Rush: Why Did the Media Behave at Tuesday’s White House Briefing?

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Why Did the Media Behave at Tuesday’s White House Briefing?

Apr 1, 2020



RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s start with the briefing yesterday. And I’ll get to the expansion of — I was really dancing around something. I was dancing around the economics message and I’ve had a lot of people tell me, “Rush, yeoman job yesterday, but you gotta understand something. That team at the White House is not going to talk about the economics, the economics message, the economics future until the health aspect of this has some positive certainty and is nailed down. You can do all you want, you can trying to goad them into it, but they’re gonna ignore it.”

And that’s my problem. We’re trying to establish a one-size-fits-all policy for this massive country. You know the new governor of Iowa is not gonna shut down the state. A new Republican female governor. Not gonna shut down the state. She said, “I can’t. I have no reason to right now.” And Arizona was a holdout. The governor out there, Doug Ducey, they finally forced him into shutting down the state. Shutting down, I mean, putting the social distancing rules into place and so forth.

The economics of this is a primary concern. I mean, so are the health aspects. Now, here’s the thing that happened. There are two competing thoughts. First of all, how many of you watched the briefing yesterday? I think the ratings for the White House briefing every day are pretty much through the roof. CNN backed out of it. That briefing yesterday was chock-full, whatever you thought of it, it was chock-full of more information and data, which is what everybody wants, than you can get anywhere else in this country and none of the networks covered it — Fox was the only one that covered it — because they’re living in this illusion that they are Trump rallies.

Let me ask a question. How many press people get to ask Trump questions at Trump rallies? Zero. He doesn’t face any media grilling or any questioning during rallies. These are the furthest thing from rallies. How many times has Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx show up and start talking about their models at Trump rallies? Doesn’t happen. How often does Pence show up to do anything other than introduce Trump? How many times has FEMA — do you have an endless parade of corporate CEOs who are showing their determination to work together to keep the American supply chain up and running? Do these things happen at Trump rallies? It’s absurd that these things are continuations or extensions of Trump rallies. They just don’t like that Trump is Trump and what Trump is doing. But it was a major change yesterday.

Now, I got an email note from a friend. “Hey, Rush, why aren’t reporters at the White House briefings wearing masks?” These briefings demonstrate remarkable transparency. Trump’s team’s doing a phenomenal job, and here’s the observation from a friend of mine. “Trump has slowly worn reporters down to doing their freaking jobs. Tonight has reporters asking mostly legitimate questions.” It’s true yesterday. It’s why I’m asking if you saw it. Even what’s his name, Acosta, even Jim Acosta at CNN was asking respectful, decent questions.

Now, my friend’s theory here is that Trump has worn them down. Trump has slowly warned them down. He has shamed them and he has forced them into actually doing their jobs. And when they did their jobs and when they were asking responsible, decent questions rather than gotcha things, Trump responded in kind. He responded with right answers, correct answers, respectful answers. He didn’t rip ’em so shreds, didn’t call ’em fake news, didn’t do any of that. And so my friend here is crediting Trump for wearing reporters down, because they were asking mostly legitimate questions. Americans want relevant information. They’re getting it in these briefings. And, by the way, these briefings don’t have any sugarcoating. These briefings are worst-case scenario, folks.

And I know why that’s happening. I’m not into the doomsayers. Like I say: The doomsayers win every time they try. The doomsayers cannot lose, and so now we got this 2.2 million-deaths figure that is irrelevant, and yet still being used. Now the 100,000 to 200,000 deaths has been upped to 240,000 deaths.

Now we’re told, “The next two weeks are gonna be the worst two weeks. Oh, you better batten down! You had better buckle up. You had better get ready. The next two weeks will be unlike anything we’ve been through yet.” So the doomsayers are alive and well, and they are painting the biggest picture of doom they can — and we know why.

There are multiple reasons why. A, to prep people. (I mean, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.) The second reason is when the numbers come in not nearly as bad, they can say, “See! See! Our early warning and our advice made the difference.” So that 2.2 million figure is not gonna go away, and the 240,000 death number is not gonna go away.

And if the numbers come in at anything less (like 84,000, which some of the models are saying), then you can bank on the fact that the government’s gonna be praising itself out the wazoo. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. I went to the dedication of a federal building one day. I happened to have reason to be there. It was a gigantic ceremony. The building was named after somebody I knew.

Do you know what the ceremony was about? The ceremony was the General Services Administration praising itself for getting the building built, in what was supposed to be a dedication to the guy whose name was going on the building. And it was the GSA and the people up there praising themselves and how they came in under budget, how they came in early; they got it all done.

I said, “What am I watching here?” It’s the same thing being set up here. When this is all done, we’re gonna get, “Oh, our models were wonderful, and the American people behaved according to the way we told them to behave. And because of our advice and because of our models and because of this or that, instead 2.2 million people dead, only 80,000 people are dead.”

Or “instead of 240,000, only 85,000,” whatever it is. This is how bureaucrats operate, and I… Don’t construe this to be criticism, folks. I’m just telling you how the game is played and how these things are done. So back to the briefing. Americans want relevant information; they’re getting it. There’s no sugarcoating. I wouldn’t say there’s any panic, either.

Trump has put some really brutal numbers and fatalities out there. He hasn’t minimized anything, and he’s now personalizing it. He’s saying that he knows a couple people who have it. Healthy people. Never had a thing in the world wrong with ’em, and they’re in a coma. They’re in a coma, he said. His friends are in a coma.

