Why I Think It Was Worth It to Reach Out to The Breakfast Club

RUSH: Okay, folks, I have to tell you something that happened yesterday, and you will hear it at 2 p.m., well, 2:06, 2:07 somewhere when we get the third hour underway. Now, as those of you who have been regularly listening — by the way, latest computer model projections, 50-and-a-half million people in the audience. We have a new record of subscribers at RushLimbaugh.com. So there’s new people tuning in veritably every hour of the program, people listening for the first time, which is a challenge for your host to make sure everything remains in context.

But for those of you new to the program for the first time here today and maybe didn’t hear anything last week, I have been distressed, heartbroken, angry, the full gamut of emotions, as everybody has, over the treatment of George Floyd and the video that we’ve all seen, the senselessness of it. And that doesn’t even get to a proper characterization of it. You know, I make a big deal of the fact how precious life is and that most of us take it for granted because we’re not even aware of when it happens to us. We’re born but we can’t possibly remember it. And our life is what it is. And much of it is filled with challenges.

We run the gamut emotionally — happiness, unhappiness, sadness, fear. So this thing that we have, a life, it becomes a totally consuming thing. And very few people have the time to actually stop and consider how literally precious it is, how special being alive is. And then when you add to that how, in my estimation, fortunate we all are to live in the United States of America, the first country to enshrine in founding documents the primacy of life, the primacy of people over the state, and the fact that we do not in this country, when things are working right, we do not deprive people of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness without dupes.

And poor George Floyd, it’s been said that he lost his life. He didn’t lose his life. It was taken from him. He was murdered for no possible explicable, justifiable reason. It was just sickening, sickening to watch, sickening to see. And you look at the face of the cop involved in the video and the three who stood around and weren’t doing anything. And you just wonder, how stupid can you be, do you not realize what you’re doing? I’m not even sure it was racial with this cop. It might have been, but it could have been just some sort of a power trip. You know, people had their iPhone cameras pointed at him and he’s looking back at them with almost a dare on his face.

But knowing that our country is in all kinds of hurt right now, 40 million people were thrown out of their jobs, their livelihoods, many of them owners of businesses now destroyed, it’s just stupid, senseless — for me it was — it’s not correct to call it a last straw. But it just got me, folks, because we all only get this one life. You can’t get it back. You don’t get a do-over. You get a do-over for some mistakes that you might make, but you don’t get a second life. Only one person has conquered death, Jesus Christ. Nobody else. You have to make the most of it.

And the sanctity of life is something that, to me, is the most special thing about God’s universe. And to just see poor George Floyd’s life snuffed out and he’s suffering at the time it was going on. So I decided, just to close the loop on this story, I decided I wanted to do something I haven’t done, and that’s reach out and cross over and actually talk to people who are intrinsically going to disagree with me about 99% of everything on race matters, political matters and so forth.

You know, I’m the guy who has chastised Republicans for going on all these shows like Meet the Press. “What are you guys doing? What do you think is gonna happen? You’re not gonna be respected. You’re gonna be set up. Why do you keep doing it?” I’m the guy, I know, who said that. But I asked around over the weekend, “Look, if I want to reach the African-American community, if I want to go out and have a chance at having a conversation explaining my point of view and hearing theirs, who should I talk to?”

They kept coming back to me, “You need to see if you could talk to the people on The Breakfast Club,” which is a morning drive talk show in New York City. They’re syndicated I think on 60 stations, it may be 90. This is the show Biden was recently on. Charlamagne tha God is one of the people, Angela Yee and DJ Envy. So we reached out and they agreed to do it. And we taped it yesterday afternoon right here at the EIB Southern Command at 3 p.m. It’s 30 minutes by the time — well, with breaks and everything, it’s gonna run about 40 minutes, but the actual content is like 27 minutes. And, you know, I know full well, race relations, police inequality, gigantic topics, and they can’t be handled in one conversation. Nothing can be solved in one conversation.

I know that our fundamental values and the majority of what we believe in this audience can’t be completely conveyed in one conversation or a few minutes, especially when operating and trying to plow through preconceived notions, misconceptions, and so forth. But I wanted to speak to the people on The Breakfast Club because I thought it would be an interesting challenge.

