Rush Transcripts:...Oct. 10th

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All Rush's transcripts can be seen here https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/


Do You Believe the Fox News Poll or the Crowd for Trump in Minnesota?

Oct 10, 2019



RUSH: You know, there’s so much news about Ukraine. I was sitting here telling Mr. Snerdley today, “Why don’t we make it the 58th state?” For crying out loud, it seems like everything is going on Ukraine. And you know what it’s all about? It’s all about money.

If you think ideas matter in politics, ha! It’s all about money. It always has been about money. That’s why people care so damn much about fundraising and why I despise it. Fundraising’s the worst thing that ever happened to ideas.

Anyway, greetings. Great to have you with us. Rush Limbaugh with you behind the Golden EIB Microphone. We’re gonna do Open Line Friday on Thursday today because I am being stripped away from the EIB Network Golden EIB Microphone tomorrow. I will not be here. I am going to be away on unavoidable business matters that I must undertake. They can’t be done on the weekend. I’d be happy to do it on the weekend, but, no, no, no, we gotta do it during the week so we can expense account everything. So I will not be here tomorrow. We’ll make the most of it.

Yes, I’m in a rotten mood today, folks, but I’m not gonna bleed on you. I’m not gonna share it with you, like the other day, I told you I can whine with the best of ’em; I just don’t. I got plenty of stuff I could whine about and complain about, but I’m not gonna do it. I’m gonna try ride herd on it here and enjoy the next three hours.

Man, oh, man, every day you wake up and there’s another pile of manure that you have to negotiate around. So now we got a Fox News poll that shows — isn’t it amazing — 51% of the American people now think Trump should be impeached and removed from office in a Fox News poll. Fifty-one percent.

So I wonder, how does this happen? And I wonder what effect it has on people. I know Fox has been losing favor with conservatives for a while, for obvious reasons. I mean, I can’t look at that network anymore without seeing Donna Brazile staring back at me. I’m saying, “Why do I need to watch Fox to see or hear what Donna Brazile thinks? Who’s next, The Forehead? Are Carville and Forehead gonna be given a show?”

So, anyway, I looked at the breakdown of the poll, the percentage of Republicans and Democrats, only 48% of the Fox News sample is Democrat, 40% of the Fox News poll sample is Republican, and 12% are the precious and we couldn’t live without them independents.

Now, the Fox News poll, I think you have to understand, they are not just polling Fox News viewers. A lot of people misunderstand that. Fox News has a polling unit that’s like every other mainstream media polling unit, and it is in that universe that the Fox News poll operates and competes. And that’s what’s newsworthy about the poll. This poll has given CNN and all the other Drive-By Media outlets just a golden opportunity to point to it and say, “See? It’s true. Trump’s losing support. The people are finally seeing the truth about Trump.”

Except there’s some things here that don’t add up to me. For example, while 51% of the Fox News poll wants Trump impeached and removed, only 40% of that sample is Republican, and yet if you look at the latest approval numbers for Trump in the Republican Party, it’s hovering right there at 90%. Trump has 90% approval in the Republican Party. And if you look at anecdotal evidence, Trump continues to — not just sell out — but oversell every venue.

By the way, Trump has won the spat here with this little soy boy mayor up there in Minneapolis. Have you seen the video of this guy dancing on stage up there? We just need to put him in blackface, put him on stage there with Mayor Pete and we got a great duo. They could go on the road and have a great show, leave politics and heed their calling.

The Minnesota Democrat Farm Labor Party tweeted on Monday that Trump came within one-and-a-half percentage points of winning Minnesota in 2016 with following threads that the Trump campaign is staffing up in Minnesota in ways we’ve never seen before and, frankly, we just can’t keep up. This is a DFL. This is the Communist Party of Minnesota.

Trump is going there doing a rally in Minnesota, and Trump has won the spar with the soy boy mayor there before the campaign rally regarding security costs. “President Donald Trump won a feud with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey regarding $530,000 in up-front security and other costs associated with his campaign rally Thursday at the Target Center.

