we got to show for it? Nothing but one disaster after another to one degree or another.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned earlier that the Drive-By Media is still livid over Trump saying about COVID-19 and the number of cases that “it is what it is.”

CHRISTINE ROMANS: President Trump’s “it is what it is” approach to the pandemic is divorced from reality.

NORAH O’DONNELL: With more than 1,000 Americans dying every day, the president said, “it is what it is.”

DAVID MUIR: On COVID deaths in this country, the president at one point saying, “it is what it is.”

LESTER HOLT: The president defended his handling of the COVID disaster, saying of the staggering death toll, quote “it is what it is.”

LAURA COATES: I guess it is what it is, but it didn’t have to be.

CHRIS CUOMO: It is what it is. It is a pandemic that you are not doing enough about on purpose.

BRIAN WILLIAMS: The positively Pescian remark “it is what it is” maybe not the best way to describe a death toll of 150,000.

RON KLAIN: We certainly didn’t hear FDR tell people just “it is what it is.”

RUSH: Yes, we sure as hell did. What is “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” What the hell is that, if not, “it is what it is.” FDR didn’t start treating everybody like babies. If it isn’t what it is, what is it, then, you people in the media? Norah O’Donnell says, “With more than a thousand Americans dying every day, the president said, “It is what it is.” Then what is it, if it isn’t what it is? Christine Romans, CNN: “President Trump, ‘it is what it is’ approach to the pandemic is divorced from reality.” Oh, no, it is the essence of reality.

Thousand people dying a day. “It is what it is.” What is he supposed to say? Nothing? What’s the correction? Is he supposed to have tears and say how it tears him up and say so sad and so forth. It was Chris Cuomo you heard say: “It is what it is. It is a pandemic that you are not doing enough about on purpose.”

So Trump is purposely letting people die now? That’s what they want to say “it is what it is” means? The one guy who has done whatever he thinks necessary to stop this is the guy letting people die on purpose? What are any of these people doing? What’s the governor of Washington, the governor of Oregon, governor of New York, what are they doing to change the course of history? This is absurd. Of course it is what it is. Here’s Carl Bernstein last night on CNN with Fredo prime time. Fredo said, “Look, on the coronavirus and the push for a vaccine, what do you think the play is here, politically?”

BERNSTEIN: Mitch McConnell understands that this president is not capable of being a fit president of the United States, and it is time, as happened in the Nixon presidency. What happened in the Nixon presidency? A group of Republicans, led by the great conservative Barry Goldwater —

RUSH: Great conservative. Come on, Carl.

BERNSTEIN: — and by the Minority Leader of the House and by the Republican leadership marched to the White House and said to Richard Nixon, “You are unfit to remain in office. You must leave the presidency. We will no longer support you.” Something similar has got to happen in some kind of conscience rendering by Republicans to save us and to save lives in this country.

RUSH: Carl, you tell us that he’s gonna lose by double digits. Why the hell force him to resign? Why send the Republicans up there? Let this play out, Carl. Wouldn’t you rather have the guy lose by double digits? Wouldn’t you guys rather have Trump to run against? If Trump is so bad, Trump’s doing everything so wrong, Trump is so insensitive, Trump doesn’t care if people are dying, isn’t he the ideal opponent, Carl? Somebody who can’t win, somebody your own polls tell you is gonna lose by double digits, why do you want him off the ballot, Carl?

Why, it would seem to me he is the ideal opponent. You are gonna smoke this guy. Biden and you and the rest of you are going to send this guy packing. It isn’t gonna be close. But if you force him out, that means you might have somebody who’s far more intelligent and far more sensitive and far more compassionate. Who knows who the Republicans would nominate. It could be somebody who could actually win, Carl. Then what are you gonna do?

You notice Carl referred to Barry Goldwater as a great conservative. Folks, I’m here to tell you that in Carl Bernstein’s world there’s no such thing as a great conservative. But this other thing. Howard Baker did not go up and tell Richard Nixon that he’s unfit to remain in office. That’s not what happened. You notice also that Bernstein, the only thing he can do in his life is relive Watergate. How old is Carl now, 80? (interruption) Whatever it is, there must have been nothing else in his life now that matters. His whole life must have been Watergate, ’cause everything that Carl Bernstein thinks, does, or proposes involves repeating Watergate.

Howard Baker, Tennessee, he went up to the White House and he told Nixon that he had lost the support of Republicans on Capitol Hill, that if the Democrats began impeachment, that he would be impeached and convicted. That’s what they told him. They didn’t go up there and tell him that he’s unfit to remain in office. That wasn’t the message that Howard Baker had. Goldwater was up there, too, but they didn’t say, “You must leave the presidency.” They did say we’ll no longer support you. They did say you’ve lost support up here in your party.

But this is all wishful thinking. Why in the world — seriously, folks. If Trump is as big a sitting duck, if he is as bad as they say, if he has screwed up so badly, if this guy is such a target, why would you want him off the ballot? Am I wrong about this? If you’re guaranteed, if your own poll says you’re gonna win by double digits, why would you want him off the ballot?

They’re scared. I’m answering my own question. Folks, they don’t think Trump’s destined to lose. And they certainly don’t think that Biden is destined to win. That’s one of the biggest smoke-and-mirror games that these guys have ever played, that Biden can win this thing and is gonna win by double digits and the American people think Biden is far stronger on dealing with the virus and the economy than Trump, when nobody in this country has any idea what Biden thinks about any of these things ’cause he can’t tell anybody what he thinks because he doesn’t know what he thinks.

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RushLimbaugh.com: Drive-Bys Go Nuts Over Trump Axios Interview: “It Is What It Is” - 08.04.20

        

                        

                        
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