RUSH: Now, back to the audio sound bites. The examples of your beloved host being impugned and ripped to shreds here for invalid reasons. First this happened Friday in Texas, in Houston. Fox 26 Eyeball News, a TV program called The Isiah Factor Uncensored. Isiah Carey is the host. And he spoke with a psychiatrist and empathy expert, Dr. Alauna Curry, about what is behind mask rage.

Now, I must say, I have not addressed the subject of mask rage on this program. I can't address everything. I address the things I care about the most. I mean, I've not taken a side on it. You'd be hard-pressed to find evidence of me being an anti-masker or a pro-masker, in terms of things I have said or advocated. And those of you who listen regularly, I'm sure, know that. Many of you I'm sure are frustrated that I have not become an activist when it comes to the mask.

I know a lot of you think the mask is a bogus thing, it's maybe more dangerous than not wearing the mask, and you wish that I would pick up that charge and run with it. Others of you are concerned that the mask is way, way necessary. It's one of the smartest things we could do and you're upset that I am not advocating mask usage more. Both of you would be correct. This is something I leave up you to. If you don't want to wear a mask, it's fine with me. If you do, that's fine with me. But I have not delved into the conspiratorial nature of it. I tell you all of that to put this bite in context. Isiah Carey begins the little discussion here.

CAREY: You run into the average conservative on the street, and they're giving you the same talking points that, say, Rush Limbaugh gave them earlier in the morning.

CURRY: Yes. When I hear that, I see things in terms of brain systems. So we have a system called mirror neurons that mirrors the things that we hear, and then we kick out those same behaviors and those same words, which is why confirmation bias works so well to draw a person into a certain belief system.

RUSH: For 32 years these people have been saying this. What are they saying? Essentially that you're idiots, that every one of you in this audience is a mind-numbed robot and that you tune in here each day to get your marching orders, that without me, you don't know what to think. Without me, you don't know how to act. Without me, you don't know what to say. For 32 years this is what these people have said.

Now, this psychiatrist and empathy expert, Dr. Alauna Curry, I don't know how old she is, but I'm sure that she's young enough that she doesn't remember that there have been 32 years of the identical criticism that she's leveling here. And what does it show? It shows once again that these arrogant snobs haven't taken even a moment to try to figure out who you really are or who Trump's voters really are.

They don't care. They would prefer to create their own category for you and then lump you into it and then be rid of you. You're not even worthy of taking note of. You're mind-numbed robots. You can't think on your own. You get up, you listen to Rush Limbaugh every day. That's where you get your talking points. Mirror neurons, mirrors the things you hear and then see. And so you hear me say things, and they become yours.

You see, my friends, it's simply impossible that a majority of you could think what you think on your own. I call your attention to the most watched TV network in June and July, the Fox News Channel. Those are people, the mind-numbed robots, every damn one of them, most watched network and its audience are a bunch of idiots that can't make up their own minds and need marching orders. Or is it more likely that they are people who knew what they thought long before conservative media came along, it's just they never heard in media what they think represented because the mainstream media's always been a bunch of leftist commies.

So finally 32 years ago this program starts, a few years later, Fox starts. Now they've got places to go that mirror what they think. If there's any mirroring going on, it is the media mirroring a majority of thought in the American population. And these people simply will never, ever be able to understand that, much less accept it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So the second effort by the Drive-By Media to impugn and unfairly rip your beloved host occurred on CNN yesterday, when our old buddy, Little Brian Stelter, decided to come after me. This is unbelievable. This is un... You want to talk about tone-deaf? You want to talk about a lack of self-awareness the likes of which I have not seen in a while, to accuse me of negative partisanship?

Little Brian on his program called... What is his program called? What's the name of that show? It's a media analysis... What is it? (interruption) Reliable Sources. You see, my friends, I have stopped talking about COVID-19. It's a very, very irresponsible thing to do. I'm a leading light. I'm a leading media figure. I'm one of the most listened to figures. I'm a household name in all four corners of the world.

It's irresponsible for me to stop talking about COVID-19 -- which, of course, I haven't stopped talking about COVID-19. I simply have a different view of it than the panic-riddled people at CNN. No. And why am I not talking about COVID-19? Because I am bashing Joe Biden now all the time. Then they show Biden riding a bike with a mask on proving that he's not falling apart.

So this report essentially says that I am an example of all of conservative media. We have completely lost touch with reality, that all we're doing is bashing Biden. We are not attempting to help our audiences understand the ravages of COVID-19 or some of the other things, the horrible things Trump is doing. They listen to me all week to be able to put together this report, to prove that all I'm doing is bashing Biden.

And to support his program Brian tweeted, "If you're not listening to right-wing talk radio," which means me, of course (ahem), "you're missing just how extreme the Biden bashing has become. It is offensive and otherworldly. We showed examples on Reliable Sources this morning." Folks, you could be excused for thinking maybe you've been on drugs the last four years and maybe made up the 24/7 trashing of Donald Trump.

These people have -- for four years -- done nothing but trash and attempt to destroy Donald Trump. Colluding with Russia. He's a foreign agent. He's a special agent for Vladimir Putin. I mean, these people have not let up. They're still doing it. Four years of bashing Trump, and they don't see anything otherworldly about it? They don't see how extreme that is?

I spend a couple, three days highlighting the mental deficiencies of Biden, and all of a sudden, I have become offensive and otherworldly. I mean, this is the most... How would you describe it? And, by the way, Little Brian, he's just an example. They're all identical in this sense. These people, to this day, their broadcast days are devoted to trashing Donald Trump.