“Trump claimed in a letter that the half-million-dollar security charges were ‘phony and outlandish’ and blamed,” the soy boy mayor Frey for “pressuring the Target Center into preventing Minnesota residents from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Trump’s trying to flip Minnesota and some progress is being made. We had the audio sound bites for you within the last couple of weeks. CNN went out there. CNN found a bunch of Democrats that hated Trump, now were gonna vote for him in 2020. But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. The Fox News poll, 51% want Trump gone. The Fox News poll is now all of a sudden the Bible. For a brief moment it’s replaced the New York Times in importance and relevance today.

“Trump’s law firm, Jones Day, sent a letter to the Target Center threatening to sue for breach of contract, citing a Pioneer Press article comparing costs for Trump’s rally to a similar event for then-President,” The One.

“According to the [Pioneer] Press, Trump’s anticipated bill is 26 times higher compared to Obama’s…” Do you know what they charged Obama for his appearance? Twenty grand — $20,000 — they charged The One for security at the Target Center. They wanted to charge Trump $530,000. (laughing) These people are so transparent. You know these impeachment polls, I have to tell you something, folks. Once again, this is the product of media coverage. The American people only know the Democrat side of all this.

It’s another reason why Pelosi’s not gonna really do a full-fledged, let’s-vote-on-it, official impeachment. She doesn’t want the Republicans to have a forum to present counterevidence. She doesn’t want the White House and Republicans to have a chance in the same venue that Schiff and his team are using to provide their own witnesses to counter what Schiff lies are. They don’t… It’s a way for Pelosi to manage the polls. It’s a way for Pelosi to limit the president, the Republicans’ view of all of this.

So I’m still not convinced that there’s ever gonna be a full-fledged impeachment vote, unless… You know, these Democrats are so desirous and they’re so salivating over it that if they get any more Fox News polls like this, they may be convinced that had they’ve got it in the bag, and they may go for it. And if that day happens — if they go for it and if there is a full-fledged impeachment, if there is a trial — then the Republicans get a chance to counter all of this drivel and rotgut that Schiff and company are putting out there.

And that’s gonna have a massive shift in change in public opinion. Pelosi knows this, folks. That’s why this is happening the way it is. Make no mistake about it. So Trump’s holding a rally in Minnesota tonight where he’s trying to flip it and turn it into a state that will vote for him. Again, let me just share with you this note: “The Minnesota DFL Party tweeted on Monday that Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning Minnesota in 2016, with following threads that the ‘Trump campaign is staffing up in Minnesota in ways we’ve never seen before, and frankly we just can’t keep up.'”

I doubt CNN knows this. I doubt the New York Times knows this. If they were told about this, they would ignore it; pay no attention to it. But he came pretty close to winning it, 1.5 points, and is now staffing up in ways that the Minnesota Communist Party “can’t keep up” with — I mean, and admitting that they can’t. That’s pretty big. Okay. So Trump has the highest approval rating by Republicans in history. It’s over 90%. You know what the Drive-Bys are saying? Everything that the Democrats do is modeled on something that’s happened in the past.

This would obviously be based on Watergate, so Trump has become Nixon. So now they’re looking at what the timelines were with Nixon. You know, how long did it take, what did they have to do, what were the final straws that finally convinced Nixon that he had to resign? They’re trying to replay or manufacture events now so that they will follow that script. So if you look carefully, you can find stories out there that are designed to keep left-wing activists energized and inspired.

One of my favorite ones out there today, the headline is: “It Took Republicans a Long Time to Abandon Nixon.” (laughing) So the story today for Democrats (impression) is, “It took a long time; so don’t expect this to happen right now. Republicans are gonna hang tough for a while. Don’t think this is gonna happen overnight!” The left is doing everything it can to keep its own radical base from going insane — or further, more insane than they already are. If you know how to read these headlines and how to juxtapose them with what the Democrat strategy is, it’s actually kind of funny.

So, anyway, Trump oversells all these venues that he appears in. There are more people outside wanting to get in than there is room for inside. People stand outside. They watch him on remote screens by the thousands. They come out for days just to get inside the venue — and remember all of this back in 2016? “That it doesn’t matter! You can’t judge electoral strength on the basis of crowd size at rallies. Who does that? You can’t do that.” In 2016, we learned that we can.

