Wednesday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh credit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump with hijacking the Democratic National Convention’s biggest night thus far by holding a press conference earlier in the day in which he took questions from reporters for an hour straight.
According to Limbaugh, the conference, which included remarks about his opponent Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s 30,000 missing emails from her server while serving as secretary of state, Trump remarks overshadowed the previous night’s keynote speaker former President Bill Clinton, who touted his wife as being the best candidate for the presidency.
Partial transcript as follows:
I really don’t believe that I have ever seen what I just saw. I’ve been thinking. I’ve been trying to dig deep into the dark crevices of my memory, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen what I just saw. Donald Trump just hijacked the Democrat convention after the biggest night of that convention so far. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, just concluded, right in time for this program to begin. (They got the memo.)
He just concluded a freewheeling, no-holds-barred, no-controls-on-the-media, “Whatever you want to ask me, ask me,” press conference the day after the supposedly biggest event yet in the Democrat National Convention. He just totally hijacked it, and he was brilliant. He was on his game. This was the Trump from last fall. He was confident, he was hilarious, he was taking no BS from anyone in the media. He was challenging Hillary to do the same thing and calling her out, saying she hasn’t done a press conference in over a year.
And she can’t do what Trump did today. Hillary Clinton intellectually, personality-wise, is not capable. She’s not capable of doing what Donald Trump did today. I have never seen a Republican presidential nominee even get involved in the Democrat convention. My experience is that the playbook in the professional, insider world of politics is that when one party is having its convention, the other party goes silent.
They don’t run any ads, they don’t do any press conferences, they don’t do any appearances — or very few. It’s a courtesy. It’s a courtesy and tradition, I guess, that’s been extended. There have been violations, of course, here and there over the years. But, for the most part, it is a time-honored tradition that has been honored. Now, during the Republican convention, yeah, the Democrats have daily reaction to it; that always happens.
But what Trump did today, I have never seen in my lifetime: A Republican presidential nominee go out and do a 10-minute, 30-minute, much less one-hour press conference and just refuting everything he’s heard at the Democrat convention to date. He just blew it up. And, in addition to that, he answered questions about this email business and the hack and the Russians and so forth.
It just has the media outraged. They can’t believe that Trump said some of the things that he said when he was commenting before he took questions on the speech by Bill Clinton last night — which we’re gonna get into, of course. Hang in there. Trump said — and this is classic. This is a classic demonstration that he has a performer’s ego and understands how to deploy it. He said, “I kept waiting.
“There was a chapter in that story I recall and I wanted to hear about it. I kept waiting for it and waiting for it; I never heard that chapter.” He was waiting for the media to ask, “What chapter, Mr. Trump? What chapter?” And he wasn’t gonna answer the question ever. That was the point. But he teased ’em. He titillated ’em. “I kept waiting to hear the one chapter. The speech was actually kind of boring,” Trump said of Clinton’s speech. “It was actually kind of boring.
“I was waiting for the one chapter that could have jazzed it up, but I didn’t hear that chapter.” Well, everybody knows what he’s referring to. The thing… And there were a couple of them today. We are working on rolling off the audio right now, so I’m just giving you snippets from my extensive memory, and I’m paraphrasing things that Trump said. But this one, this one… I mean, the media everywhere on both sides of the aisle is just about to have a cow over this one.
“Mr. Trump! Mr. Trump! Do you have a relationship with the Russians? Do you have any relationship to the hack? Are you…? Are you…? Are you having any relationship with Russians?” Trump said, “I don’t have any investments in Russia. I sold a guy a house. I sold a Russian oligarch a house in Palm Beach. I bought the place for $40 million and I flipped it for $100 million. It was a great deal, but I don’t have any investments.” But then he said, “I really hope the Russians can find Hillary’s emails.”
And you should have seen the explosion in the aftermath on cable networks of the roundtable discussions, particularly on CNN. They could barely keep everybody on camera. They were jumping out of their seats like they were jacks-in-the-box. “I can’t believe what he just said! He just said that he hopes the Russians intercede in the presidential election! That’s unbelievable! I can’t believe what I just saw!” One Clintonista, one Clintonista…
One girl that was supporting Clinton just went absolutely bonkers over that. They don’t know how to deal with this. They’ve never… The Democrats and the media, they’ve never had to deal with anything like this. And I have to tell you something, folks. When I got here — all night last night and when I’m working on prepping the show this morning — I am under the impression that the first thing I’m gonna talking about is Bill Clinton’s speech last night.
I’m saying to myself, “What is there besides that? There isn’t anything else. That’s the news. That’s the story.” And I know (because I know you) that you’re dying to hear my take on that speech, and you will hear it in due course.
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