"The press is going to hate him even more after this," Limbaugh said. "When I say effective, I mean to rally people who supported him."
Transcript, via Rush Limbaugh:
RUSH LIMBAUGH: One of the reporters from CNN, a guy named Jim Acosta — this was classic — stood up.
The whole thing was classic ’cause Trump’s on one stage and they’re in another. And they’re in that room… Folks, you have to understand: They’re in that room to destroy him today. He announced a press conference. They’re in that room to destroy him, whether they want to admit it or not. And there were three or four questions today that I heard that left no doubt that’s what the purpose was.
Despite everything he had said today, they asked these insolent questions, “Did you ever talk to Russia during the campaign?” Trump said (paraphrased), “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t know anybody in Russia! I didn’t talk to anybody in Russia! We didn’t talk about…” He was just going on and on, but they kept asking the questions, because that’s all they’ve got. And they’ve got nothing there. The stories I have in the Stack today clearly state that there is no evidence.
These intel people trying to undermine Trump have had to admit that there is no evidence that, A, the Russians had anything to do with the outcome of our election or, B, Trump was working with them on it to undermine Hillary Clinton. And yet that continues to be the narrative that is fueling the press in their pursuit of Donald Trump. So the CNN guy stands up and effectively asks — I’m paraphrasing Jim Acosta — “Don’t you think…? Don’t you think that these routine attacks of yours on the press and on the media undermining the First Amendment by calling what we’re doing ‘fake news’?“Aren’t you doing a terrible disservice to the Constitution and to the American people by criticizing the media?” And there it was.
Sure as I’m sitting here watching, there it was. They can sit here all day and not just criticize. They can try to destroy people. They can — using whatever power they think they have been granted by the First Amendment — go out and literally destroy people. Let Trump criticize the way they do their jobs, and all of a sudden it’s a constitutional crisis. Well, how about Obama trashing me all the time?
How about Obama trashing Fox News all the time? Was that not a threat to the First Amendment? No, they applauded that. They still do applaud that. They join in the attacks on Fox News — and, more often than not, they join in attacks on me, too. But they want you to believe that they are this watchdog and that they’re holding truth to power, that they’re holding powerful people accountable. They’re not doing anything of the sort. The press has gotten to the point where they need a watchdog, and it turns out that Trump is the watchdog!
Trump is the guy holding them accountable. Trump is the guy calling them out. I’ve never seen anything like this today. I have never seen it. We have wanted Republican presidents all of my life to deal with these people this way, and the only thing we ever got was Spiro Agnew. We’ve not seen anything like this, and Trump did it with an air of confidence and self-assuredness. He was not nervous at all. He was having fun with them. He was toying with them. It’s like if you got a cat. You know how you get these little laser pointers and you have a little kitten or a cat and the cat goes nuts chasing the light? It will run into a wall.
That’s what I was watching here today. It was just… It was fantastic, and the American people are gonna eat this up. Now, I said yesterday on this program that what I thought Trump could do to recapture and regain control of the narrative here, if you will — of the agenda — is simply focus on the domestic agenda. Just get in gear and very publicly start talking about repealing Obamacare, tax reform, building the wall, immigration reform. All of it. Just go full speed at it, and in the process keep people who voted for him on his side and they won’t care about whatever these efforts are that the press is engaging in with the intel community to undermining him.
And make no mistake. And he called this out. He accused Obama of running the shadow government. He accused Hillary Clinton and George Soros of being the people paying for people to show up and protest things. He held nothing back! He ridiculed Hillary Clinton for being in part of a deal that gave up 20% of our uranium supply and for having that cheap little red reset button when she became secretary of state. And each time he mentions Obama. He mentions… He didn’t say “shadow government” but he said, “Our opponents are doing what they can.”
He called all of this fake news. He was on spot with all this. You know, it’s hard to say. You get caught up in the moment. But this was one of the most effective press conferences I’ve ever seen. The press is gonna hate him even more after this, don’t misunderstand. When I say “effective,” I’m talking about rallying people who voted for him to stay with him. He made a point (paraphrased), “What chaos? You people are reporting chaos here. We’re not in chaos! We’re a well-oiled machine. We got one of the smoothest running machines in the history of machines.
We got one of the best administrations in the history of administrations,” and he rattled off the achievements they’ve had here that the media’s not reporting ’cause they’re so focused on whether or not Trump worked with Russia to screw Hillary out of the presidency. He’s reassuring his people he’s on top ever and nothing’s changed, and everything that he campaigned on he is doing. All he’s doing is fulfilling campaign promises. And of course the Democrats don’t like it, and of course the media doesn’t like it, but it isn’t gonna stop him. And I have to stop myself here.