So you have these suspect polls that are very… I mean, deal with them as you get them. Choose to believe ’em or not. It’s tough to cherry-pick ’em, but you can, based on what you know about individual polling units. I mean, if you look… For example, you might want to take a look at the board of directors, not just of Fox News but of the Fox corporation. Find out who’s there. Find out what their opinions of Trump are. What kind of influence can boards of directors have on, say, polling units inside Fox News?

There’s any number of variables here. And since everything in media is fake these days, sadly — sadly — the smart thing to do is to doubt everything you see and hear when you first see and hear it. I don’t know about you, but I hate having to do that. I hate having to doubt everything. I hate what these people have done to some of the institutions that are crucially necessary for a functioning country like ours.

So Ronna McDaniel at the Republican National Committee, GOP chairwoman, tweeted, “The Fox News poll is wrong, just like their final poll in 2016 (had Hillary winning by 4) was wrong.” She then points out, “A staggering 48% of those polled on this bogus impeachment charade were Democrats,” and she’s right. The polling sample is 48% Democrats, 40% Republican, 12% precious (God we love them) independents. She concludes her tweet with, “Our internal polling shows voters, particularly Independents, oppose this sham!”

So that’s what she says. Move over to Rasmussen now. The Rasmussen Report’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 47% of likely voters approve of the job that Trump is doing; 51% disapprove. The latest figures include 33% who strongly approve of the job Trump’s doing, 43% who strongly disapprove. So the approval index rating is a minus 10. Again, with the carpet bombing of smears and lies that Trump is getting, 47% approval is pretty good.

In fact, in one way it’s almost unbelievable. How can somebody who has been routinely smeared, blasphemed, slandered, libeled, and hereticized be at 47% after 2-1/2, almost three years of this? But there Donald Trump is. Supporters are digging in, breathlessly awaiting whatever Attorney General Barr and John Durham are going to produce.

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Democrats Won’t Wait for Evidence This Time

Oct 10, 2019



RUSH: We’ll start in Albuquerque. This is John. Great to have you with us at the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Great to be here, Rush. Thank you very much. Uh, KFK from —

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: KFK from ABQ, retired police officer.

RUSH: (silence)

CALLER: Longtime listener, first-time caller.

RUSH: Wait. Did you…?

CALLER: (crosstalk)

RUSH: Hold it a second. Did you say KFBX?

CALLER: KFK from ABQ. It’s my nickname here.

RUSH: Oh, I got you. All right.

CALLER: Ha! So right to my point. You referenced… Well, I read earlier this morning on Fox News about the poll conducted —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — that 51% of Americans want impeachment, and then you brought it up in your show in the first hour, or early on when you started your show. And, you know, I’m not a conservative Republican. I’m a registered Republican, and if they would have called me and polled me, I would have said, “Yes, I want him to be impeached,” and the reason why is they never asked the reason for your answer. And my reason is, “Come on, let’s get him on record! Come on, Nancy, do your job. Let’s see it. Get everything on the table.”

RUSH: Wait a minute. That’s not what the poll says. Fifty-one percent want him impeached AND removed.

CALLER: Well, I want to impeach, because —

RUSH: Really? You want him impeached because that’s the only way you think the truth’s gonna come out?

CALLER: No, I don’t think it’s the only way it’s gonna come out. But I want all those filthy Democrats put on record, and then I want to flip. And I want the people — these liberals out there — to see what they are doing to America and how good Trump has done. The man has gone off the charts. He’s the best since Reagan. He’s done so much more than any other president in my lifetime, and I’m 60 years old. I never voted until I started listening to you, and I was turned on to you by a good friend of mine at the police department here in Albuquerque, and I never voted. I —

RUSH: And that would be BFF from ABQ.

CALLER: (laughing) Yeah, you betcha. It is, actually, next to my family. And I want these people to go on record. I want Pelosi to do it. I want them to (unintelligible).

