RUSH: I got another See, I Told You So here. I told you that the Democrats would politicize Ebola and they would make a suggestion that it needs to be blamed on the Republicans, and it happened yesterday on Stephanopoulos’ show. It was the former Regime figure, Van Jones.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here is Cliff in Fort Worth. I’m glad you called, sir. Glad to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’m glad I called, too. As a former soldier myself, I’m wondering what they’re gonna do with these 3,000 soldiers that they’re sending to Africa after they all get infected with Ebola. Where can we treat ’em? Are we gonna put ’em in the Army hospitals? Are we gonna puts ’em in the VA system? The people that have to treat ’em are gonna be exposed to Ebola?
RUSH: Now, wait a minute. Why are you automatically assuming they’re gonna contract the virus?
CALLER: Well, I’ve talked to some medical people that have been involved in epidemiological stuff, and they said they don’t have a handle on this. They say it’s not transferred through the air and stuff. But no one really knows. Most of the doctors and nurses that have worked on this have died. You know, this is some real bad stuff.
RUSH: Now, wait, wait, wait, wait. We gotta be very careful. Is it most doctors and nurses have died? I know some.
CALLER: Well, the ones that have worked directly with the patients, the ones that have been out there with the patients, the African, the native —
RUSH: Now, I know that a couple of doctors have died, and one of them was treating patients in full dress hazmat gear and still contracted the disease.
CALLER: Yeah, the cameraman that worked for NBC —
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: — was in full hazmat gear and he caught it. This stuff’s a lot worse than people can even imagine.
RUSH: No, no, no. The Centers for Disease Control guy says that’s hogwash.
CALLER: Well — (laughing)
RUSH: Now, the number’s up to 4,000 because the story now from TheHill.com, the US is sending a thousand additional troops to fight Ebola. The Pentagon is sending as many as a thousand more troops to Africa to help fight the Ebola virus. The troops are being sent on top of the 3,000 President Obama’s already offered, or ordered to help efforts in West Africa. Rear Admiral John Kirby said Friday, “We project that there could be nearly 4,000 troops deployed in support of this mission.” Now, I’m not gonna put a floor or ceiling on it. In other words, it could end up being more.
CALLER: It’s a virtual death sentence for everybody they’re sending. They’re not gonna send their kids over there.
RUSH: Well, yeah, that’s another story. But this additional thousand, this was announced late Friday when it was supposed to be unnoticed. So now the total is up to 4,000. What I don’t know, I haven’t heard it explained — maybe it has been and I’ve missed it. But how do uniformed military personnel fight Ebola? You can’t shoot it. What are they gonna do? Are they basically there to enforce quarantines? Are they basically there to make sure that the infected do not escape wherever they are and spread it?
CALLER: I’m wondering if they’re not over there to get infected. And what do you do with these people when you bring ’em back? I mean, if there’s a high infection rate and you try and bring ’em back and put ’em into, say, military hospitals?
RUSH: Well, you’re awfully pessimistic about this. I mean, you’re assuming they’re all gonna come back infected. We got four quarantine locations, I’m told in this country.
CALLER: Yeah, people can fly into this country on an airplane and never even be checked getting off the airplane coming in from an area that’s got Ebola.
RUSH: That’s right, because to do otherwise would be mean.
CALLER: It would hurt people’s feelings.
RUSH: Yeah. It would be really beneath us to do that.
CALLER: You know, Rush, when I was in Vietnam. I was wounded, and I spent time in every level of Army hospital, all the way to convalescence and the VA hospitals. I see how these places work. The Army hospitals were better, but the VA hospitals are filthy.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: If they put those people in the VA hospitals, that disease is gonna spread everywhere. And I just shudder to think what can happen to this country once that breaks out. You know, it’s geometrical in the infection rate. And I think it is airborne. Show me how the cameraman caught it if it’s not airborne.
RUSH: They say it isn’t. They say it’s hard to get. Obama’s telling us that. The CDC guy is telling us it’s hard to get. They’re telling us we’ve got nothing to worry about. In fact, I don’t know if you were listening on Friday, but we had this author — I can’t remember his name now, and I wish I could. David something or other — and he actually said, in his own politically correct way, that we bear the responsibility for these people in Africa getting this disease, and we can’t turn our backs on ’em because of that.
He said the only reason they are there is because of American slavery. Liberia came to exist because of American slavery, and since they fled this country to escape the bonds of slavery and they set up Liberia, if it hadn’t been for us, they wouldn’t now be suffering from this virus, and so we can’t turn our backs on them. We are culpable, in his way of thinking. If it hadn’t been for us, if it hadn’t been for slavery, there might not be Ebola. Now, he didn’t say it in those words, but it’s inescapable that conclusion. My point to you, Cliff — and I know there are gonna be some people smirk at this.
