RUSH: I want you to hear a little bit of Trump’s farewell speech from yesterday.
‘Cause, folks, every literate American should read Trump’s farewell address, every word. It should be required reading for every student. Now, I know that a lot of schools are not gonna do that. A lot of schools are not gonna make it required reading. That means you who are parents should think seriously of making this farewell address available to your kids. The president’s accomplishments are mind-boggling.
They should be a source of great pride. You know, Howie Carr (who’s a great radio talk show host in Boston), had a piece, his column, yesterday in the Boston Herald, January 19th. “Thanks for Everything, President Trump — Thanks for the balance in my 401(k),” thanks for the “tax cuts for the middle class and [thanks for] destroying ISIS.”
I think it’s worth spending some time on this. I don’t think enough time is spent on repeating Trump’s achievements and accomplishments. They are major. They are significant. They are such that even the New York Times is reporting that the Democrat Party, the Biden transition team knows that they’ve gotta find a way to get back to the Trump economy prior to the COVID-19.
Now, I have spent a lot of time repeating Trump’s accomplishments and his achievements. But I think today, on the day that we immaculate Plugs Biden, it would be fitting to go through some of them again. I think people need to hear it. I think people need to be encouraged, reminded. And Howie Carr’s column is a good list because it’s full of a lot of little things that are big things.
For example, here’s one: “Thank you, Mr. Trump, for taking more questions from almost-always hostile reporters than all of the last three or four presidents combined.” Do you realize how significant that is? Trump took more questions from these people knowing full well they were out to destroy him. They were out to trick him, they were out to do him great harm, and yet he faced them every day.
He called them fake news every day. He treated them like he was a music conductor. He would greet them outside the Oval Office, he got them to behave as a bunch of Romper Room kids. We never saw their faces. We just saw him pointing to the next reporter, “Your turn, your question.” It looked like he was conducting a symphony.
“Thank you, Mr. President, for everything you’ve done. It shouldn’t be ending this way, but I and 74 million other Americans just want to thank you for all your efforts on our behalf over the past four years, actually since you came down the escalator at Trump Tower back in the summer of 2015.
“In no particular order: Thank you for restoring the U.S. as the world’s leading producer of energy – after your predecessor sternly lectured us that we ‘couldn’t drill our way’ out of our dependence on unstable Middle Eastern oil providers.
“Thank you for the tax cuts for the middle class. Thank you for destroying genocidal ISIS. … Thanks for shutting off the endless flow of illegal immigrants at the southern border… Thank you for calling out the endless hypocrisy of the media … Thank you for promoting economic policies that led to the lowest unemployment rates ever for blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and women, among others.
“Thank you for doing more to promote peace in the Middle East than all of your predecessors combined. Thank you for calling out and exposing the feckless RINOs of your own party like Willard Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Kelly Ayotte, et al. Thanks for finally standing up to Red China and its predatory trade practices. Thanks for calling out Fox News Channel for its duplicitous descent into terminal wokeness. Thank you for Operation Warp Speed, an amazing achievement for which you will never receive the appropriate credit.”
By the way, they’re gonna rename Operation Warp Speed to make sure nobody misunderstands that Trump had anything to do with it. “Thank you, Mr. President, for pardoning all the persecuted victims of the Russian collusion hoax, among them Gen. Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. Thank you for eliminating Obamacare’s ‘individual mandate,’ … Thank you for taking more questions from (almost always hostile) reporters than all of the last three or four presidents combined.
“Thanks for such a booming economy that seven million people got off the food-stamp rolls. Thanks for all those tweets that drove the Democrats and the media crazy. … Thank you for not turning the IRS into an instrument of persecution against your political foes, the way your predecessor did. … Thanks for not surveiling reporters,” the way the Obama administration surveilled you. “Thank you for trying to defund “sanctuary cities” where illegals run amok.”
Look. The thank yous go on and on and on here in Howie Carr’s column in the Boston Herald from yesterday. It is a list of Trumpian achievements unparalleled by any president in our lifetime. It’s the kind of stuff that people are not going to forget. It’s the kind of substantive stuff that’s gonna enable people to remember and hold on to Trump, the person, the president, the administration.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I said earlier that I want you to hear a little bit of Trump’s farewell address that he gave yesterday via videotape on the White House website. I saw it, I guess, it was late in the afternoon yesterday. And we got one, two, three, four, five sound bites from it. So it’s not too long, but, man, it was really good — and it was a different tone. It was a different flavor on from what we’re used to getting. See what you think here.
THE PRESIDENT: Four years ago, I came to Washington as the only true outsider ever to win the presidency. I ran for president because I knew there were towering new summits for America just waiting to be scaled. I knew the potential for our nation was boundless as long as we put America first. So I left behind my former life and stepped into a very difficult arena. But an arena, nevertheless, with all sorts of potential if properly done.
America had given me so much, and I wanted to give something back. Together with millions of hardworking patriots across this land, we built the greatest political movement in the history of our country. We also built the greatest economy in the history of the world. It was about America First because we all wanted to make America great again.