Now, hold on to that because that’s relevant to what’s coming next. My friend writes in the note, “Trump has not surrendered to the health experts. He has not surrendered to the media. Trump is determined to get ahead through hard work, creative problem solving, leadership, and action — and tonight, we’re hearing a little bit more about the problem model.”

Okay. So that’s my friend’s take. Mr. Snerdley, did you watch the briefing yesterday? (interruption) You didn’t! Aw jeez. Brian, did you watch…? (interruption) You didn’t watch it. Ah. Dawn, did you watch it? Did you…? (interruption) Is this your take that Trump is wearing down the reporters, that finally the reporters are treating him with respect and asking decent questions?

(interruption) Well, that’s not how the media sees this at all. Grab audio sound bite 8. Listen to this. This is Jim Acosta. This is Trump’s number one, not enemy but foil in the White House press corps. This guy is disrespectful. This guy has done nothing but disrespect Trump for three years.

Trump lets him in now and then just to be able to criticize CNN and call ’em fake news. So last night — this is after the briefing — Jim Acosta is on Anderson Cooper 29 on CNN and had this to say about Trump at the briefing yesterday.

ACOSTA: People might say, “Well, uh, you know, I can’t… I can’t ever trust him. He’s a phony,” and so on. People may say that. But Anderson, I have to tell you. Sitting in that room that close to him, I’ve never seen President Trump like this, and I think to some extent he is — he is scared right now, Anderson. And we could all feel that in the room. People may not believe the president when he says any of this, and I’ve been — you and I have been — you know, pretty critical of him from time to time. This was a different Donald Trump tonight. I think he gets it, Anderson.

RUSH: So Trump is scared, folks. Trump is scared — and that’s good! Oh, yeah, that’s good. You know why that’s good? Because now Trump is not acting invincible. Trump is acting vulnerable. Trump is acting like he might be ready to admit that he’s made a mistake here or there. Trump is scared, and that means we can get Trump!

And that means we can portray Trump as somebody who’s not invincible and all powerful and all confident in dealing with this. John Harwood — the New York Times, PMSNBC, CNBC, everywhere — he’s been everywhere. I don’t know why he doesn’t stay anyplace, but he goes everywhere.

He tweeted about Trump’s presser from last night. “This is the most effective job of communicating President Trump has done during the crisis.” The most effective job was that briefing last night. Because Trump was scared. Because Trump finally gets it. Because Trump finally realizes he can’t do anything about this. Because Trump finally realizes that he is vulnerable.

Trump realizes he can’t be Trump and fix this. The question, though, is why did the media behave better? They did. The media last night — at least the usual provocateurs — were respectful. I couldn’t believe it. I was watching. I said, “That can’t be Jim Acosta.” Jim Acosta was asking respectful, actual reasonable and responsible questions.

And he was not snarky and disagreeable (I mean, for the most part) when Trump would answer. And Trump was not calling him fake news. And I said, “What the hell is going on there?” Just curious. I didn’t have any… I wasn’t alarmed by it. I was just curious. “What’s going on here?” I find out these guys today think that it’s ’cause Trump is scared.

“Trump finally realizes he’s powerless! Trump realizes that there’s nothing he can do. Trump realizes that all the bluster and all the pseudo-confidence isn’t gonna matter a hill of beans. Trump doesn’t know what’s coming next,” and that makes Trump real, and now Trump’s a real guy. Now Trump’s vulnerable. Trump’s gettable.

They think Trump is scared. That means they think this has defeated Trump. They think Trump has succumbed to the overall whatever this is, that he no longer feels larger than coronavirus or the issue or the effort to get the country past it. And this excites them. This makes them feel equal. This makes them feel like they can get Trump.

But did Trump behave the way he did because the media behaved better? I mean, it’s a chicken-or-egg question. And do you think Trump is scared? Did you watch…? Those of you watched briefing, do you think Trump is scared in that? The last thing I thought was Trump was scared. Did you…? (interruption)

Well, maybe exhausted. I think Dr. Birx looks exhausted. You know, Dr. Birx (about whom we will be chatting later) doesn’t get her data updates ’til 2 a.m. every day. That’s when the latest modeling data and analysis is sent to her. So she has to be up every morning at 2 a.m. I don’t know whether she stays up until then and goes to bed or whether she gets up at midnight to get ready for the data.

But she gets the data at 2 a.m. on most days. This is not 9-to-5 stuff, and she does look tired. Trump has always been indefatigable to me, always doesn’t seem to me ever tired. He seems to be always energetic and upbeat, and just because he may be serious does not, to me, convey that he’s tired.

Although it would stand to reason everybody in that task force and everybody in that administration right now would be exhausted. But did Trump appear to be scared? And what they mean by “scared” is not scared of them. Scared of the circumstance, scared of the coronavirus, scared of the… “Is there a realization that is settling in?”

This is what they want you to believe, that Trump has realized that we’re powerless, that all we can do is sit here and be affected by it. “There’s nothing we can do. We can’t stop what’s happening. We can’t do a damn thing about it, and that has Trump scared. Trump’s never been in this position. Trump could always stop and fix everything, but he can’t this.” This is the point they’re trying to convey.

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/04/01/why-did-the-media-behave-at-tuesdays-white-house-briefing/