RUSH: All right. It’s an interesting thought. Obviously, John here thinks that Trump’s great record of economic and political achievement would be mentioned as part of the impeachment case that the Republicans and Trump would make. That could well be. Grab sound bite number four. I talked yesterday after the program with Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal. She’s the next interview in The Limbaugh Letter.

Oh. By the way, folks, you know, who the interview in the current issue right now is? It’s Steve Bannon. I have been remiss in not mentioning this. Bannon was fabulous in the interview. You don’t know Steve Bannon if all you know of Bannon is media coverage. You really need to read the interview of Bannon in the latest issue of The Limbaugh Letter. It’s got considerable focus on what’s really important about the trade deals and the attempts, the policy changes Trump’s trying to make.

But he also weighs in on the reelection campaign, the Democrat strategy. It really is a fascinating interview, and it’s in the current issue of The Limbaugh Letter. I was talking to Kim Strassel yesterday of the Wall Street Journal for the next issue. Now, she was on with Shannon Bream last night on the Fox News Channel, and she was asked for her thoughts on the way Pelosi is handling this whole impeachment process. This is what she said…

STRASSEL: There is some argument to be made that one of the reasons you see any of these numbers happening is because we’ve only had a half-baked impeachment inquiry as it were. Well, we’ve only seen portions of transcripts. Americans have seen snippets of news. A lot of the media has cast this as very bad, made their own judgment on it. And I think there’s an argument to be made that Nancy Pelosi is fearful if you let this all come out, and if you let the White House and Americans make the counterclaim, that those numbers come back down again.

RUSH: That’s exactly what JFK from ABQ was saying here, or KFK from JBQ — ABQ. That’s exactly his point, that right now everything is so one-sided. The Trump side of this, nobody is hearing. All everybody’s hearing is, “Trump did it, Trump’s guilty,” and the truth is, Trump didn’t do anything. None of this has any fact behind it! They keep pushing these whistleblowers. The whistleblowers…

I finally saw somebody besides me on TV today pointing out that the whistleblowers are irrelevant from the moment the transcript of that phone call was released. And, by the way, the Ukrainian president has come out again and said that there was no quid pro quo. There was no request. The investigation Ukraine was doing into the Bidens started long before the Trump phone call. There was nothing untoward about that call at all.

The Ukrainian president is being totally ignored. The media’s not reporting what he’s saying or they’re trying to slant it. But the point is, news consumers are only getting the Robert Mueller version of this or the FBI/DOJ version of this or the Christopher Steele dossier side of this. That’s all they’re getting, and they’re getting nothing but lies from people like Schiff as they try to create this illusion that Trump did it.

So Kim Strassel’s point here is that once there is an actual impeachment process… This is why a lot of people don’t think… That’s the wrong way to put it. This is why a lot of people think Pelosi will not actually pull the trigger on a full-fledged vote and impeachment, because then the defense (in this case, the Trumpster) gets to present his case and counter the allegations being made against him. So we’ll see.

Now, if the polls continue to move like the Fox News poll shows, then Pelosi and her gang are going to be emboldened, ’cause they believe these polls and they’re gonna be inspired and they’re gonna be motivated to think it’s safe to go ahead and pull the trigger and do this. Now, the media… So far, folks, they have managed — finally managed — to pound so many lies about this phone call between Trump and Zelensky that they’re now getting the polls that they want, like this Fox poll.

Now, the Democrats in the media and the Democrats in Congress are gonna run with that as proof that the country is behind them and stampede us into impeachment while they can. They learned something from the Trump-Russia thing. They waited and waited and waited. They waited on Mueller. They waited on the FBI. They waited on the DOJ. They waited and waited and waited for evidence, and there wasn’t any. They’re not gonna wait on any evidence this time. They’re gonna get this done before there’s any evidence, so that when evidence does get presented, nobody will believe it.

I think that’s part of the strategy.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Yeah, I think Schiff and… It’s why I said they’re in a race. They want to get this done by Thanksgiving. They want to make sure they get this done without really any evidence. I’ll explain how that could happen, ’cause it’s what they’re doing now.

