RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, my one little line (sigh) has once again hijacked cable news. When I jokingly suggested that we need to quarantine Governor Christie, that line has hijacked cable news. We have a montage here. And by the way, they love this storyline. They love this, because now, you see, they’re able to present me… Let me tell you why. They’re able to present me as the leader of the GOP, because they think that is a negative thing for the GOP.
They think that is very damaging to the GOP. One week before the election, I rear my head, and they think I am in an internecine battle with Governor Christie. That means there’s discord within the Republican Party. I suggested he needed to be quarantined, and they’re off to the races thinking they’ve got a real story of strife within the Republican Party.
Republicans have shut up all through this campaign. Now the Democrats are all happy. I open my mouth. Here’s the montage to get… I would dare say half of the audio sound bite roster is about this today. Here’s the first.
CAVUTO: Rush Limbaugh saying that conservatives should quarantine Christie for caving.
REPORTER: …backlash from Rush Limbaugh.
REPORTER: Rush Limbaugh criticized him for caving in to Obama.
REPORTER: Rush Limbaugh called it comparable to the so-called Obama hug he claims cost Mitt Romney the presidency!
REPORTER: Your reaction to what Rush Limbaugh said on his show?
GINGRICH: About 80% of Rush’s background is as an entertainer, and it’s a pretty funny line.
RUSH: Now, that was Newt Gingrich. You know what’s interesting about this is that all of these other people are once again back to treating me as the leader of the GOP. Yeah. Nobody’s saying I’m an entertainer except Newt! (laughing) What a reversal. Normally it is the Democrats who toss me aside as irrelevant ’cause I’m just an entertainer. But in this bite, it was our old buddy Newt. “Well, you know, 80% of Rush’s background is an entertainer; it is a pretty funny line,” quarantining Christie.
I’ve changed that, by the way. I’ll tell you who we need to quarantine. We need to quarantine Obama. We need to quarantine Biden. We need to quarantine Elizabeth Warren. And we need to quarantine Harry Reid and Pelosi. That’s who we need to quarantine, and that’s what the election is going to do. But I’m not drifting away.
This quarantine was in relation to the Ebola story. This next bite, this is CNN’s The Lead. This is last night. Who is The Lead? Who hosts that? (interruption ) No, Anderson Cooper… Is it Jacob Tapper, our buddy Jake? That’s his show? (interruption) Who? (interruption) Wolf? (interruption) Yeah, he’s still got his show. It’s called Wolf. That’s why in The Lead…
I guess it is Jacob Tapper’s show. I get ’em all confused. Anderson Cooper’s show is a number, so I know it’s not his show, and then there’s Erin Burnett Up Front. She’s Up Front, Out Front. So The Lead, I guess, it’s Jake Tapper. Anyway, on this show last night they had their senior political correspondent, Brianna Keilar, reporting about Governor Christie’s New Jersey Ebola quarantine “flip-flop” and me, and this is classic.
They make it sound like public opinion is on Christie’s side against me, and I am a guy on the radio, pure and simple, but they make it sound like public opinion’s on Christie’s side against me. Here’s the sound bite.
KEILAR: Christie’s greater challenge as he’s considering gearing up for the Republican presidential primaries is backlash from Rush Limbaugh!
RUSH ARCHIVE: One week before the election, once again New Jersey governor Chris Christie has caved and is seen as … We need to quarantine Chris Christie is what needs to happen here, folks.
KEILAR: Critics point to Christie’s calls over the weekend with HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell and top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, but he insists he did not cave. In Christie’s corner, public opinion: Almost eight-in-10 people surveyed in a recent CNN/ORC poll say the US government should quarantine US citizens returning from Ebola affected West Africa if they show symptoms.
RUSH: Okay, so what does that mean? What does that poll result actually mean? It doesn’t mean what this Drive-By infobabe attempted to tell you. They make it sound like in this bite that public opinion is on Christie’s side against me, except I don’t have anything to do with Ebola policy. It doesn’t matter what people think of me on Ebola ’cause I have no impact on policy. Zilch, zero, nada.
Public opinion is on Christie’s side versus Obama, is what this means! Chris Christie had the public on his side when he was insisting that that nurse remain quarantined in New Jersey. He has the Joint Chiefs on his side. The Joint Chiefs want a quarantine of returning military personnel. Right now you’ve got Elizabeth Warren sideswiping — well, frontally attacking — Christie while the White House hits him from the front.
