Rush Limbaugh likens coronavirus to a hurricane: “Exaggerated and built-up, lied about before anybody knows its true strength and nature”
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From the March 10, 2020, edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show
RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): You know, watching the coverage of this and the ongoing effort to create a panic -- and let’s make no mistake here that that’s exactly what is happening here -- I finally came up with what I think is a good analogy. The coronavirus is like a hurricane several days away from making landfall.
Take your pick of any hurricane out there in recent memory -- if you want to use Katrina, any hurricane -- and then remember how the media covers it. “It’s going to devastate wherever it’s headed. It’s gonna just obliterate! It’s a Cat-5. It’s going to mean total destruction.” No one knows the strength when it hits, despite their predictions. No one knows where it’s gonna hit. No one knows when.
Our forecasts have gotten better, but it’s still a gigantic crapshoot, particularly the farther out at sea the hurricane is. But the media knows that it’s gonna deliver clicks, it’s gonna deliver hits, it’s gonna deliver massive headlines, it’s gonna create massive attention by the public. It will deliver eyeballs, and they know they can blame Trump, right up until the moment they can’t.
They know and they salivate over the chance to blame Trump. You’ve got an oncoming hurricane here. The outer bands have begun to strike the continental United States. The evidence is there! They’ve got the reporters out on the beaches out on the Outer Banks, for example, of North Carolina, and they’re showing us the waves are about six inches higher than usual.
“See, it’s coming! It’s coming! There may be a flood here, a flood there. The initial reports of damage are coming in, and it all means it’s gonna be a grand disaster.”
The drive-bys are all collected out on the beach. Their cameras are pointed westward, eastward, wherever it takes to get this hurricane, any indication of it whatsoever.
The same thing was true of the impeachment hearings -- same exact thing was true of the impeachment hearings. All we had was hearsay evidence. We had endless speculation.
The same thing was true with the Russia-Trump collusion story. There was never any evidence, there was never a shred of evidence, and yet look at what we were told was coming. The walls were closing in on Donald Trump! We had these endless anonymous sources from the intelligence community who were telling us that it was only a matter of time before the evidence would be forthcoming.
Hearsay evidence before the impeachment hearings, endless speculation, same thing with the Mueller report.
The coronavirus is one of those moments for the drive-by media, and just as a hurricane is an opportunity to blame people who don’t believe in climate change -- man-made climate change. Just as a hurricane is exaggerated and built-up, lied about before anybody knows its true strength and nature in order to advance a political agenda -- i.e., climate change -- coronavirus is being used to advance the agenda that Donald Trump:
A. Doesn’t care about you, he only cares about himself;
B. Donald Trump is incompetent;
C. Donald Trump’s not taking it seriously enough;
D. You might die, it’s all going to be Donald Trump’s fault;
E. It’s an opening for the Democrats!
It’s an opportunity for the Democrats, just like impeachment was an opportunity for the Democrats, the Mueller hearing's an opportunity for the Democrats, and a gigantic hurricane is an opportunity for the Democrats and the climate change crowd. So the coronavirus is one of these moments.
This is the pattern. This is what drive-by media is. This is the utter definition, you’re looking at it here. The problem for them is they have been wrong every time during the Trump administration. They have been wrong about every dire prediction they have made, and they have made these predictions with ontological certitude.
They’ve made these predictions with anonymous sources guaranteeing the “walls were closing in on Donald Trump,” guaranteeing the evidence was forthcoming that Trump colluded with Russia, guaranteeing the evidence was imminently forthcoming that Donald Trump did indeed cheat -- might even be a Russian agent! It never stopped. Even when the evidence never came in, the evidence was never forthcoming.
Even when the evidence was invisible, they continued to tell us that it was going to be the exact opposite of what it’s turned out to be every time. It’s always Trump’s fault before the facts are known. And when the facts are finally known and when the media is proven to be dramatically wrong again, they are never held to account. They are never to blame for whatever mess they have made, for whatever drive-by confusion they have made created.
Even hurricanes are attributed to Trump via the fact that he doesn’t believe in man-made climate change. Before there’s even a dollar’s worth of destruction, it’s all Trump’s fault. And then when their predictions of doom fail spectacularly, it’s off to the next hoped-for incident that will definitely take down Trump.
When the impeachment bombed out, remember what I said? “Folks, there’s 10 months to go. There’s going to be something else. There’s going to be something else. There’s going to be many something elses between now and the election that are going to get the same treatment.” And voila! Here we are: coronavirus.
“Mr. Limbaugh, are you saying the coronavirus is not -- ?” No, I’m not. Don’t attribute things to me that I’m not saying. I’m saying exactly what I mean to say, and I love hearing myself say what I say because I’m right. I love being right. You would be, too, if you knew what it was like. I’m not saying things I’m not saying.
Like I’ve got a sound bite coming up from Russel Honore. Remember him? Hurricane Katrina, military guy. He got so fed up with the media, so fed up with the way Katrina and the whole thing was being covered, and he’s on a roll again today. He’s lashing out at Wall Street. “Why the hell do they get to panic? Why the hell doesn’t Wall Street grow up? Why the hell doesn’t Wall Street act like a bunch of adults instead of acting like a bunch of spoiled-rotten kids? At every bit of bad news, Wall Street has to go panic, full-fledged panic?” He’s exactly right. By the way, speaking of that, the Dow Jones Industrial Average today right now is up 360 points. We opened today plus eight. Do you know what happened overnight?
By the way, by the way, how many of you got up today and started listening or paying attention to news and you heard today what I told you in the first hour of yesterday’s program? This is about Russia, it’s about oil, it’s about Saudi Arabia. Do you know what Trump did overnight? He called Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
I don’t know what Trump talked about with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. All I know is that the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures market predicted an opening of 800 to a thousand on the plus side, and that’s exactly where it opened. It’s now at 311. It’s been down as low as plus 25. It’s fluctuating, but it’s been in positive territory all day today.