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Drive-By Media Democrats, NBA Players and Owners Side with ChiComs Over Free Speech

Oct 10, 2019



RUSH: As you stand back and you objectively observe the current U.S. Drive-By Media news cycle, there’s some things that stand out. Almost all of the Drive-By Media Democrats and NBA players and owners — almost all — are in support of Communist China and against free speech. And we’re told, “Well, the ChiComs have this gigantic market over there, Rush, 1.2 billion customers.

“People can’t forget that. They can’t look past that.” You got some freedom fighters in Hong Kong, some people waving the American flag. They just want freedom of speech. They don’t want to be subsumed and taken over and swallowed up by the ChiCom regime. And in the country that is ostensibly the leading light, the beacon freedom, it is the communist Chinese government being sided with, not freedom fighters.

Yet when you have left-wing, fascist Antifa on the roll out there destroying cities and beating up people because (impression), “They’re demanding civil rights and liberty and freedom,” the same Drive-By Media supporting the ChiComs, and the same sports league supporting the ChiComs support Antifa! So if you’re a left-winger demanding liberty and freedom and speech rights, then I guess the NBA and the Drive-By Media will be with you. But if you are somehow opposed to communism and want free speech rights, then you’re not gonna be supported.

So all of the Drive-By Media, almost — and almost all the Democrats and the NBA players and owners — are in support of Communist China and against free speech. A single tweet by the general manager of the Houston Rockets supporting the Hong Kong freedom fighters has caused this massive coalition of media Democrats, NBA players, and owners to side with the communist Chinese. But they were all against — to the point of boycotting — the recent North Carolina bathroom law, which they claimed went against their guiding principles of equality and mutual respect.

Something’s so way out of whack here.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me finish this thought here. ‘Cause it’s a good thought. It’s worth finishing. The news cycle here, if you look at this objectively, if you just stand aside, try not to be affected by it, just watch it and judge it, it’s just obscene. Almost all the Drive-By Media, the Democrats and the NBA players and owners, are supporting communist China.

Just like there was this almost magical utopian support for Cuba, which is a repressive, godforsaken regime. But still it was thought to be the potential utopia on earth. Now the ChiComs have the same kind of adoration from the supposed kings of civil rights, from the supposed kings of civil liberties, the descendants of Martin Luther King and Eleanor Squeal and all the other left-wing activists demanding equality here and equality there and free speech.

They are sidling up to the most repressive anti-free speech, anti-freedom regime you can find on the planet today! Communist China! Over one tweet by a general manager for the Houston Rockets supporting Hong Kong freedom fighters! Remember when the one guy stood up in front of the tank at Tiananmen Square, remember everybody stood up and loved that guy? This would be the equivalent if the NBA said, “Put that guy in jail!”

If the NBA and the Democrat Party and the media said, “Run him over! Run over that guy, he’s insulting our brethren in the Chinese communist government.” That’s the equivalent. They’ve done a 180 off Tiananmen Square. And that guy who was celebrated as a hero, if that happened today, he’d be lynched. And the NBA and all of these communist Chinese loving American enterprises would be demanding that guy be made an example of.

Now, while they’re doing this, remember, they were all almost on the verge of boycotting North Carolina over the bathroom issue, which they claimed went against their guiding principles of equality and mutual respect. In other words, if North Carolina didn’t bend over, grab the ankles, and let anybody use any bathroom they wanted for any reason, the NBA wasn’t gonna go there, the NBA was gonna boycott, the NBA was gonna pull out.

And any other state that tried to say men had to use the men’s room and women had to use the women’s, they were bigots, they were creeps, we’re not gonna do business in those states, either. And yet sidling up to the ChiComs? Do you know what China does to transgender people? Do you know what China does to homosexuals? Do you know where those people end up in China? They end up in reeducation camps with the Uyghurs.

Do you think there’s a transgender element running around communist China demanding rights, protesting the Chinese government? Do you think Mayor Bloomberg is one of their advocates? What do you think happens? What do you think happens to homosexuals in Saudi Arabia? They-are beheaded. That’s why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wanted the students at Columbia University to tell him if they knew any in Tehran, remember that?

