Going After the Media and Counting on Clinton Scandal Fallout Doesn't Work

RUSH: I can't tell you the number of times over the years -- and some of you may be even guilty of this -- some of you may know who you are when I recount this story. I can't tell you the number of times over the many years of broadcast service here, the EIB Network, that I have fielded calls, I can't tell you the number of times that I've been on the golf course -- I can't tell you, no, because it's too many times.

I can't tell you the times, there's too many to count, I can't tell you the times that I have been at a soiree, at a party, I can't tell you the number of times I've been out there doing anything where people have come up to me, "We gotta go after the media. When are we gonna go after the media? The media's killing us. The media is the story, we gotta go after the media."

Now you're seeing what happens when you go after the media. It doesn't work. But no matter how unbalanced, no matter how biased, no matter how unfair, no matter how a bunch of cheaters they are, no matter what a bunch of slavish pro-Democrat creeps they are, it never works going after them if you are the candidate. It makes you look small. Besides, despite what many people think, the media isn't on the ballot.

Greetings, my friends. We start here on an upbeat note, the EIB Network. Excuse me. Rush Limbaugh, 800-282-2882 if you want to join us, and email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

I'm not kidding. I can't count the number of times I've had people tell me, "We gotta go after the media. The media's unfair, bias and unbalanced. People hate the media and the people that don't hate the media have gotta be told." Maybe so. All that may be true, but it doesn't work. It has never worked. I mean, people have tried it.

Trump was in Fairfield, Connecticut. Number one, what's Trump doing in Connecticut? There are maybe 10 Republicans there, and only five of them will admit it. He's in Fairfield. I go to Fairfield every summer to play in the member-guest golf tournament at the Country Club of Fairfield. And I'm telling you, folks, it's a foreign country. What is Trump doing there? I have no idea, but when he was there, he told them in the rally, he said to heck with running against Crooked Hillary. We're not running against Crooked Hillary. We're running against a crooked media.

What ticked him off, I guess the New York Times had a story on his chief campaign guy Manafort being involved in some scandal in, where is it, Ukraine or Manafort supposedly benefiting from some policy in Ukraine. It doesn't look pretty. And the Wall Street, folks, the media today is just -- I've never seen this. I have never seen what I am witnessing. (laughing) It's gotten so bad, I'm actually wondering if there's gonna be a backlash to this. I'm not wishful thinking here. I long ago gave up wishful thinking, on anything, not just this, I mean, just anything.

But I'm looking at this, this is so unprecedented. It is just unlike anything I've ever seen. I just wonder if there will be a backlash, and not a sympathetic backlash, don't misunderstand. I know a lot of people think that people feel sorry for Trump because he's being mistreated. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't mean sympathetic backlash. I doubt it. But I still have never seen anything like it.

The Wall Street Journal has given Trump an ultimatum: You get out by Labor Day or we're through with you, and I didn't know they were ever with him. (laughing) Sorry to be laughing, but what else are we gonna do here? The editors of the Wall Street Journal are saying that Trump needs to change his tack or drop out and give the nomination over to Mike Pence. The Journal editors gave Trump until Labor Day to submit to their ultimatum. I really don't know what they're gonna do if Trump does not submit to their ultimatum. I don't know what else there is they can do.

In the good old days Labor Day was when campaigns really began. In the good old days, like four years ago and eight years ago, Labor Day actually marked the official -- well, not the official. But everybody's back from vacation, everybody's back to school, people getting up at normal times, going to bed at normal times and routine, post-summer vacation sets in, and that's traditionally when the majority of people start paying attention to campaigns.

So that's still two weeks away, so the Drive-Bys at the Wall Street Journal have declared that Trump -- at least three or four times they've declared that he's already lost the election. So it's amazing. Trump's changing a lot of things. He's changing the electoral calendar, he's changing any number of things, and now he's lost the election, here we are on August 15, with a newspaper actually giving him an ultimatum to get out. They don't say what they're gonna do otherwise.

The New York Times has a story about 20 anonymous Trump insiders who say that he can't be controlled, that he's depressed, that he's down in the dumps, that he's sullen. He's inconsolable that none of this is working out the way he thought it would work out. There are people ostensibly -- ostensibly, it's in New York Times -- close to the Trump campaign who say that Trump really thought he'd been able to win over the media with his charm and with his public appearances and with the charismatic nature of his personality and so forth, much as he did during the primaries.

