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RUSH: Can you believe the future Speaker of the House having an affair? Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, this guy, McCarthy. You know, it’s about time this becomes a resume enhancement for us instead of something that wipes us out. Something like this happens on the left, it’s a big time resume enhancement. It proves that they’re hip. It proves that they’re pro-women. (laughing) It proves that they’re virile. It proves that they’re attractive to women and so forth. But on our side it does nothing but destroy us. I know — I know — I understand why. But this whole story, this is easy for me to say, and you are free to think that I am doing a snow job here, but I’m not. You’re free to think what you want, and you may get mad at me telling you this. Snerdley sent me a note last night as though this is the first he was hearing about this.


Are you kidding me, you had not heard about this affair until yesterday? This is years-old stuff. I mean, this is the kind of stuff rumors — I just totally stay away from it because it’s all gonna come out in the wash anyway at some point. The interesting thing about this is the Drive-By Media is acting like all of Washington’s been turned upside down. You know, the lesson to learn here is that Kevin McCarthy and Renee Ellmers, uh, did I say something that’s not known yet? (interruption) I did? (interruption) Oh, they’re denying this? (interruption) Oh, really, denials? (interruption)
Oh. Okay, well, then I guess what I’ve known about for many, many months is not true. Forget it. I’m sorry. (interruption) They’re denying it?

Well, anyway, what I was gonna say, folks, the Drive-By Media acting like this is totally shaking up — why isn’t the media acting happy? Why isn’t the media ecstatic that the Republicans are imploding this way, instead of why are they worried the Republicans are imploding? Have you figured that out? Has that hit you in that regard yet? What it should tell you is that McCarthy obviously is a Washington insider and his fall from grace as future Speaker obviously is bad news to the insiders or the establishment in Washington, both parties, and the reason for that is it is perceived that Ted Cruz and the House Conservative Caucus are behind this, these Tea Party yokels, and it is viewed as these upstart conservatives taking control of the House, and they’re outsiders.


So you see that the insider elites are bound together not by ideology, but by class. If they were bound together by ideology there wouldn’t be a Republican in the establishment in Washington, there wouldn’t be a Republican lead allowed in. But the establishment in Washington is made up of people of both parties. The people not in it are conservatives, but Republicans, moderate level Republicans, liberal Republicans, communist Republicans, and all Democrats are in the establishment. Conservative Republicans aren’t. Conservative Republicans, it is said, have claimed a scalp here, and they might also get Renee Ellmers. Sorry, should I not have mentioned that? (interruption) What are you laughing at so hard? Folks, have you ever been privy to something everybody knows or you thought everybody knew and then when it hits everybody acts like they had no idea?

That’s how I’m sitting here right now. (interruption) Am I gonna have to deny this? (interruption) I am. (interruption) Okay, we’re not on like a 10-minute delay here where we can just bleep everything that’s happened and start over? (interruption) Okay, well, then forget it. You know, I’m probably… Chalk it up to the deliriousness of the common cold virus. The ravages of the cold virus have rendered my equilibrium out of whack, and I have not known what I’m talking about here for the first 10 minutes. And I apologize. I really…

This is what happens. This what happens when you show up and you shouldn’t show up. It’s what happens when the guardrails are down. (interruption) Well, what I know is that Newt offered himself as speaker, and that they want Paul Ryan to be the replacement now for McCarthy, and that there are — ah, you know — people on both sides of that. Ryan is perceived as somebody who has slowly evolved to a “progressive insider” establishment kind of Republican, the Romney VP candidate.

Romney has… I mean, I saw his name. Did he offer himself up or did somebody suggest Romney to be…? (interruption) No, no, I’m not making this up. Don’t tell me I’m making this up! Don’t tell me I didn’t see that. I saw Romney’s name tossed in. I read something that either Romney had offered or somebody had suggested. So you got Newt. Why doesn’t somebody call Bob Livingston and see if he’s interested? You know, he was denied the first time. Maybe he wants to give it another go. Grab audio sound bite number three.

Friday, if I ask for number three, are you gonna play three? (interruption) No? Okay. ‘Cause the show open had us in LA so I’m just checking, Friday. This is yesterday on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, and the guest is Robert Costa who is with the Washington Post. He’s a national political reporter now, Bob Costa — Robert Costa. Not related to Bob Costas. Robert Costa used to be at National Review and National Review Online, which meant that he was conservative. Just information. Now, the Q&A with the viewers. We have a sound bite here. A guy from Wisconsin named Paul called.

He said, “I don’t think McCarthy will ever be speaker. He’s too honest. He told the truth about the Benghazi committee witch hunt, and not only that, he’s talking about repealing Obamacare. When are they gonna get over that one?”


