JOY REID (GUEST HOST): Eric, you’re right that there has been a fair amount of Republican silence on specifically the Trump University case. But my pal Hugh Hewitt, conservative radio talk show host who used to be Never Trump, was on MSNBC yesterday, and he was defending, essentially, Donald Trump, not on the substance of the Trump University allegations, but just by saying, “but Hillary Clinton is worse.” And it does seem like that is the out that a lot of conservative media -- because, look, if we want to give the mainstream media the blame for Donald Trump, you also need to take a look at right-wing talk radio, which for more than 30 years has been demanding a Donald Trump candidacy.

ERIC BOEHLERT: Yeah, absolutely.

REID: Right? They’ve been saying just take the training wheels off, give us no holds barred, straight no chaser, punch Democrats between the eyes, don’t be politically correct, say what you feel -- particularly to white working class Americans. Don’t feel constrained by political correctness. You get to say the race jokes, you can say the monkey jokes. Say whatever you want because this is America and you’re free. And this whole idea of having a kind of crass, no-holds-barred campaign is what Rush Limbaugh has been pining for for 30 years. So don’t you expect conservative talk radio, even if they don’t rally to Trump’s defense, to simply throw the Hillary is worse card at their audience?



BOEHLERT: Yeah, and I do. And the Rush Limbaugh is a good point because he was thrilled after that Trump campaign.

REID: Yeah.

BOEHLERT: Right? He said, this is the campaign -- this is the, I’m sorry, the Trump press conference where he called the reporters disgusting and sleaze. And Limbaugh said this is the press conference conservatives have been waiting years for. Why won’t Republicans get up and elevate liberal media bias to one of the most important issues facing this country? Because the Republican presumptive nominees and nominees, the candidates themselves have never tried to run an anti-media crusade for the general election. That was OK for the primary.

REID: Sure.

BOEHLERT: Trump decided he was going to do it for the general election. And so your point is a good one. I mean Rush Limbaugh, this is a dream scenario. This is what a Republican campaign should look like. The problem is I don't think that’s going to generate a lot of crossover voter interest. And your second point about, well at least he's not HIllary, yeah, I think that will be the de facto landing position for people who initially indicated that Trump wasn’t for them, he wasn’t a true conservative, he might in fact be a scam artist. But the conservative media, for them to basically -- the most they can gin up with next September, October, November, during the peak of the campaign, the best they're going to come up with is well, Hillary is worse. That’s not the norm for them.

REID: That kind of driving dream, exactly, for a campaign.

BOEHLERT: That's just like punting it, and that’s not going to get Trump or any Republican across the finish line, and here’s the reason why. Hillary has a ceiling for the unfavorables, she’s been attacked for 25 years. There’s not a Republican on this planet who has an undecided opinion about Hillary Clinton. What the right-wing media needs to do is get people on board for Trump, but if all they can come up with is hey she’s worse, that’s not going to do it.

Previously:

On MSNBC's AM Joy, Eric Boehlert: The Press Drew A Line In Trump Coverage When He Went “Too Far” With Vince Foster Conspiracy

On MSNBC's All In, Eric Boehlert Notes How Right Wing Media “Created An Inferno And Trump Has Seized It”

Eric Boehlert On MSNBC: Conservatives “Have Their Villain But Don't Know Who Their Hero Is”