And, I mean, not to get too serious here (chuckling), folks, 'cause I don't know that called for, but does anybody think this was gonna be easy? What are we doing here? What did this election really turn out to be about? It turns out to be trying to take away all of the reins of power and all of the perks and everything associated with being a member of the establishment. Did anybody think that the establishment -- be they Republican, Democrat, Martian, communist, whatever -- were just gonna sit around and leave that up to the democratic process? (chuckles) They are not.

They're not just gonna sit there and wait 'til November whatever the election date is and then throw their fortunes to the great unwashed on Election Day. So they've taken all these -- and the media is part of the establishment, and there are many Republicans in it. Practically anybody in Washington is in the establishment, so they were not gonna be won over. They were not going to be persuaded to abandon their club or their organization. You could look at it as globalist versus nationalist. You could look at it as populist versus conservative.

You could look at it as whatever it is, but it is the powerful versus the powerless, and the powerless were never gonna win this. (interruption) Well, now, wait a minute. You have to let me finish the sentence. I don't want to leave it there. The powerless were never gonna win this in a contest where the nominee tries to persuade the powerful to give it up. "But, Rush, what about the emails? "What about...?" The emails, the shmemails! Folks, there's nothing that's gonna happen with the emails. I don't care what's found in them. We should know that by now.

Besides, the Republicans are not serious about investigating any of this stuff on Capitol Hill, and so absent that, the media isn't gonna do it. I'm sorry. I love these people. I love Tom Fitton and all the people at Judicial Watch, but they can't do this by themselves. They simply cannot call attention to Hillary's emails. They can request them. They can do all this, and they can provide the results, but they're not gonna go anywhere because there's no official... The courts are not gonna pursue it. The DOJ has made it clear they're not gonna pursue anything, and now Leon Panetta...

(interruption) No, I haven't forgotten about Milwaukee. I can tell you what happened in Milwaukee in 30 seconds. It's just a repeat of all kinds of things. I'll get to Milwaukee in a second. But I'm waiting actually on a sound bite 'cause the sheriff up there had the best sound bite of all this, right about -- oh, I forget what it was -- an hour ago. I'm waiting for that bite to be put together, and I want to build off of that. So I haven't... I'm not ignoring it.

Back to Panetta. Panetta was on This Week. Now, Panetta is part of the Clinton war room. He was Bill Clinton's chief of staff. When Panetta was leaving as Clinton's chief, I'll never forget this. There's things in politics that I remember. I, who consume practically everything I see, remember most of what I see and read; it's an amazing feat. I don't have to practice it. It just happens. Some are born with good brains; some aren't. I am. I'll never forget Panetta and his resignation day as chief of staff.

He was just sucking up to Clinton like you can't believe. He was giving Bill Clinton credit for every damn good thing that's ever happened in the world since God created it. It was the most slavish... I thought he was gonna die of anal poisoning. I really did. He was so kiss-ass that I was sitting there listening and I said, "Does this guy not know the guy he's been working for?" So, anyway, that's who Panetta is. I mean, he's a loyalist like you can't... (interruption) No. (interruption) "Dying of anal poisoning" has nothing's to do with one's sexual orientation. It's describing...

(interruption) I said it. It's describing a sycophant. That's all I mean. So now Panetta goes on This Week with Stephanopoulos or whoever was hosting it Sunday, and he said, "Can't we just move on from these emails? For crying out loud, it doesn't matter anyway. This is politics." He was talking about the revelations of pay-for-play. He was openly admitting that entities representing foreign governments were donating to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for consideration as secretary of state or as a future president. >

"Hey, that's what politics is," and I'm sure to a guy like Clinton and Panetta, politics is selling yourself to the highest bidder, and that's what it's become. And it's been that way since Clinton was in office starting in 1993. So what's the big deal? That's why Bill Clinton's running around saying Comey's full of bull. (impression) "That FBI director, he's full of bull. That's a load of bull. What that guy's saying is bull," because to them, pay-for-play, selling access, taking money -- personally and at your foundation -- in exchange for favorable policies, that's how you do it.

That's what politics is to these people! There isn't anything illegal. There isn't anything shady. It's just the new norm. And, of course, that fits perfectly with the devolution of our culture overall. But, anyway, when I saw Panetta say it -- Can we all just move on? -- I imagined practically everybody in the audience watching that show. "Yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm sick and tired of hearing about it," people are saying. You know, you can only hear so much, and then there better be some action behind it or it begins to become a tune-out.