COSTA: The problem for many House Republicans is they would like to see a lot of other people stand up to be competitors to McCarthy, but no one had the will to run. McCarthy’s there as the de facto next speaker because he’s willing to do it and he’s willing to have the kind of exchanges, listening members of the House, people who — who listen to Rush Limbaugh. And I mean this respectfully of all conservative talk radio. By listening to those voices, it creates a new kind of dynamic in House Republican politics. Because there are, as I said, those expectations of a push for aggression even if it’s not possible.

RUSH: So Robert Costa there says — if you’re able to translate that — there aren’t a whole lot of House Republicans who want to be speaker because of having to deal with me. And what did he say? The demand that I would make (and my talk radio brethren and sisteren) for aggression, or aggressiveness — or just simply defending the cause, standing up for it — they don’t want that. And you know, Boehner mentioned me. Would we have that sound bite, Friday? I thought we might.

Boehner got mad at me once. Boehner was talking about when he came to the House there was only CNN and there was only this one talk show or some… Pardon the sniffles here, folks. I thought we had the Boehner bite here when I went through the roster. Apparently not. But anyway, that’s Robert Costa. And, you know, there’s probably more truth to this than not, even though it was on C-SPAN and nobody heard it. There probably is — the Republican caucus — some trepidation over having to deal with…

You know, “talk radio,” it’s a euphemism. “Talk radio” means the base of the party. “Talk radio” means the grassroots. “Talk radio” means Tea Party, what have you. It means the people out there who make this country work. It means the people outside Washington. “Talk radio” has just become a code phrase to use either signifying me or in larger measure the into a Republican grassroots base. New York Magazine. See, I knew I was not off the… “How the Media Is Handling Kevin McCarthy’s Rumored Affair.” It’s by Margaret Hartmann.

“Gingrich Open to Return.” New Republic: The Republican House today was more melodramatic than high school.” That’s for sure. It does look… You know, that’s a good analogy. It does look like it’s high school, like musical chairs or prom night or something, weird stuff. And Frank Luntz is out there saying this story of a rumor is crap. There’s nothing to it. There never has been anything to it. It’s all just total, 100% BS. So there’s that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So, Snerdley, I just got… I got an e-mail that said that opening was very weird — very, very weird. It was great to have me back and all that; my voice is a welcome. It was a “very weird.” What was weird about it other than it’s from LA? What was weird about the open? (interruption) No, you have to help me because not I’m only 75% here today. Really, folks, I’m struggling to stay focused. So what’s weird? What was weird about the open? The shift from… (interruption) You mean the confirmation, the confirmation?

All right, well, look, here the UK Daily Mail has a story here: “Did Rumors of Love Affair Between Kevin McCarthy and a Married Congresswoman Torpedo His Elevation to Speaker?” Look, did he even have a path to getting the votes? Everybody’s acting like it’s automatic that he was gonna get it. But, anyway, let me say: The story here in the UK Daily Mail acknowledges the strong rumors and that they’ve been around for years, but that the female participant vigorously denies them.

Well, don’t they all?

Isn’t that the rule of thumb?

You deny, deny, deny, deny. Isn’t that right, Wendy? You just deny, deny, deny, deny. No matter what kind of evidence there is, you just deny. No matter what, you deny it. Here’s the Boehner sound bite that I was looking for. This is August 3rd, 2015. It was on The Golf Channel, David Feherty’s show. And remember, this is after playing Robert Costa on C-SPAN essentially saying that the Republican potentials for speaker of the House, few of them want it because of me. And here’s Boehner. This is August 3rd of this year, and he’s explaining to Feherty. Feherty says, “Is there less bipartisanship today than there used to be?”

BOEHNER: Twenty years ago when, uh, we won the first Republican majority in 40 years, there was one radio talk show host that nobody’d ever heard of. Uh, there was one cable news channel that just did news. And you look at today, you’ve got hundreds of radio talk show hosts all trying to outdo themselves, right — going further right and further right and further right. Uh, you’ve got all these cable news channels, and all they do are politics, and it’s tending to either push or pull people into one of two camps.


RUSH: You know what that sounds like? This sounds like… Remember, it was — I don’t know — 1993, ’94, and there was a TIME Magazine cover: “Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?” Was there too much democracy, they asked. Were there too many informed people? Were too many people more informed than they’d ever been, for their own good? It was a serious story. And Boehner’s basically saying the same thing: “Twenty years ago when we came into the House, you had one cable news channel,” CNN. You had a brand-new…

He was talking about me, the new talk radio show “nobody had ever heard of,” which was true. When I launched, nobody’d ever heard of me. And, he said, now look what’s happened. And he thinks all of this has pushed everything right or made it all “political,” and he’s got his timeline all wrong. The people that changed are the people that won the House in 1994. Had they stayed conservative and had they remained true… Hell, you know, even that Republican freshman class was forced out. They got rid of a lot of those people inside of six or eight years, too.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Grab sound bite number five. Here’s Charlie Rose. This is this morning on CBS. And he’s having a chat with John Dickerson of Face the Nation talking about this race in the House for speakership.


