RUSH: Scott, Columbia, South Carolina, you are next. It’s great to have you here. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s an honor to talk to you, man. Please keep doing what you’re doing. You’re amazing.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: You are amazing. First a couple of points. One is, polls with garbage right now. Talk to me the 21st of October and then maybe. But right now, I don’t even look at ’em. Two, I think, look, a lot of Trump supporters, including myself, are down in the dumps right now. We’re praying for the first family, but I think we’re missing a couple of opportunities here.
I think Trump being off the campaign trail for, what, 10 days? I think his supporters… I think he’s gonna come out like a revving engine. His supporters, we’re gonna be so jazzed when he comes out of this, and it’s gonna be, again, like an engine ready to rock ‘n’ roll. I think a lot of people are missing that. He stays off the trail for 10 days? I mean, Biden stays off the trail for 20 days at a time. Trump’s off for 10? Come on. This isn’t gonna do anything but rev up even more (crosstalk).
RUSH: Wait just a minute! Who says that Trump’s gonna stay off the trail? Trump could call this show anytime he wants. If Trump wants to do a virtual rally on this show, he could call right now. If the president wants to address the nation, he could call right now. He could call into this program and say whatever he wants to say right now. I’m hereby offering: If the president wants to do a rally, ’cause he can’t go to a rally.
But if he wants to do a nationwide rally on the most-listen-to radio talk show in the country, he’s got an open invitation to come here. But if he doesn’t do that, who’s to say he won’t arrange a rally somewhere with a bunch of gigantic screens? I don’t think he’s gonna be invisible for 10 days or whatever length of time the quarantine is.
I think it’s 10, maybe 14 days. But with the marvels of modern technology, he doesn’t have to remain invisible in any way, shape, manner, or form. I’ll tell you something else, folks. You circle back here to Amy Coney Barrett. We’ve got the perfect — the absolute perfect reason — to cancel the hearings and go ahead and confirm her. COVID-19!
“We can’t have any hearings. We can’t put these…”
“Rush, you’re forgetting they could do virtual hearings. They could do Zoom.”
Yeah, okay. The Democrats want to do that? Think the Democrats want to be able to insult her but not to her face? Fine and dandy. We’ve got the perfect answer for an immediate confirmation vote for Amy Coney Barrett, and that is: COVID-19. It’s got Washington paralyzed; right? But we’re not. We don’t have to be. They don’t have to do hearings. She’s been vetted.
Here’s Richard. Richard in Bay City, Michigan, I’m glad you called. Welcome to Open Line Friday.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. You’re in our thoughts and prayers, and keep up the good work. My point is I’d like to see President Trump start doing weekly prime-time addresses to the nation on TV. He can sidestep the corrupt media and he can do it from the Oval Office and draw out the distinctions between the Trump America and the Biden America. I don’t think a lot of people that watch the mainstream media even know what they’re voting for when they’re voting for Biden and the radicalism and the communism that’s coming their way if they vote that way.
RUSH: Yeah. In fact, I’m glad you reminded me of something. That’s true. But there’s a problem. I’ve gotta be up front and honest. The president’s not gonna be given unfettered national airtime to address the nation from the Oval Office in campaign mode. The networks are not gonna make it available. Fox would and that would be it.
The One America News Network could make it available, but not CNN, not MSNBC. Nobody would see it. Again, it would be the same problem that exists now. It would be seen — and you’re even suggesting that it be a campaign event. He needs to stop showing up with liberals. He needs to stop doing events where liberals and the media get a shot at him.
He just needs a national address — address the nation from the Oval Office, wherever — and keep the liberals out of the equation. There is no way… You may not know this, but there’s no requirement. If the president says he gonna address the nation the Oval Office, the media is under no obligation to televise it. Presidents have to ask for that time, and if the networks — and they would — think that it’s raw political, that there’s any hint of that, they will not get anywhere near it.
They won’t do it.
So while it’s a nice idea, they’re gonna have to find a different way.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I’ll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, bouncing off of our last caller who wants Trump to, you know, “Screw Biden! Screw these debates! Screw all this stuff. Just do a national address,” the media will never go for that. But there is one element of that that I do support. I think Trump ought to just cease any back-and-forth with the media anywhere, anytime.
I don’t care if it’s these press conferences he does out on the White House lawn on the way to the helicopter where you don’t see the media. Don’t even engage ’em, right up ’til the election. You know, in other words, out-Biden Biden. Biden didn’t do them. Do the Biden. Biden doesn’t isn’t doing diddly-squat! Biden’s hiding in his little basement, wherever he is.
Now, he’s doing it for different reasons. There is nothing to be gaining by, quote-unquote, “being fair with the other side.” There is nothing to be gained by letting the other side have an open shot at you. Trump has proven that it doesn’t work. He has been the most available president in our history, the past 3-1/2 years. He has not… He has done more press availabilities.
He has spent longer in each of the availabilities — press conferences, press gaggles, letting the press into the beginning of a cabinet meeting, whenever. There is no president who has been more accessible and more available and more cooperative with the media than Donald Trump, and where has it gotten him? For all these people on our side said, “Well, you know what, Rush?
“It just goes to show! We gotta show that we can be fair. We gotta show that we can work with these people on the other side. We gotta show that we are not intending to be impugned and we not embarrassed, and we are certainly are not threatened by these people.” Why do we have to demonstrate any of this? Why do we have to show anybody who we are and who we aren’t?
Is that not the essence of defensiveness? Why do we have to show them who we are? What are we doing? We’re simply accepting their allegations against us and saying, “No, that’s not who we are. Watch us.” I don’t think Trump ought to have a thing to do with the media from here to the election. Find ways to reach the American people without ’em.
Like if he wants to call in here anytime, he can. If he wants to use this program to do a radio rally, he is more than welcome to — and I’m gonna find a way to reach out to the White House and extend this invitation formally. He’s got plenty of ways to reach the American people without opening himself up to… There is never…
In addition to a president never being more available, giving more time to the media than this guy, there’s never been a president more mistreated, more maligned, more lied about, more impugned than Donald Trump. He owes them nothing.
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