RUSH: Now, yesterday the New York Times runs this exhaustive piece claiming they went back through five years of show transcripts (probably aiming for a Pulitzer Prize), claiming that the verbiage uttered by the El Paso shooter is very similar to that which you hear on conservative media, naming me with some other people. By the way, James Taranto is the op-ed page editor of the Wall Street Journal, and he asked me last night if I'd like to write an op-ed reacting to it, because, you know, this all started blaming me for this stuff back in 1995 with Bill Clinton blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing.

I thanked him for the opportunity. I just don't have time, really. I'm so swamped right now with things; I just don't have time to do it well. Writing does not come naturally to me. I have to sit down. You know, I correct my mistakes as I go, and my train of thought gets interrupted, and I just don't have time to do it. I thought about sending back, "I don't need an op-ed. I could do it in four words: "The NY Times sucks." But, I said, "I doubt that they'll publish this." Anyway, my point is, here these people at the New York Times don't listen to this program.

Nobody there listens to this program. Nobody anywhere in the Drive-By Media listens to this program. Yet look at what they say about it and what they say about me. This guy at the New York Times who sounds like a Pajama Boy goes back and says (impression), "Yes, we examined five years of transcripts of the Rush Limbaugh Show and Fox News and so forth and we were stunned by the similarity in rhetoric from the manifesto from El Paso and conservative media." They don't listen! They go back and search transcripts and they take things out of context. But it's because they've already got the story written.

They have been trying to blame this program. Remember Brian Ross when there was a movie shooting in Colorado? Brian Ross, the first thing he did after the identity of the shooter was learned was go look at the membership roster for various Tea Party organizations in Colorado to see if the shooter may have been a member -- and, lo and behold, there was a name on a Tea Party membership roster on the website that was the same as the shooter's name. So Brian Ross goes on ABC with breaking news, "It could well be! We're tracking it down!

"It could well be the shooter is a member of the right-wing Tea Party organization." So whenever one of these happens, the first thing these people think of is, "How can we link this to our political opponents? How can we politicize this?" So then they start out on their efforts to do so, and the purpose of this is to prevent us from having significant audience growth. They are trying to poison the minds of people that don't listen so that they never will. They're trying to do all other kinds of damage. But the point is, they don't listen!

So then this Fredo thing happens last night and they're all scratching their heads. "What is this? Where did this come from?" They haven't the slightest idea. It's literally hilarious to read the tweets and the comments in the tweets and the retweets and all these people asking, "Where did this come from? How did this get started?" These are the Drive-By Media! And yet I want you to listen to audio sound bite number 10 here. This is a montage of Drive-By Media types in Washington who want to do something -- (impression) "Weve gotta do something about gun control! -- "but they're worried that a guy on the radio can stop it and shut it down.

A.B. STODDARD: The NRA, they still have the ability, with the help of Rush Limbaugh, to tell their members that even a low-grade -- not universal, not strong -- background check is the beginning of a slippery slope; it's a giant gun grab. You have Rush Limbaugh go on the air and say, "Don't fall for this trap!"

ROBERT COSTA: Listen to Rush Limbaugh's show on Friday. He spent hours telling this White House behind the scenes, "Don't move an inch. We're not gonna give anything!"

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Is he more afraid of the NRA and Rush Limbaugh, or the majority of the American people?

ADRIENNE ELROD: Rush Limbaugh and his base.

RUSH: I don't think these people listen. They went back and checked the website or a transcript or some such thing and took it out of context. But it doesn't matter. Somebody they don't listen to, somebody that they don't even take the time to dig into, somebody that they just basically try to caricature, now comes along... They don't have any idea who's responsible for this Fredo business. But now all of a sudden, I'm the guy that's gonna shut down gun control. I'm the guy! I'm the guy who's gonna make sure Trump doesn't do it.

I'm the guy that's gonna make sure the NRA doesn't let Trump do it. I'm the guy that's gonna make sure that Lindsey Graham doesn't talk Trump into doing it. And they don't even listen! My point here is that I have just become for these people a very convenient... What is the word I'm looking for? I'm the villain. I'm the demon they can pop up and just say, "Rush Limbaugh," and that's supposed to trigger their audience into thinking it's horrible. Now, I'll tell you this about this whole gun control business. I was talking to some people last night about this.