RUSH: You know, it must be stated — I have to remind everybody again — he didn’t need to do this. Now, to me this is a very important thing, in terms of determining Donald Trump’s sincerity. He had the life that millions of Americans would love to have; they dream about having. He had it. He had wealth. He had untold liberty and freedom. He could go anywhere he wanted, anytime.
He was not battened down by any set of commitments. He could do whatever he wanted to do with whoever he wanted to do it with at any time of any day. There was essentially no clock in Donald Trump’s life. That, to me, is one of the hallmarks of real freedom, when the clock doesn’t matter. And he gave all of that up. He didn’t give it up for more wealth.
He didn’t give it up for more fame. He had as much fame as he could possibly win. What did he give it up for? He gave up all of that freedom and wealth and liberty. He gave it up because he literally believed he thought he could improve the country; make it great again. He thought the country was spiraling out of control, that we were in danger of losing the United States of America as founded.
So he signed on to run for president, and he ended up winning. And that led to what you know happened: Four consecutive years of character assassination multiple times every day for four years. It was aimed at him. It was aimed at his family. It was aimed at anybody that he ever had a relationship with. The left lied. They distorted. They attempted to literally ruin his life, and they have not stopped.
They, to this day, want to continue to ruin his life, and see to it that he can’t ever run for president again. If they could, they would convict him of something and put him in jail. He didn’t need any of it, and the things… You know, in Howie Carr’s column of a list of “thank-yous, Mr. President,” almost everything on that list, almost every achievement and accomplishment of Donald Trump was something everybody said could never be done.
The country was too far gone.
The country was too rooted in globalism.
It was too rooted in the distance that it made from the original founding.
It just couldn’t be done, yet he did it all. But, folks, it is really important to understand. When you’re taking the measure of someone’s character — and a lot of people charged into Trump on the basis that he didn’t have any because of the way he came in or the mannerisms he engaged in. But I’m telling you, he didn’t need any of the crap that he got.
He didn’t need it.
He didn’t want it.
But it didn’t drive him away, did it?
Here’s the next bite.
THE PRESIDENT: I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars. Our allegiance is not to the special interests, corporations, or global entity. It’s to our children, our citizens, and to our nation itself. As president, my top priority — my constant concern — has always been the best interests of American works and American families. I did not seek the easiest course.
By far, it was actually the most difficult. I did not seek the path that would get the least criticism. I took on the tough battles, the hardest fights, the most difficult choices because that’s what you elected me to do. Your needs were my first and last unyielding focus. You are loyal to your country, and my administration was always loyal to you.
RUSH: And every bit of that is right-on-the-money true. He even addressed it: “I took on the tough battles, the hardest fights, the most difficult choices because that’s what you elected me to do. I did not seek the path that would get the least criticism.” Do you know how easy it would have been? Do you know how easy it would have been to turn that job into nothing more than idolatry?
If he wanted the press to love him and report on him the way they reported on Obama, he could have done it. All he would have had to do was become a liberal. It was as easy as that. He just needed to become a little liberal, and they would have loved him! They would have still been wary, because he’s an outsider; they wouldn’t have trusted him full-fledged. But he could have limited some of the damage. But he didn’t. He just bored down on them right between their eyes each and every day.
Next bite, please.
THE PRESIDENT: Now, as I leave the White House, I have been reflecting on the dangers that threaten the priceless inheritance we all share. The greatest danger we face is a loss of confidence in ourselves, a loss of confidence in our national greatness. No nation can long thrive that loses faith in its own values, history, and heroes. For these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality.
What has always allowed America to prevail and triumph over the great challenges of the past, has been an unyielding and unashamed conviction in the nobility of our country and its unique purpose in history. We must never lose this conviction. We must never forsake our belief in America. The key to national greatness lies in sustaining and instilling our shared national identity.
RUSH: Which is under assault and has been for longer than Trump was in the White House. Instilling our shared national identity. This is exactly what the left is trying to break apart. They’re trying to deny the moral superiority this nation has. They’re trying to deny that the founding was justified. They’re trying to deny that we are a legitimate superpower, that we have earned our status and place in the world. This country is under assault from the people who won this last election. A couple of more. Get ’em quick here.
THE PRESIDENT: At the center of this heritage is also a robust belief in free expression, free speech, and open debate. Only if we forget who we are and how we got here could we ever allow political censorship and blacklisting to take place in America. It’s not even thinkable. Shutting down free and open debate violates our core values and most enduring traditions. In America we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes. We just don’t do that. America is not a timid nation of tame souls who need to be sheltered and protected from those with whom we disagree. That’s not who we are. It will never be who we are.
RUSH: Finally, the president warned the denizens of the deep that the movement he began is not over. It is only beginning.
THE PRESIDENT: I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. There’s never been anything like it. The belief that a nation must serve its citizens will not dwindle but instead only grow stronger by the day. As long as the American people hold in their hearts deep and devoted love of country, then there is nothing that this nation cannot achieve. I go from this majestic place with a loyal and joyful heart and optimistic spirit and a supreme confidence that, for our country and for our children, the best is yet to come. Thank you, and farewell, God bless you, God bless the United States of America.
RUSH: And we’ll take a brief break.