We've been hearing about Hillary Clinton's emails for how many months or years now? Well, it's a long time, whatever it is. And we can have news stories about what's in there. We can have information from Judicial Watch. AP might even run an occasionally a story about what's in Mrs. Clinton's emails. But if the sheriff doesn't come calling, if the Department of Justice doesn't... Better yet, if the FBI director goes on TV and says, "There's nothing here," then Panetta comes along... (interruption) Well, he did. He said, "There's nothing there prosecutable," even though there is.

But he said, "There's nothing in here that a reasonable prosecutor would pursue." That's it as far as the low-information crowd is concerned. So then Panetta goes on TV Sunday. "Can we move past this?" and I guarantee you there's a chorus of people going, "Yeah, yeah." But I... (sigh) Look, it's always dangerous getting into See, I Told You So mode, because people interpret that as condescending and being negative, and I don't intend to be either.

But I have never believed it, because I have intelligence guided by 25, 27 years of experience. We are not going to "illegal" the Clintons out of office. Scandal is not ever going to harm them. There is no evidence that it ever has, and there's plenty of evidence that people believe. There are all kinds of Clinton scandals that people believe, and it doesn't matter to 'em. (interruption) No, Trump's not making a big deal about the emails. But people who are opposed to Hillary -- and I am at the top of that list.

I'm the head of that club, waiting for some kind of magic to happen. People have been waiting for that to happen, to befall the Clintons for as long as they've been in national public life. Nothing's happened. I want to remind you, too... I made this comment. Remember when the Supreme Court vacated the convictions of the former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his lovely and gracious wife? You may not remember this. But they had the evidence on them: $175,000 of basically bribes, pay-for-play. They had accepted all these goodies.

I mean, it was chump change stuff. It was like TVs and stereos and rings and who knows what else. The Supreme Court threw all that out, threw the convictions out, even though the evidence was conclusive. When the Supreme Court threw it out, I said, "This is the best news that the elected class in Washington could possibly get." The Supreme Court has just said, essentially -- by vacating the convictions on McDonnell -- that it's too difficult to prove political corruption. Pay-for-play.

It's just too difficult to prove it. It's really difficult to prove when nobody's trying to, outside of Judicial Watch or Citizens United; when the DOJ's not trying to, when the Republicans don't want to get anywhere near it. (interruption) No, no, no, no. Mrs. Clinton's vulnerable in a lot of other ways. It just doesn't have to be scandal. She's vulnerable as she can be on policy, but for some reason, the decision has been made to go after the media today.

Now, there's also a funny story... Let me take a break. It's somewhere in the Stack. I won't find it in time. Let me take a break. It's something about Clinton campaign bracing for a final Trump attack or whatever. I can't imagine the Clinton campaign "bracing."

RUSH: No, no, no. I do not believe... I find it hard to believe that 20 Trump staffers would go crying to the New York Times.

The New York Times tried to mislead everybody on what happened in Milwaukee. The New York Times tried to portray a picture where the shooter was another innocent, unarmed black man gunned down by a voracious racist white cop. It's in their headlines. "Unarmed." The shooter was not unarmed, and he was not...

He was a thug. We now know who he is, and the cop was African-American. But the New York Times tried to get everything thinking that we were looking at Gentle Giant 2 here. So would they report the 20 unhappy Trump staffers would call 'em up and start crying about the Donald? I wouldn't put anything past them! I'd be really hard-pressed to believe that, is my point. Here's the story here:

"The Clinton campaign is gearing up for Donald Trump 'to bet everything on one final, major attack,' according to a fundraising email sent Monday morning by campaign manager Robby Mook. Mook has come to this conclusion, he writes, because Trump has raised a ton of money but hasn't spent" any of it yet. So the Clinton campaign thinks that Trump's saving up all this money for one big, huge nuclear blast on Hillary and her campaign. We'll see.

Don’t like the tone of the Rush transcript at all. Fatalistic.

This thing is far from over — the polls are not coming close to measuring the grassroots movement Trump has created, a huge percentage of which is people who don’t normally vote in elections.

The race will tighten in the public polls in the coming weeks, and whatever the final polls are, add +3 to Trump. He over-performed his polls the entire primary process and will do so in the general.

Even with the unforced errors and lack of focus, this race is still Trump’s to lose.