Everything he says, everything he does comes under extreme, irrational criticism. And they think, I guess, that that's totally normal, that that makes perfect sense as a news cycle. And yet if I spend two or three days not talking about the virus sufficiently to please them and spend my time warning people about the lack of abilities -- mental, cognitive abilities -- of Joe Biden, somehow I have become offensive and otherworldly.

So let's go to the sound bites. Here is Little Brian from his program on Sunday morning, Reliable Sources.

STELTER: Guys like Rush Limbaugh can influence tens of millions of listeners. Nowadays if you listen to those shows, you hardly hear about COVID at all. They have shifted to big-time Biden bashing instead.

RUSH ARCHIVE: The contrast in knowledge of events and issues, mental acuity -- the contrast between Trump and Biden -- is striking. It's why they're keeping Biden in the basement.

STELTER: Every day, every day this is what's airing on the radio. This is Joe Biden out there on a vigorous bike ride. Talk radio's narrative for months has been that Joe Biden is falling apart. There he is riding a bike, out for a bike ride!

RUSH: Is this not hilarious? Biden's on a bicycle, and somehow this proves that his brain is working fine. Somehow Biden riding a bike is proof that there's no cognitive loss in Biden's addled brain. But that's not the point. The point is, we spent two or three days last week talking about this. These people have spent the last four years and counting!

They have an obsession with Donald Trump that is so unhealthy, it's bordering on rendering these people insane, clinically insane. And they don't see that. They don't see what they're doing about Trump in any way comparable. No! But three days, even four days... But this whole program is not devoted to Biden. It never has been. It never will be.

The entirety of CNN's existence is to bash and destroy and overturn the election results of 2016 to get rid of Donald Trump. That's the reason they're on the air. And, folks, again I remind you, it is not CNN that is the most watched network of all networks in prime time, in America, in June and July. That would be -- dadelut, dadelut, dadelut -- Fox News Channel.

What must they think at CNN when they see that?

I mean, they can't miss it. Everybody in this business cares about ratings; I don't care what they tell you. When they see Fox as the most watched network of all networks -- for in two straight months, not just a day or two in the month, but for two straight months? What must they think? I guarantee you even though they will never let on, it destroys them. It just rips 'em a new one. They can't figure it out, 'cause they think Twitter is America.

They think they... In fact, that's what they probably tell. They tell themselves that the ratings are wrong, that something's not right because just can't be. They tell themselves they're gaining ground; their audience is growing left and right. Here's one more. Brian brings on an expert next who says that all the attacking of the Democrats, it's just a habit. It's become a tradition on the right, and it was all started by me.

STELTER: All these talk radio stars and TV shows that are just constantly attacking, fueling hatred of the other side. Am I right to say this happens on the left and the right, but that it's more severe on the right, currently?

HEMMER: Y-yes, I would say it's more severe on the right currently in part because the right just has a longer tradition of these o-overtly ideological media outlets. There is this sort of habit of attacking Democrats that goes pretty far back. But if you look at, like, the 1990s and the way that Rush Limbaugh and others would have sharpened their teeth on Bill Clinton, this has been the way they've built audiences for three decades now.

RUSH: Uh, no. And see, it's again evidence that they have no idea how this audience was built, how you came to find this program and stick with it. No idea. No clue. They think they know so they stopped looking. I sharpened my teeth on Bill Clinton. There's a lot of people who think that Bill Clinton made this program and that once Clinton left the scene, that I would be up a creek.

We're on 600-and-some-odd radio stations now, and we were on 500 of them before Clinton was even elected. It took us four years, but we got there, to 500 stations. Clinton gets elected, and we added some holdouts and some stalwarts. We got a couple station from a homeless camp that I think put us over 612, but bottom line is we got there.

But (laughing) this is just laughable. So he's all excited! He asked his expert (excitedly), "Am I right? Am I right? Am I right to say this happens on the left and right, but it's more severe on the right?" "Oh, absolutely!"

Nicole Hemmer is the guest, by the way. She's an author, new book, Messengers of the Right: Conservative Media and the Transformation American Politics. See, they know we ripped up their monopoly. They're bent out of shape about it. But still, the lack of self-awareness that they do not see their obsession with destroying Donald Trump? They don't see that as partisan? They don't see that as destructive ultimately to themselves?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We're gonna get to you as quickly as I can. Another tweet, another tweet from Brian Stelter. This is his TV show. Listen, folks, this is unreal except it's worse than unreal, and there's not a word to describe this. You ready? Here's the Stelter tweet. "When you see entire media companies essentially exist to tear down Joe Biden, is there an equivalent of that on the left, tearing down Trump?"

His guest says, "There really isn't." (laughing) There really isn't? What is CNN? It exists for one reason: to destroy Donald Trump. CNN exists to ruin Donald Trump, to ruin his presidency, to ruin his life, to ruin his businesses, to ruin his family's business. CNN exists for one reason: to see Trump thrown out of office and maybe in jail. And they have no awareness that they are existing to tear down Donald Trump?

By the way, 59% think Biden unlikely to finish a four-year term in the White House. This is Rasmussen. "Likely Democrat nominee Joe Biden expected to announce his vice presidential running mate any day now. Only 45% of all voters say that Biden's choice is important to their vote. Fifty-nine percent think he's unlikely to finish a four-year term." It must be all that Biden bashing going on out there.

By the way, Brian, I tell you ya, we're doing the job that you won't. It's not even a question of bashing. You people aren't even informing your audiences of the truth of Joe Biden and the baggage that he brings to this campaign.

Rush Limbaugh

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