Rush Limbaugh blasted the "Drive-by media" on Friday for spreading an orchestrated hit-piece on Donald Trump by a "little know-nothing reporter."
The Associated Pres, BBC, Rolling Stone, the Washington Post and a host of other media outlets ran with a Nov. 19 story first reported by Yahoo News national correspondent and Business Insider senior political correspondent Hunter Walker. The reporter wanted to know if a Trump administration would favor "special identification" for American Muslims as part of a terror-monitoring program.
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We’re going to have to – we're going to have to look at a lot of things very closely,” Trump said. "We're going to have to look at the mosques. We're going to have to look very, very carefully."
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Media then took Trump's decision to ignore allusions to Nazi Germany as de facto support for tyrannical policies.
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"Everybody in the Drive-By Media is running with this because they think they've got Trump again. They're salivating out there, folks, they are hoping, they've got their fingers crossed, they've doubled down, they're putting this story everywhere: Trump sexist, Trump bigoted, Trump anti-Muslim, wants a database; wants to go to their mosques to sign 'em up; wants to have them carry around symbols on their clothes to tell everybody who they are. And he never said it," Limbaugh told his audience.
"Should there be databases that tracks Muslims in this country?" an NBC News reporter asked the businessman at an Iowa campaign stop Thursday night.
"There should be a lot of systems beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems. And today you can do it," Trump replied. He then attempted to frame the answer in terms of border security and a need to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Breitbart News said Friday that what reporters are attempting to do when they reference Nazi Germany boils down to:
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- Seed: Questions are littered with allusions to the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
- Amplify: Failure to directly repudiate fear-based suggestions is picked up by media eager to damage a candidate's reputation.
- Distort: Take a discussion on monitoring known or suspected individuals with terrorist ties and frame it as a discussion on all Muslims.
- Smear: Attack a candidate based on the distortion.
- Nazi: Produce and disseminate headlines that incorporate "Nazi" and "Trump."
"The [Yahoo News] reporter that asked Trump the question and has totally, totally twisted this purposefully to convey something that did not happen. ... I think the reporter is Hunter Walker. If that's who it is, you need to know that this guy is a major backer of Hillary Clinton, as most in the Drive-By Media are. He has written endless articles championing her," Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh then said the most powerful American with access to a database on millions of innocent Americans is Obama.
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"Once the public learns what's happened here, the anger is not gonna be at Trump. There wouldn't have been that much anger at Trump anyway among his supporters. That's what they don't understand. You people in the media have got to understand something. You're gonna have to go about this a different way. You didn't make Trump; you can't destroy him. There's nothing you can do," said Limbaugh.
"Even Ted Cruz has gotten in on this. 'Ted Cruz Disagrees with Trump on Muslim Registry.' He says, 'I'm a big fan of Donald Trump, but not a fan of big-government registries of American citizens.' Even Cruz fell for it! The Republican Party, the establishment, may not let go of this. They may think they've got him, I'm sure."
"I'm a big fan of Donald Trump's, but I'm not a fan of government registries of American citizens," the Texas senator told reporters Friday in Sioux City, Iowa, Politico reported.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told reporters he found Trump's comments "abhorrent," Fox News reported.
"This is shocking rhetoric [by Trump]," added Democrat front-runner Hillary Clinton via Twitter on Friday. "It should be denounced by all seeking to lead this country." She then linked to a New York Times article saying Trump "absolutely" would require a registry for U.S. Muslims.
Trump took to social media Friday afternoon to address the situation. Instead of a string of tweets, the Republican opted for a brevity.
"I didn't suggest a database – a reporter did. We must defeat Islamic terrorism & have surveillance, including a watch list, to protect America," Trump said.