RUSH: Do you know what it was that got all of this started? It was a simple e-mail. A top Christie aide, one of his employees, one of his advisors, sent an e-mail, and the e-mail said: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” And the response was, “Got it.” That’s what started this. Now, what does that sound like to you?

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So an aide to Governor Christie fires off an e-mail, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Response: “Got it.” Not, “Traffic problems in Fort Lee? What are you talking about? What do you mean?” Not, “What do you mean, time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee? Who’s having problems?” Not, “Traffic problems in Fort Lee? What do you want me to do about it?” Not, “What’s going on? Why do you want me to mess with traffic in Fort Lee?”

The message was: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee,” and the response, “Got it.”

That’s all it took. What does that tell you? It tells you that there’s, I don’t know, for lack of a better word, a culture, a level of understanding. Somebody sends out an e-mail that works for Governor Christie: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” “Okay, got it,” and they know immediately to start shutting down some on-ramp lanes to the George Washington Bridge. (laughing)

Yeah, you mean like we did last time? You mean like we did in Parsippany, that time? Do you mean like we did down in Philadelphia when they fired Andy Reid? What are you talking about? The guy knew exactly what he was talking about when he was told: “Time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

Anyway, a couple of heads have rolled, and you don’t see this. And one of the heads that rolled was a woman, and you really don’t see that. I’m told here that Christie’s being praised for his performance here, but at CNN they’re a little worried that Christie did not admit to whether he has a private e-mail account or not, whether that matters. Two people gone, one is his two-time campaign manager, who was aware of the — this is the New York Post. You gotta love the way this is written.

“Christie also forced his two-time campaign manager Bill Stepien — who was aware of the vengeful scheme and later played a role in the damage control effort — to take his name out of the running to lead New JerseyÂ’s Republican party.” This guy was thrown overboard, I mean, lickety-split, and then Christie denied that he was that close with the guy. This guy was in line to run the New Jersey Republican Party. Instead he’s gone.

The other, the deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, 41, “sent an email to longtime Christie crony and then-Port Authority official David Wildstein that read ‘Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee’ — was sent packing.” She’s the one that sent the email. The deputy chief of staff sent the e-mail that said, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s do F. Chuck Todd on the Today show today, Matt Lauer speaking with F. Chuck Todd, says, “He has released a statement now,” Christie has. “He hasn’t sat down for an interview. What does he have to do to try to get his arms around this or get control of this story?”

TODD: He’s violating the basic rules of crisis management, right? He spoke earlier without knowing all the facts, without making sure he wasn’t gonna say something that was gonna bite him back —

LAUER: Right.

TODD: — which clearly that did happen, but at this point he’s gotta get out in front of it. He’s gotta own this and somebody’s gotta get fired. Obviously he says he doesn’t know this was unsanctioned behavior. How is it that this person hasn’t been fired yet?

RUSH: Well, they have been fired. Two have been fired. F. Chuck Todd should be happy. Now, here’s a — I don’t know — rhetorical question. (interruption) “Why isn’t Sebelius fired?” It’s a different standard, Snerdley. You know this. I made this point in the first hour. You have equivalent scandals — in fact, you’ve got a much smaller scandal with this bridge thing than the IRS or than Obamacare or the website — and these media people never once suggested Obama needs to fire anybody. They make the case for keeping them on and defending them.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: It’s interesting. Since the Chris Christie press conference ended about a half hour ago, CNN has not talked about anything else. They’ve had their cameras down in Trenton where some Christie aide’s taking the Fifth Amendment already during the scandal, but they have not left the story. CNN has not left it. They haven’t talked about one other thing. Fox right now is doing a story on how the Department of Justice… Have you heard about this? They have appointed an Obama donor to investigate the IRS scandal. An official Obama donor — a lawyer who has donated, contributed to Obama — has been chosen to investigate the IRS and that Tea Party scandal.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now you got the New York Times saying (paraphrasing), “We’re not moved by this. He may have apologized, but that doesn’t mean that this bridge scandal is over.” They think this could still be the end of his career. CNN’s not letting go. CNN just said this is only the beginning. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. Here’s Christie. We’ve got two of them. Listen carefully. Both of these are from today, the press conference. Here’s the first one. Listen carefully.