David Quammen was the guy’s name, and he’s a well-known Ebola expert and has written books about it. And I’m telling you there are oddballs, there are people in this country — do not doubt me on this, folks — there are people in this country who believe what this guy said, that this is ultimately traced back to us because of our slavery and these poor people had to leave this country because it was so horrible here because of slavery and they established Liberia. Sierra Leone, by the way, was established by British African-Americans who fled slavery there, and if it hadn’t been for that, they probably wouldn’t have. So there are some people who think we kind of deserve a little bit of this. Make no mistake. That is leftist political correct thinking. It’s always been around.
The danger we have now is that we’ve elected people in positions of power and authority who think this, or think like this, in terms of this country being responsible, this country being to blame for things. And it’s that kind of thinking which leads to opposition to shutting down airports from these various countries. It leads to opposition to keeping these people out of the country. How dare we? We can’t turn our backs on them. They exist because of us. We can’t turn them away. Well, that means that anything that happens to anybody here because of that policy we kind of deserve.
It’s a perverted, convoluted way of thinking, and it’s there. Political correctness has been around for a long time. It’s always been over there, it’s always been fringe, but it isn’t fringe anymore, because we’ve elected people that think this way. Cliff, I appreciate the call.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I mentioned also at the top of the program that the Democrats are trying now to politicize Ebola and blame it on Republicans, and I want you to hear how that is manifesting itself. I want you to hear my prediction first. It was last Thursday on this program that I said the following.
RUSH ARCHIVE: [W]hen all is said and done, all of this is gonna end up being blamed on the Republicans. I know you’re gonna laugh at that, but everything else is, and so will this be, and it’ll be blamed on Republicans for not helping Obama. For gridlock, for not taking their jobs seriously, for not working with Obama to grow the government to make sure we have the resources. They’ll blame it on the sequester. Do you know how much is still blamed on the sequester? You wouldn’t believe how much. Minuscule budget cuts in the sequester a couple years ago are still being used as an excuse. So the Republicans are gonna take a hit on this. I don’t know how much it’ll stick, but they will be blamed.
RUSH: Yesterday on ABC’s “This Week Needs David Brinkley,” George Stephanopoulos, speaking with Van Jones, who’s on Crossfire on CNN, a former member of the Regime, and they’re talking about the Regime’s response to Ebola. Van Jones said the following.
JONES: We’ve gotta get our base going. The other thing, too, is that we can’t let the Republicans get away with some of the stuff they’re doing this week just trying to bash Obama. Hey, you know, government is always your enemy until you need a friend. This Ebola thing is the best argument you can make for the kind of government that we believe in. A year ago, Ted Cruz shut down America’s government, shut down the CDC over shenanigans. What if that happened this year? You gotta start putting Republicans on the defensive for the fact that they believe that you can take a wrecking ball to America’s government, never pay a price. Obamacare means that eight million people who couldn’t have gone to the doctor last year, if they feel sick today, they went out and got Obamacare, they can go see the doctor. The Democrats gotta start talking like that.
RUSH: (laughing) I think they are. So you see, all of this can be traced back to Ted Cruz shutting down the government and trying to wipe out the CDC. It can all be traced back to, if the Republicans had their way, there wouldn’t be a CDC and we wouldn’t be able to fight Ebola because there wouldn’t be Obamacare. And that’s what the Democrats need to start saying, and I will bet you they do. They will find a way to go on offense, particularly since the way this Ebola thing is being handled is exclusively on them. This is a Democrat administration with Democrat agencies, or agencies run by Democrats and people that Obama has appointed, such as this guy, Thomas Frieden, who is the director of the Centers for Disease Control. He’s back on TV today. CBS This Morning, Norah O’Donnell asked him, “Should the CDC now consider a plan to screen everyone coming from these West African countries?
FRIEDEN: Everyone is being screened when they leave the country. In fact, we know that the patient in Dallas’s temperature was 97.3 when he left Monrovia. In fact, about 40,000 people have come in from those countries since the outbreak started and none of them had fever from Ebola when they came in.
RUSH: He’s reassuring us here, folks. Dr. Frieden is telling us, “Nothing to worry about here. Why, even the guy who got on the plane in Monrovia wasn’t showing a temperature.” And how do we know this? Well, because he told us. We did not take his temperature. They’re trying to tell us they’ve got these laser devices they can point at people and that it will reflect back their temperature, and it’s not accurate.