Now, the NBA is — what is it, 85% African-American players, 85, 90? And they’re defending a country where basically the entire country is enslaved to a communist government? Well, we all know why. It’s money. Once again, money trumping ideas. Too much money to be made there in China.

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Libs Killed California — And They Blame Trump!

Oct 10, 2019



RUSH: Then we go to California, the news out of California. Californians have voted for Democrats for two or three decades now, and these Democrats have passed laws and have ignored basic forest management to appease rabid, insane, lunatic environmentalist wackos, and now they’re facing the prospect of their power being cut off before fires start because it’s almost a sure thing the fires are gonna happen.

And guess who’s responsible for this? Why, none other than Donald J. Trump is to blame for this. Trump is to blame for everything liberals are unhappy about. But there isn’t a Republican fingerprint on any legislation in California in 20 years. You know what the price of gasoline’s creeping up to in Los Angeles now? Try six bucks! An environmentalist wacko paradise.

Now, you people have doubted me when I have told you that I’ve found things among my little tech blog buddies that I take some idle time to read. And I have mentioned to you that these people really do think that if we don’t get to colonize Mars or the Moon, that we’re done, we are doomed, we’re finished. It is the height of ignorance and stupidity. But they have been conditioned, they’ve been told life on earth is hopelessly over and even before life on earth ends it’s gonna be not worth living because of climate change.

Well, yesterday there was a meltdown in tech media. You want to know why? Sorry, I can’t help laughing. A Nobel Prize winner proclaimed that mankind is doomed to remain on earth forever, that colonizing the Moon or Mars is never gonna happen. It isn’t possible. So somebody throws a cold shower of reality at these young kids, and they melted down.

Michael Mayor, a Nobel Prize winning scientist in the field of physics, in a recent interview with the French News Agency says: “he doesn’t see any way that humans will ever colonize Earth-like exoplanets, and that we should be spending our considerable resources keeping Earth healthy rather than dreaming of leaving it.”

This is a serious piece! This guy thinks he’s informing his readers. If you were planning on going to Mars with Elon Musk, forget it. It ain’t happening. (laughing) When you step back and look at this stuff and you realize how much stupidity we have bred, we’ve taught, we have inculcated, it is shocking.

Did you see where some Tesla driver the other day found out what a replacement battery for his car is gonna cost him? Thirty-three thousand dollars, $33,000 for a new battery in his Tesla. Well, what do you expect? The battery is essentially the engine, so what the hell do you think it’s gonna be? And how long do these things last?

You know, in two years your iPhone battery is gonna drop 20, 25% of it’s effectiveness. It happens with lithium ion batteries. They don’t last forever. You’ve got to replace them. And then when you replace, you just can’t drop it down in skid row or some toxic dump. You gotta be very careful ’cause that battery could do more damage ecologically, pollution-wise than all the plastic straws in Beijing.

Thirty-three thousand dollars. I don’t care what your combustible engine repairs would be, it’s never gonna be 33 grand. In fact, if you drive a traditional car, burns gasoline and internal combustion engine, your engine breaks, get a new car. Screw it. Nobody goes out and gets a brand-new engine. You ever heard of that? Doesn’t happen. But in one of these electric vehicles, you gotta go out and get a new battery. Every battery’s only got so many charge cycles in them before they start deteriorating. They never tell you that.

Anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yep, time, time to take another break. I just got one more series of thoughts I want to share with you. And, yes, the Rudy-Ukraine story, we’re gonna get into that. Whatever this Rudy-Ukraine story is about, it’s not about Rudy and Ukraine investigating Biden. It has nothing to do with it. The media’s trying to make you think it’s all about that. They’re trying to discredit this whole Biden, Hunter Biden Ukraine thing with this story, but the two have nothing to do with each other

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The William F. Buckley Prize Is an Award I’m Unable to Reject

Oct 10, 2019



RUSH: My friends, I do not accept, as a general rule, offers of awards. I’ve always had a problem accepting awards. I don’t really know all the reasons why. They just seem in many cases — well, I can’t count the number of times I’ve been offered an award, but that I have to show up to get it, which means it’s not really an award. It’s a sales pitch. And then I see all the awards that are handed out.