CHRISTIE: Believe me, John, I haven’t had a lot of sleep the last two nights, and I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching. I’m sick over this.

RUSH: I haven’t had a lot of sleep the last two nights. A lot of soul-searching, sick over this, haven’t had a lot of sleep the last two nights. Here’s the next bite.

CHRISTIE: I was done with my workout yesterday morning, and got a call from my communications director at about 8:50, 8:55 informing me of this story that had just broken on the Bergen Record website, that was the first time I knew about this. It’s the first time I had seen any of the documents that were revealed yesterday.

RUSH: Look, I gotta ask, then why didn’t he sleep the first night? He said, “I haven’t had a lot of sleep the last two nights, lot of soul-searching. But I just found out about this yesterday after my workout.” As an aside, I saw some snickering on CNN when he mentioned his workout. I just want you to know, I saw some snickering on CNN when Christie mentioned his workout. I wasn’t snickering, but I saw some on CNN.

Here is Bill Pascrell. Bill Pascrell is a Democrat congressman, member of Congress. He’s talking to Wolf Blitzer, who said, “A pretty shocking development if you think about it here. This individual is now pleading the fifth down there in Trenton over this.”

PASCRELL: The fact of the matter is, this is the onion, this is the onion, Wolf, that’s unfolding leaf by leaf at a time, and I can assure you, I can assure you from what I’ve known, from what I’ve studied, that this is only the beginning of what’s going to be a long investigation into behavior that is reprehensible. I understand that the US attorney’s gonna be looking into this as well. We don’t need a plethora of investigations. What we need is the truth to come out, though, for everybody.

RUSH: Plethora? It’s plethora. But that’s a Democrat. This is just the beginning. They’re just starting to peel the onion. This investigation is gonna go on and on and on.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I actually expected this Christie thing to maybe, at most, take up the first hour of the program. At most. But, folks, the media (with the exception of Fox, which is probably be safe to say is in the Christie camp), is salivating now at the prospect that Christie’s career is over. I’ve got sound bites from yesterday and last night and this morning where the media’s talking about this possibility.

Now, the conventional wisdom is that Christie just handed the media a knuckle sandwich today. Even old Snerdley said, “Yeah, Rush, he just made mincemeat of the media.” You wouldn’t know it by watching the aftermath. The aftermath is, “I don’t know if Christie can save his career now.” That’s Wolf Blitzer; that’s the New York Times; that’s all these people at CNN. There’s no question they’re doing the bidding for Hillary. There’s no question. Janet from Shiloh, Illinois, nailed it.

I mean, everybody, the Democrats are assuming Hillary’s gonna be the nominee — and a lot of Democrats assume that Christie’s gonna be the Republican nominee. So this circumstance has come along, and it’s an opportunity now to take Christie out. I don’t know if Christie’s surprised or not. I mean, I would think anybody who’s out there talking about, “Well, I can across the aisle, and I can work with Democrats, and we can show that politics can work and government can work and we can work together!”

I think a guy that gets caught up and believes it, and probably he’s surprised that the media would try to go after him. Well, let’s face, so many of our Northeastern RINO Republicans think that that’s the magic ticket. How many elections have we lost with this strategy? We had McCain; we had Dole; even, to a certain extent, Romney. Every one of these Republican candidates has tried to say in their own way that they’re gonna work with the Democrats.

“We’re gonna be bipartisan and we’re gonna cooperate, and we know how to cooperate and get them to cooperate,” and where’s it gotten ’em? Yet the Republican establishment keeps nominating these people and keeps supporting these people. Christie, what do you think? There’s a bunch of different strategerists. If you look at Christie’s boardwalk stroll with Obama, now, what was that? Let’s ask ourselves. Let’s put things in context again here. Let’s go to the Republican National Convention.