This overwhelming urge to do something. "We've gotta do something!" There isn't anything legislation can do that's going to prevent these shootings from happening. We can go through the list of things that is at the root of this, and there are many of them leading to our cultural divide. Look, folks, I've got a story in the Stack... In fact, rather than paraphrase it, let me find this because I'm gonna add this to the list of things that are happening in our cultural breakdown. Laurence Tribe tweeting about abortion is one of the most incredible things.

(paraphrased) "Abortion is a tool of white supremacists to maintain a white majority." That's the purpose? Abortion is...? We are opposed to abortion! Forty percent of abortions are of African-American babies! We're opposed to it! Laurence Tribe, Harvard Law professor, is out claiming we're pushing this because we want to maintain an advantage? My God, this guy's teaching law at Harvard or has. "Drag Queen Teaches Toddlers How to 'Twerk' at Library Story Time -- In case you were under the impression that Drag Queen Story Hour was some sweet event where guys in dresses read cute stories to little children and then everyone goes home, think again.

"Videos keep surfacing of drag queens doing stripteases, rolling around on the floor with children, and now... twerking. Oh yes, twerking. In case you don't know what twerking is, there's an entire genre on YouTube that will enlighten you (or sully your soul with degeneracy, to be more accurate). Twerking," if you don’t know, "is the simulation of sex in dance form." This is being taught to 4- and 5-year-olds in the library. Libraries are welcoming in drag queens and transgenders to inculcate little kids with this aspect of our culture.

Now, you wonder why people end up screwed up and messed up? There isn't any amount of gun legislation that is going to correct for implanted cultural errors like this! Then you add other things to it with no father figure at home, no male figure in some kid's life that he can admire because men are now predators and brutes and barbarians -- and have been, according to the feminazis, for a while. But my overall point about this is that an issue like this, you don't give the Democrats anything. You don't give them a thing for any reason whatsoever.

You cannot buy their good fortunes. You cannot buy their good intentions. You cannot buy their love. You cannot buy their acceptance. You can't buy anything. You can't buy the media loving you. You can't purchase the media leaving you alone if you're a conservative. If anybody calls me and asks me my advice on this, I say, "Don't give the Democrats anything! Do not give an inch." They're on the verge of imploding in this campaign. Their own voters in Iowa are telling people like Kamala Harris, "This Medicare plan of yours is crazy!

"Don't mess with our health care system. I like it. How are you gonna pay for this?" She doesn't have an answer. Bernie Sanders now is accusing the Washington Post of being involved in a conspiracy to destroy him. The Washington Post is responding that Crazy Bernie's crazy. There are numerous stories in the stacks today about the increasing number of gaffes that Biden is making, and it's bad for the party because the field is so big still that there's no way to punish Biden for this.

There's no way anybody can gain any ground on Biden, so his gaffes are not hurting him at this point, which is not good. Biden needs to be dispatched and sent away. Biden can't beat Trump. There is no way under the sun Biden can beat Trump, and if they're not able to beat Biden in the primaries, they're finished, they're sunk -- and they will a know it. So I would not give them anything, because there's nothing the Democrats want that is going to be good for us. There's nothing the left wants when it comes to guns that's gonna be good for us.

Even this red flag business. Do you realize Trump tweeted that Fredo Cuomo would now...? If red flags were in place, that Fredo could now be potentially denied the purchase of a gun because of that out-of-control rant. But, folks, all the Democrats want is one opening. If you give them the opportunity by virtue of a new law to take away somebody's gun, then that's just the beginning. That's all they want. Give 'em a red flag law where they can go identify some nutcase and take his gun away from him and they are gonna be throwing a party that night.

Because they know that next year, they can ask for more people's guns to be given up and then after that more people's guns -- and before long, they're gonna have every gun from every law-abiding citizen taken away from 'em. That's what they want. Do not give the Democrats a thing on this. There's nothing to be gained by giving the Democrats a thing on anything to do with gun control or guns, period, because of what we know their ultimate objective is. Their ultimate objective is to erase the Second Amendment, and there's no compromise with that.

None.

Zip, zero, nada.