I thought it might pay off. It might be beneficial. It’s like my troop visit to Afghanistan in the early 2000s. I wanted to do it simply because I wanted to express my love and admiration and support for the military. And I got friendly fire, enemy fire. I faced all kinds of people in that tour. But it was worth doing from my standpoint. I didn’t…

You know, I had some misconceptions or preconceptions of my own of how this would go. But I wanted to make sure. I just wanted to make sure. I don’t want the chance that the African-American community might randomly hear what I think about this. I wanted to actually tell them what I thought and, by extension, that I believe I represent a majority of white Americans as well on this.

There is nobody — nobody — that is okay with what happened to George Floyd. Everybody is mad about it, hurt about it, embarrassed by it, affected in a profoundly emotional way that runs the gamut. And I just wanted to have an entree to these people to be able to tell them this, from the bottom of my heart, ’cause we don’t want this kind of thing happening in this country.

We want the best for everybody. We want everybody in this country who wants to, to be able to access the opportunity that this country almost uniquely alone presents to people. I’m gonna review some things — where were we two months ago, three months ago — as the program unfolds today to show you how dramatically and drastically we have fallen in just three months.

But I have to tell you. I have to be honest. You know when you listen to the program and I have a caller on who’s rude and impolite and is not listening to me and is shouting insults, you know what you do. You send me emails and notes saying, “What the hell, Rush? Get rid of ’em. You don’t need to be talked to that way!” You’re gonna have that reaction today.

“Rush, Rush, Rush, why are you allowing yourself to be treated so rudely?” It was like going on The View in a sense. There were three of them, one of me. There was incoming fire. But, folks, it was great. I enjoyed it. You also have to remember something else. I’m deaf. People forget this because I never talk about it and I make hearing look natural, but I am deaf.

I hear with a cochlear implant, and when three people are talking or two people are talking at the same time, I’m lost. I can’t hear. So we have Dawn in there transcribing what’s said. But oftentimes transcriptions, you know, they’ll run a sentence behind depending on how fast people are speaking. So I didn’t hear half of what everybody will think was me being treated rudely or me being disrespected.

And that’s why, you know, I didn’t react to any of that — and I wouldn’t have anyway. Even if I had heard it, I wouldn’t have. So you’re gonna hear me as I am. You may think I was disrespected; you may not. You may think I was treated rudely; you may not. But it was worth it. These are hugely important topics that we are enmeshed in here in heated times.

And I didn’t expect any agreement. I hoped for some. I hoped that there would be some sliver of commonality — and maybe there was. You’ll have to be the judge when you listen. But I’m gonna keep having these conversations in the days and weeks ahead because this stuff can’t go on, and I don’t expect talk to solve anything.

But, by the same token, I also wanted to make sure that these people in The Breakfast Club — because they were where I was told to go to reach the mass numbers possible. I wanted them to hear from me personally rather than have it constructed by “media watchdogs” who take things out of context and so forth just to stir things up. From that standpoint, it was worth it.

The bottom line, folks, is that I am eager and excited to somehow get across the point of view that there isn’t just one group of bad actors out there that’s responsible for all of this. There are bad actors in every group of human beings, no matter how you group them. There are bad cops; there are bad lawyers; there’s bad doctors; there’s bad politicians; there’s bad radio people.

But it doesn’t mean every single cop is a killer or a racist. It doesn’t mean that every white person is a racist. It doesn’t mean that every Republican is a racist — and those kinds of generalizations tick me off. So the question is: How do you fix this? How do you fix it? Well, you’ll hear their answer to that. You’ll hear what their solution is, the people on The Breakfast Club.

You’ll hear their solution to the current problem — which is just a continuation, in their view, of an ongoing, never-ending problem that began two years ago. But, by the same token, there’s no justification for the rioting and the looting and the destruction of private property — even though blue state governors, blue state mayors are making the case for it.

You know, the thing that continues to amaze me all of this is happening in blue states. Blue states are Democrat-run! That’s supposed to be utopia, right? The Democrats are supposed to fix all these grievances for all of their constituents. And yet after 200 years, 400 years, after 50 years, the same complaints are being uttered — the same grievances and the same unhappiness, and the same reasons for anger.

How did the Democrats get away with not solving anything and then, beyond that, how do they get away with blaming it on people who have very little to do with it? And then how, beyond that, do they avoid being held accountable? Minneapolis is run by Democrat mayors. Minnesota has been Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for who knows how long.