Prior for the convention, it was thought by many that Romney would choose Christie to be veep. Not by everybody, but there were a lot of policy makers, kingmakers that thought that would happen. It didn’t. Pop quiz. Does anybody…? Snerdley, quick. Don’t think about it. Who was the vice president with Romney? Who was the pick? (interruption) Okay, you got it. Paul Ryan. How many people do you think could not have answered that immediately?

It just doesn’t mean anything. But the point is it wasn’t Christie. So here comes the keynote speech. Look, we’ve been through this but just want to relive it. The keynote is supposed to be the fire and brimstone. The keynote, folks, is the kickoff at one o’clock on Sunday in the NFL. The keynote is the Saturn 5 rocket launching the candidate’s campaign, and that’s not what Christie did. He didn’t even mention Romney. It was a low-key speech, a lot about Christie’s family, his mother.

Every politician’s mother tells them, “If somebody hits you, you get up and knock a nose off or something.” Biden’s mother told him that. Christie’s mother told him that. After that keynote, there were people a lot curiousity if not concern. “Why was that? Why didn’t he mention Romney’s name? Why are we still talking about Clint Eastwood? We ought to be talking about the keynote here. Why aren’t we?”

Then comes Hurricane Sandy.

The White House calls Mayor Doomberg and says, “We need to came in!” Doomberg says, “No, you’re just gonna gum up it is works if you show up here. We don’t need you.” White House calls Governor Cuomo in New York. “We want to come in for a photo-op. Governor Cuomo says, “No, don’t show up here. You’re just gonna gum up the works. We need to keep everything open and running for first responders.”

They called New Jersey, Governor Christie. “Come on in!” They walk together arm in arm. They have a Slurpee, whatever else, and praise each other to the hilt. Christie, in response to the criticism, says, “Hey, I’m governor of New Jersey! My state’s been wiped out, and Obama’s got the money. Bite me.” Well, what was that really about? Well, they both got what they wanted, but what was Christie doing in addition to trying to secure federal aid from Obama? What else might have been going on?

(interruption)

Well, wait a minute. Snerdley just said something very interesting to me. (It does happen, folks.) He said that Christie was trying to secure the nomination of the Republican Party for 2016. But wait. The only way that Christie could get the nomination for 2016 is if Romney lost a week after Obama shows up in New Jersey. So you are admitting to me here that you are suggesting that one of the reasons for that arm-in-arm, man-love walk on the boardwalk was to get Obama reelected, clearing the field for Christie in 2016?

(interruption)

Okay. So we have it.

The theory of Mr. Snerdley is that what Christie was really doing was essentially trying to get Obama reelected, clearing the way for Christie 2016. There may be others who think that, but something was going on. So here we are. Let’s just stick with that, then, for a second. Okay. Romney did lose, and 2016 for the Republicans is wide open. The conventional wisdom again is Hillary is gonna get it this time. There isn’t gonna be a young black guy come out of nowhere and take it from her. There isn’t gonna be a young, good-looking, Democrat woman come out of the woodwork and take it from her, and there’s a pretty safe bet on that. There aren’t any. (clearing throat) Excuse me. And Hillary got kind of shafted in 2008, so it’s her turn now.

So she’s the presumptive nominee. And I guess it’s presumed that Christie’s the Republican nominee. And so what’s happening now, this whole event here with the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge is an opportunity for the media to take Christie out now and clear the decks for Hillary. Is that what’s going on in the media? I’m telling you, this is what some people are no doubt thinking.

You know, speaking of the New York Times, folks, I don’t know how to tell you this other than to just tell you. They had a two-part story on Benghazi by David Kirkpatrick which was an out-and-out series of lies. And there’s no question that it was done to clear the decks for Hillary. It was about Benghazi, a two-part piece. It’s amazing the conventional wisdom outside of the New York Times pretty much all agrees that it was bogus set of facts, that Al-Qaeda was nowhere near Libya, nowhere near Benghazi and that the video was solely responsible for the attack. After the second installment in the New York Times, the Washington Post had their own story which contradicted that whole thing.