ROSE: Can anybody control these people that represent the Freedom Caucus? Can anybody in the Republican Party —

DICKERSON: For right now, it doesn’t look like anybody can.

ROSE: — cause unless they get their way, they’re willing to take the House down?

DICKERSON: Well, yeah, because they think the House has been selling out Republicans and conservatives for the last many years, and it’s finally their chance to stop that.

RUSH: You know, Charlie Rose here… This is the voice of establishment thinking here, by the way, “Can anybody control these out of control conservatives? These freedom people? Can anybody control ’em? I mean, for crying out loud, they’re willing to take the House down.” It’s what happens. See, when the establishment is taking it on the chin, that means the government is under assault and attack, and it’s falling, or is about to fall. Dickerson had it more right than wrong in his answer.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: John in Raleigh, North Carolina. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. How you doing? It’s a real privilege to talk to you. Hey, thanks a lot for the Rush Revere books. Just want to let you know how much my kids enjoy reading them.

RUSH: Thank you. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that.

CALLER: No problem. I’ll to the point. No problem. Hey, I’m in the second district here in North Carolina that Renee Ellmers represents. It’s strange coincidence that she seems to be, all of a sudden, getting tangled up here with McCarthy and all the allegations that seem to be coming out about some kind of illicit affair. All of which we have no idea of knowing whether that’s true or not. The bottom line is, she’s not a conservative. She doesn’t support conservative values here in this district and, quite frankly, she never has.

RUSH: Wait. Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold it just a second, now. Correct me if I’m wrong. Didn’t Renee Ellmers seek office on the premise that she was a conservative and was gonna stop Obamacare and was gonna implement all these conservative ideas?

CALLER: No, you’re absolutely right, and again, it’s the typical bait-and-switch that we see with a lot of these professional lies, political class.

RUSH: Okay, she campaigned as a conservative but she never has been, as you say?

CALLER: No, and just look to the voting record. It’s quite frank.

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: You know, you can look at Conservative Review; they rank her very lowly, and justifiably so. And, you know, she doesn’t really do a great job supporting the military community here, either.

RUSH: But you still hope the rumors are not true?

CALLER: No, of course not. Nobody wants to see that because to the second point, a couple years ago when she came out here to Fort Bragg because of our senior leaders like she does pretty regularly, some of them were severely reprimanded for some inappropriate e-mail comments. It was locker room humor, and it was in bad taste. But, you know, these guys are held to a higher standard, and their careers were ruined over things like this, allegations like this. So it’s just… you know, the political hypocrisy, again, is beyond belief, and it’s in our own House.


RUSH: Yeah, ’cause this kind of stuff on the Democrat side’s a resume enhancement.

CALLER: Yeah, absolutely. But again, we need to do a better job at the local level vetting these people and making sure we get conservatives.

RUSH: Wait a minute. That’s a good point. How you supposed to…? When somebody comes to you and convinces you that they are conservative and that they’re gonna stop Obama whenever they can — they’re gonna go represent the views and the values of the district — what are you supposed to base the fact that they’re lying to you on?

CALLER: Well, you gotta look at the established record. I mean, none of these people just show up and run for office. They all start at some local level. And so that’s a great point, too. You know, we have to get involved at the local level. You’re talking city council, county commissioner, school board.

RUSH: Yeah, but let me focus the question even more: Why was Renee Ellmers believed? You said people need to do a better job vetting. I assume you’re talking about the voters. What did they miss? Was it there to spot that she wasn’t what she said she was?

CALLER: Yes. So when you look her background, when you look at what she was doing in the whole private sector, she’s got a nursing background, and she’s very involved in the medical industry here in the county.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And, you know, you could tell by the causes that she supported that she wasn’t going to advance any of these agendas that were very important to us. And you really gotta dig deep, and you gotta look, and you gotta read local news reports, local articles. I mean, this stuff is out there; you just gotta look.

RUSH: Okay. All right. You claim was there to know, and so this is on the voters then, the voters screwed up. They should have known that she was lying. I can see that point of view. I mean, a lot of people do think voters are stupid, that the American people in general are stupid. Gullibility and stupid are two different things. Believing what you want to believe. Look, I don’t know how she sold it, but apparently it was enough to get elected a number of times. On this business of the affair. No, not on this business of the affair. There really… You know, until this is what it is or what it isn’t, we’ve done enough.

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