How in the world do Republicans have anything to do with what’s going on there? These are all things that are relevant for discussion. Anyway, I gotta take a brief time-out. That’s coming up at 2 o’clock today. It’s not an interview. It’s a conversation between me, Charlamagne tha God, DJ Envy, and Angela Yee at The Breakfast Club, and I just want to warn you: If my staff is any indication, you are going to be mad at certain aspects of it.

But try to be bigger. Try to overcome it. Try to rise up, ladies and gentlemen, and hear what really happened.

RUSH: A minor correction. I misspoke. It’s DJ Envy, not Dr. Envy. I simply got that wrong. It’s Charlamagne tha God, Julie Yee, and DJ Envy. Those are the three… Angela Yee. I’m sorry. Angela Yee. Incorrect name on the woman. Angela Yee, Charlamagne tha God, and DJ Envy.

Now, folks, again it airs at 2 o’clock, and that’s as much as I’m gonna say about it.

That ‘club’ did nothing but complain. ‘Black Pride’? Hardly. More like ‘Crybaby Blacks’.

Give racists what they want, you’re a racist for doing so.

Deny them their moment to complain, you’re racist for doing so.

Give them the most powerful microphone to ever have existed, they called Rush a racist for doing so.

I am glad Rush did this because it showed the racists for who they really are.

I turned them off in less than 5 minutes. It was all about the poor black guys killed by the white cops. What about Branch Davidian? What about Ruby Ridge? Those are the white cops killing white citizens that I remember. Oh yeah, one more, the Aussie woman killed by the black cop in Minneapolis/St Paul. She called the cops and was in her pjs.

Rush,

Now that it's out of your system, go and support a young conservative black urban hip-hop radio host.

Go on Sonnie's Corner with Sonnie Johnson on Sirius XM The Patriot Channel 125. She's on Saturdays from noon to 2:00PM.

-PJ

There were quite a few civilian complaints against this cop during his “illistrious” 17 yr career. Some by Whites. Racist or not he should’ve been dealt with long ago. Many incidents happened under Klobuchar’s watch when she was in the Hennepin County DA’s office. If she did her damn job George Floyd would still be alive.

I love Rush but turned off radio before the nonsense began. There is absolutely no point in having a conversation with these liberals. Someone once said:

"Arguing with liberals...it´s like playing chess with a pigeon; no matter how good I am at chess, the pigeon is just going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board and strut around like it´s victorious."

But like Trump, maybe there is someone in the audience who has never heard his perspective before and finds it sensible, or at least worth considering. Not the hosts, obviously, but perhaps some audience members — and they have a younger demographic, from what I understand.

Maybe he won’t change any minds today or tomorrow, but maybe he planted a seed that will grow into a change of mind.

I’m not so sure that he didn’t change minds. Those who were interested in what Rush had to say won’t ever talk about it, but there may be some who liked what they heard.

Rush knows he is dying. I think he wants to move on with as much grace as possible. To him this was an opportunity for that.

It was pretty obvious to me this was the reason for his doing this. A few years ago he would have had much different commentary on the issue.

“If she did her damn job George Floyd would still be alive.”
—
Yeah, but the cops should have 86ed him long before it landed on her plate. I believe I read where a former boss (at a bar, I think) said he had a temper.

Maybe in the beginning he wasn’t so bad, but once he started to bring problems, it should have been dealt with.

Though I don’t believe any of this would matter re:the riots if Floyd hadn’t died. Antifa and other criminal-minded types live to jump on any excuse to riot and loot, this just happened to be the one they latched onto.

There was something wrong in that dude’s eyes.

I don't know. I can't read people's eyes from a video or a screen capture, and I sure can't read their minds. For all I know the cop could be racist, or he could be a devoted Democrat. All I know for sure is he killed a man who he had taken into custody.

I can’t read people’s eyes from a video or a screen capture, and I sure can’t read their minds.

Not that hard in this case - the video certainly is clear enough and Rush also noted it. It’s a bizarre look, for sure.

For all I know the cop could be racist, or he could be a devoted Democrat.

Or maybe he just snapped or had some ongoing mental issue. So, nope - it doesn’t have to have a racial component at all.

“All I know for sure is he killed a man who he had taken into custody.”

Well, he’s pretty much forfeited his own life, even if he were to be found not guilty. It will always follow him. If he ends up in prison, probably the kindest thing a guard can do is provide him with a length of strong bedsheet and leave him alone for awhile.

I was embarrassed for him while listening to that. Even Rush thinks he has to play this paddy-cake game with them. They need some cold hard truth, not some, ‘oh you poor abused babies’.

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