Governor Christie, regardless if he appears to be caving or not, whatever he’s doing, I’m sure he thinks it’s a common-sense thing to protect the people of New Jersey because there isn’t any leadership coming out of Washington on this. That’s the bottom line, and that’s why this is a story. The reason why this is a story is that Christie and Governor Cuomo decided to take action to protect the people of their state because there wasn’t any leadership coming from Washington.
Nobody had made up their mind. Everybody was floating around trying to do the politically advantageous thing. The Regime, led by Obama, looks at everything politically first and judges/assesses what they could do to take more political or best political advantage of it. To hell with anything else. Now, the people of Maine, officials in Maine agree with the quarantine that Christie imposed on this nurse, Hickox, and that’s where the nurse is now.
The quarantine is the only common-sense thing to do here. Twenty-one days is nothing given the alternative, but we have selfishness running rampant, selfishness that is… I’ll tell you… (sigh) I don’t know how else to say it. I mean, these are a bunch of screaming liberals who are behaving in this selfish, “me, me, me” way. So this argument they’re trying to set up here with me versus Governor Christie?
Governor Christie is not at war with me and I’m not at war with him. I’ve got nothing to do with it. He does have a battle going on with the White House because they’re dispatching Elizabeth Warren and everybody’s doing what they can. If Governor Christie makes a mistake, it’s this notion of compromise, reaching across the aisle and that sort of stuff, when the other side’s not interested in that.
They’re interested in scalps. You know, this is blood sport to them. This is not about cooperation or getting along, and these moderate Republicans seem to think that the American people want that. It’s not… We’re so past that now. The American people want these people defeated. The American people want the Democrat Party gone. The American people want Obama’s power greatly reduced, is what they want.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: So somebody just asked me in an e-mail, “Is CNN trying to pretend that you, Rush, are against quarantines?” No. That’s not what CNN is doing. You know, what CNN is doing, they’re trying to create another — what was her name? O’Donnell. The candidate for the Senate, the Republican in Delaware. They’re trying to create a Christine O’Donnell or Todd Akin moment here. That’s all they’ve got.
This is why the Republicans have had this omerta out there, this code of silence. They’ve done everything they can to avoid wacko comments that the media and the Democrats can focus on and tar the whole party with. So they’ve been sitting lying in wait. They just have been hoping and praying that some Republican would say something they think is stupid, that they could run with ’cause they don’t have anything else. You know, even playing the race card doesn’t appear to be working.
The War on Women, particularly in Colorado, isn’t working.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now back to Ebola. Neil Cavuto was talking to Mitch McConnell yesterday, and he wanted to get Mitch McConnell’s take on my “feud” with Chris Christie. (laughing) See? (laughing) They’re so hoping that they can make something out of this little rat-tat-tat between me and Christie, which is not a rat-tat-tat. It was just a little line, “We need to quarantine Christie.” Anyway, here’s what McConnell said.
CAVUTO: Some conservatives in the party, even those outside the political spectrum — Rush Limbaugh, for example — criticized the New Jersey governor’s handling of this saying that maybe conservatives should quarantine him, that he’s been all over the map on this and has caved once again to the CDC and the White House. What do you say?
MCCONNELL: Well, I think these governors are doing what they think is in the best interests of their constituents, and I don’t think second-guessing that from Washington is something I want to engage in.
RUSH: If you want to second-guess ’em on the radio, go right ahead, but I’m not gonna second-guess ’em (laughing) from Washington. They so don’t want to make any waves here. They’re so close! They’re just a week away. They’re not gonna take the bait. Anyway… And there is no bait here. Nobody doubts what Chris Christie’s trying to do in this case! Hell, the governor of Maine…
Where is the story? “Maine Governor Seeks to Make Nurse Abide by Quarantine,” the same thing Christie wanted to do. Governor Paul LePage said he would try to force the nurse, Kaci Hickox, to abide by Maine’s Ebola quarantine. But she’s out there saying (summarized), “Nope, I got my ACLLU lawyers, and I will sue everybody in sight if I have to. I’m not gonna do it! I’m not gonna do it. You can’t make me.” She’s auditioning for a Simpsons episode, I think.