Don't forget, Rush is the media, at least in a singular sense. I disagree with him here for a couple of reasons. First, that he is applying the usual rules to the candidate/media dynamic, in which no matter what, the media always win. The assumption that that rule set may not be broken at will is, in my opinion, a very shaky one. No such dynamic is permanent or written in stone. At some point a candidate who challenges it with sufficient skill will break it.

Second, that at this point Trump can't afford NOT to challenge the media. These have plummeted into the most hysterical, reckless, and provably inaccurate hate campaigning I have seen in a lifetime of watching American politics, so much so that it has become self-parody. It's so over the top that even they have noticed. Nor does it appear that they're backing off on it. Game on, then, because to try to take the high road got Sarah Palin absolutely buried in filth and that's what they're trying to do to Trump. Trump, however, is a very different target from a young western Governor. He knows them to the soul. It is difficult to imagine any current political player with the insider knowledge and the celebrity to withstand this avalanche and give it back in kind.

The time for dignity and fighting like gentlemen and ladies is long past. Trump can bring it by the shovel full and I'll be applauding him the entire time.

Trump’s communications plan consisting of rallies and Twitter is not going to work for the general election. It worked fine in the primaries because only those interested in GOP primaries were paying attention. Also, most importantly, the DNC MSM was friendly toward him.

That’s all changed now. Does Trump understand that yet? The media are cherry picking sound bites from the rallies and tweets and pounding him. Meanwhile the lying criminal is running anti-trump TV ads in the key states PA, NC, OH, VA, FL etc. So the mass of people he needs in the general election on the key states are only getting anti-trump propaganda and nothing else. The low info voters are not getting any truth about the lying criminal.

Trump needs to stop just complaining about the DNC media and do something about it. Go over their heads with TV and radio advertising to advance his several key issues and most importantly pound away at the lying criminal for a change. Put her on the defensive in vehicles that can’t be hijacked by the DNC media. He is relying way too much on insider baseball tactics. He needs a mass media approach in the key states.

Unfortunately as long as he waits to do this he is falling farther behind - and there are now more “key states” than ever - including some traditional GOP strong holds.

Donald come on man shaming the media is not going to work. They are your enemy. They want you lose and are lying to make that happen. Use the vehicles that go around them and go straight to the people.

Boy, you've completely bought into the phony media narrative. They've got you right where they want you: wringing your hands and criticizing a candidate who is holding up better than any candidate in history against a relentless campaign of slanted character assassination.

There's not a single candidate that I can think of since I was born over 51 years ago that could possibly weather such an all-out Media assault. What the Media tried on Reagan is nothing compared to what's being done to Donald Trump this cycle.

And you're (apparently) basing your whole conception on 100% phony, agenda-driven polls. The polls with any kind of reasonable methodologies are showing a very close race, and that's in the face of the aforementioned Media onslaught, as well as considering the fact that Trump hasn't spent a dime on TV ads, and also the fact that Hillary has already spent tens of millions of dollars. Why? To be 3-5 points ahead in the real polls.

So, with all due respect, put the Media-packed crack pipe down and get a grip.

Trump is doing amazingly well. The push polls that have you all in a tizzy are reeking sh!t, and when the debates happen and the TV ads from Trump start coming, Hillary isn't going to know what hit her.

Furthermore, a campaign that raises 80-100 million dollars over the last 60 days, almost without trying, certainly isn't imploding. That money is going to get spent when and where it counts most, not when your abject fears would dictate.

So your entire set of presumptions is wrong, Trump and crew know exactly what they're doing, and I'm sure you're hysterical advice is being given all due consideration by the campaign.

If you're capable of reading between the lines and objectively assessing the the actual state of this race, you'd realize that Trump is going to win this. Nothing Hillary has done has either helped Democrat enthusiasm, or damaged Trump supporters' enthusiasm (except, apparently, in hysterical cases such as your own).

I'm presuming that, despite your negativity, you'll still crawl over broken glass to vote for Trump in November. If that's true; if even the defeatists still show up on Nov. 8th and VOTE, then Hillary doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell...

If things still look exactly like this in 3-4 weeks, I'll begin to share some of your pessimism, but in the context of the current facts as I see them, I'm still feeling quite confident in ultimate victory.

Furthermore, I believe God is on our side. If He's not, all the strategy and tactics in the world won't help us win. And if He is on our side, then all the weapons of the Enemy will be of no avail against us.

Vote Trump!

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