Do you know how many awards are given to video documentaries that nobody’s ever seen? I mean, I would venture that 80% of the award winners at PBS have never had their products actually seen. They’re rated by some inside group, and the awards are given out for public relations reasons or what have you. So I instinctively reject them, politely, but I instinctively reject them.

But I was told that I had been elected to receive an award recently that I was unable to reject. And it was from the National Review Institute. It is the William F. Buckley Jr. Prize for Leadership and Political Thought. This was an award created shortly — well, not shortly – but sometime after he had passed away. And of course Buckley was one of my inspirations. He was a fundamental individual in helping me to be able to explain what I believed instinctively, helping me to explain it to others.

And it was one of the greatest — you know, I’d spent my life reading columns and books by William F. Buckley and never thought I would ever meet the guy. I mean, it was such a remote possibility, it wasn’t even an objective. I remember even his magazine, National Review, I’d never seen a copy of it, but people talked about it. I remember I once got the courage — I’m in my twenties doing this, to show you how naive — I got the encourage to call the office, National Review in New York, to ask them if I could subscribe.

I thought you had to have a certain level of qualifications to be able to read the thing. And, “Of course you may,” like easy as pie. So I subscribed, began reading it, and it just inspired me even more. And then after I got to New York in 1988, a year and a half, two years later I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Buckley and we actually became very good friends. And it’s just one of those things in life you never expect to happen to you that did in my case.

I’ve had a very close relationship with all the people on the editorial side at National Review, even before I met any of them, even before I met Mr. Buckley. So they called and they said, “We’re having our annual dinner in October, and in fact it’s where you live, it’s in Palm Beach at The Breakers, and we would like to give you this year’s edition of the William F. Buckley Jr. Prize for Leadership and Political Thought.”

I did stop to think about it. I mean, I did not instinctively say yes. I did have to think about it ’cause once you say yes to one then you’ve kind of set a precedent. It’s harder to say no to any others that come forward.

Now, previous winners — this is another reason why I was inspired to accept this — Charles Krauthammer has received this award. Victor Davis Hanson has received it. George Shultz, the former secretary of state for Ronaldus Magnus. The esteemed author Tom Wolfe and Ed Feulner, who was really the engine and the intellectual heft behind the Heritage Foundation at the time this program started in 1988, ’90, and so forth.

So this is pretty august, exclusive air here that I’ve been asked to share and breathe. So I happily accepted it. And a good friend of mine, Gaye Gaines, who has been tireless in working for the advancement of conservative — she ran GOPAC for Mr. Newt, for example, for many, many moons. In fact, she asked me to come speak to GOPAC one Sunday during the football season. “You know I don’t do this. I don’t leave the TV on Sunday. The Cowboys and 49ers, I’m not gonna miss that game.”

So she put a TV up in the greenroom for me and scheduled the time of the speech where I could do it at halftime and then leave after the speech and go back and watch the rest. That was the speech where I told people that I got my mom a new can opener because of budget cuts for Social Security and so forth. My mom wasn’t gonna starve. I went out and got her a new can opener to open the dog food. And Pat Schroeder went to the floor of the House next day (imitating Schroeder), “Boy, is that not — he just admitted it, the big kahuna, his own mother is going to eat dog food, and his contribution is a new can opener.”

And somebody pulled her aside, said, “Look, that was a joke.” So she tried to slither out of it. But it was that event. It’s a black tie affair. That would be another reason for me to say no. I do not wear closed colars anymore. See, I am making immense sacrifices and changes to do this.

Hey, when you get to my age at this stage you don’t have to do what you don’t — In fact, I guarantee you, if I showed up with an open collar they wouldn’t kick me out, I guarantee. But I will have more respect for the event than to do that. It’s October 30th. It’s at The Breakers here in Palm Beach. They’ve got website link for it at National Review and we’ll share that at RushLimbaugh.com.