He got on the plane. He knew he was sick. That’s why he came here. He wanted to get treatment. In his mind, the US was the only place to go. He’s illegal. The family that he joined here, the potential family, whatever, they’re all on expired visas. I mean, the word for it is “illegal.” It doesn’t sound compassionate, I know. We can call ’em undocumented patients, you know, whatever. (interruption) Why would the immigrant think the US a place to go? (interruption) Well, there are two reasons why the guy in Liberia thought the US was the place to go.
Now, there’s one really glaring reason. And you know what it is? There were two cases reported in America of charity workers coming down with Ebola. We sent a military-looking Gulfstream III specifically outfitted with quarantine screens and nets. We picked them up. We put ’em on that jet. We flew them back to Dallas to the CDC. We gave them that special serum from the Kentucky tobacco plant, and they both recovered. So, voila, it would make total sense to somebody on the ground in Liberia, “Hey, they’ve got a way to treat this in the US, and they sent a plane to get these two charity workers from where I live.”
The second reason is it’s the United States and everybody knows that the best of everything is in the United States, particularly when it comes to lawyers and doctors, and free stuff, right, and talk show hosts.
The best is in America. Everybody in the world knows this. But it certainly, I think, was a factor that these people all probably know that we dispatched a GIII to come pick up our patients and get them out of there. If it’s good enough for them, why not for him? Because after all, we’re responsible for him because we once had slaves. New show now, CNN’s Situation Room yesterday.
Candy Crowley said to Dr. Frieden, “The contaminated material in the apartment where Ebola patient Thomas Duncan was staying was there for days after he was hospitalized, and there wasn’t a real clear way of transporting that once sanitation of the apartment started, and what to do with it once they did transport it. So I think some of what one hears when people are saying, ‘Wait a minute, do they really have control of this?’ is that those seem to be kind of major mistakes, Doctor. How did all that happen? “
FRIEDEN: The reason we had some challenges with medical waste is that it’s the first time we’ve had to deal with that situation. And just by chance there had been a glitch in our system to approve —
RUSH: Oh, man!
FRIEDEN: — the government system to approve a waste-removal company to do that. That’s been resolved. Wish should have been resolved sooner, but it’s revolved. The issue of the missed diagnosis initially is concerning, and that’s why we’re redoubling our work with doctors —
RUSH: (sigh)
FRIEDEN: — hospitals, emergency departments, uh, medical societies, uh, folks who work on electronic health records.
RUSH: Right.
FRIEDEN: We’ve provided checklists and algorithms and training.
RUSH: “Yeah, we… We’ve got it handled. We’re doing checklists, we’re doing algorithms, we’re doing training, and we are doing medical records, electronic records. We’re redoubling our work with doctors and hospitals and emergency rooms. Doctors, nurses, clean water. We got it. We got it handled.” It’s just this attitude, “All we have to do is say that we’re doing these things, and that, oh, by the way, yeah, well, that was the first time we had to deal with that. You know, and just by chance there’d been a glitch in the system, and that’s bad. It’s so bad.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: By the way, folks, “The first person diagnosed with Ebola on American soil has begun receiving an experimental medication, just as officials announced his condition was worsening. Thomas Eric Duncan is now being treated with brincidofovir, receiving an investigational medication in late-stage testing for other types of viruses, officials said Monday.
“Brincidofovir is an oral antiviral drug being tested to fight more common viruses, including one that infects patients undergoing bone marrow transplants. Laboratory tests suggested it might also fight Ebola. Brincidofovir is made by North Carolina-based Chimerix Inc., which said physicians sought federal permission to use the drug. The company did not identify the physicians making the request.”
So the Liberian citizen is getting the experimental drug, ’cause we’re out of the serum. We don’t have any serum. Gotta make some more. It comes from an exclusive Kentucky tobacco plant. Now, what if it doesn’t work? I hope these guys thought to indemnify everybody here if this doesn’t work? Are you upset that this guy’s getting exclusive — (interruption) Oh, I see. Once the word spreads that people with Ebola are gonna get a special drug, that more people will get on a plane and try to get here? Well, I would try to get to the US whether I knew any of this or not, is the bottom line. The US has the best medical care in the world. That’s what everybody thinks.
I mean, in a way you can’t blame these people. I mean, if we’re the only chance to stay alive, what do you think they’re gonna do? You can’t blame them for trying to get here. I don’t. Hell, I would do the same thing if I were them. That’s why, you know, policies like this are really hard. And we’re a compassionate people. It’s really tough. But they’re not gonna close the border, folks, but not because of the compassion. They’re not gonna close the border ’cause of amnesty, just pure and simple.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Yeah, so for everybody that hates capitalism. The special drug to fight Ebola is made by a North Carolina company. Not Obamacare, not Obama, not the government, a private sector company that Obama vilifies, is responsible for it.