The Washington Post, you may not heard about it, but they had a story without mentioning the New York Times, that just blew the New York Times story by David Kirkpatrick out of the water. It wasn’t a video, and Al-Qaeda was all over the place and, in fact, still is. And not only are they all over the place in Libya, they’re moving back into Fallujah, they’re back into Iraq, they’re everywhere. The Washington Post story, Al-Qaeda bigger and more widespread than ever, after five years of Obama.

So the New York Times runs an absolutely bogus two-part story that is designed to help Hillary, and now they’re spending all their time on lane closures on the George Washington Bridge at Fort Lee, New Jersey, to take Christie out, and they have tweeted today that despite his apology, and despite his denial, despite all of this, it doesn’t mean that his career isn’t over. Governor Christie is now faced with a story that isn’t going away, no matter how deftly he handled the media today, no matter how typically Christie he handled it, this is the beginning. This isn’t the end of anything. The media and the assumption is: clear the decks for Hillary.

Now, Christie, this wasn’t supposed to happen because he’s been working with Democrats and he’s been bragging about it. Just want to show you we can work together, and we can get things done, and we can accomplish things for the American people and politics can be made to work and government can be made to work and I’m the guy showing everybody how to do it, which was supposed to be the big selling point. That seems to be what Republicans orgasm over, is this ability to compromise, cross the aisle, work together, and blah, blah. What good has it done Christie now? What good, again, has it accomplished?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Actually, you know, it’s kind of nice to have a scandal where somebody actually did something, instead of a scandal where somebody said something. I mean, the scandals involving me are all over things that I said. But this is a scandal, somebody actually did something here. It’s finally great to have a scandal where somebody’s actually done something. If you’re gonna have a scandal, have a scandal, go all the way, and we got a scandal here with actual action.

Rochester, Michigan. Hi, Steve. I’m glad you waited. Great to have you here.

CALLER: Hey, two points. You’ve got a commercial out there that mentions Nancy Pelosi and pole dancing in the same sentence. Can we not do that?

RUSH: Yeah, well, it’s a parody.

CALLER: I understand.

RUSH: It’s a satire. It’s supposed to make you sick.

CALLER: It succeeded. And that caller, Janet, for a moment there I thought I was listening to the Janet show with Rush Limbaugh. She was lively.

RUSH: Well, yeah, my job in that case was to get out of the way and let her go, and she was able — I told you I wanted to take that call off.

CALLER: Absolutely.

RUSH: And she rose to the challenge.

CALLER: Certainly did. So this whole Christie thing, there’s a headline here that I think a lot of people are missing. (Unintelligible) Gates rattles Obama administration. Mainstream media jumps off Christie bridge.

RUSH: Well, I get your point. It has taken the Gates book off the front page. It has taken Obamacare off the front page. And let me tell you, you may not know this. As we speak, after all of this that’s gone on today, President Obama is unveiling his promise zone initiative right now. So you’ve got the side-by-side, A-B comparison, Christie barely able now to hang on to his career. CNN and the New York Times and of course others will join them. Snerdley just said, “I can’t believe this. They actually think they’re gonna get this guy? He’s gonna be governor for three more years. He’s gonna get the Republican nomination, be running for president. They think traffic cones are gonna derail the guy?”

It isn’t about traffic cones. They have now decided they are an arm of the Democrat Party. They have decided, they have come to the realization or conclusion that they can take out a potential Republican front-runner, and they’re not going to stop until they do. It isn’t going to be about traffic cones. It’s going to end up being about much more than that, by the time they’re finished. They just haven’t found it yet. But they’re gonna keep looking and digging. They’ve said so. They just started peeling the onion today. And it’s a big onion. They’ve got a long way to go.