Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
I don't know, folks.
I don't know.
I'm just not sure that what we're dealing with here is a you're gonna have a dead horse in your bed tomorrow morning kind of threat.
I don't think that's what we did.
I do think I do think the White House are gonna take care of Woodward with a death panel down the road.
That's how they're gonna deal with this.
We'll never know.
We'll never just, Woodward's gonna get sick and a death panel will come in there and that'll be that.
No, no, no.
They're not gonna be a drone with his name on it.
They just do it with a death panel.
They just handle this with a death panel.
Hi, folks.
How are you?
Oh, yes.
It's great to be here.
El Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, the one and only all-caring, all-feeling Maha Rushi, Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882, and the email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
So, you know, you can go either way on this.
And by the way, I do not doubt that the White House has threatened reporters.
I don't doubt that.
And I think one of the probably most prescient things that Woodward said was in explaining, and he thinks he was threatened.
And Lanny Davis is raising his, hey, I was threatened too, and I have poof.
I have poof that I was threatened.
And then Robert B. Rice, shh, is saying if they were threatened, it's outrageous.
And what Woodward said was that he can take it, that he's been around.
He's an old-timer.
He's seen it all.
He's dealt with Nixon.
And that's, by the way, I think what he meant when he said madness that he hasn't seen in a long time.
I think he's comparing Obama to Nixon.
There's no question about it.
He said, look, I can handle it.
They threaten me.
I can hit the young reporters who want access.
Somebody in the White House threatens them.
It can get them to snap right too.
And I totally believe that that's happened.
I'm just not sure that that's what this was.
I've read Sperling's email.
That's the email that contains the, you'll regret this.
And the way I read it, Sperling is telling Woodward, you're going to regret this because you're wrong.
You're going to regret it as a journalist.
But Woodward is taking it as a threat.
So that's how we're going to deal with it.
Well, you'll regret this in Chicago speak means that you're going to have a dead horse bleeding in your bed tomorrow morning or some morning at Chicago Speak.
But Sperling, I don't know.
Look, the conventional wisdom is it's a threat.
That's what everybody's going with.
To me, here's the story.
This is the story to me.
Who is Woodward?
Woodward is the reason that 99% of these so-called journalists got into the business.
And they are throwing him overboard in favor of Obama.
That's the story.
The guy who is the most respected, he is the Walter Cronkite today.
That's if you in the journalist circles.
Woodward is it.
Woodward, Bernstein, at a reasons people, but Woodward primarily, the reason people went into journalism, that in 60 minutes.
Because 60 Minutes, you got to destroy people while on TV.
But Woodward, he destroyed a president.
That's another reason to go into journalism.
And they're throwing him overboard.
I mean, for the most part, drive-bys are siding with Obama.
They're siding with the White House.
That, to me, is the big story out of all this.
So that's the umbrella.
There's a lot of stuff underneath that that we'll get to on today's program.
Other stuff we're going to get to.
Here's a story out of New York.
A 32-year-old Brooklyn man is suing his parents, claiming he wasn't loved enough by them, and that their neglect has caused him to be homeless and jobless.
What are you nodding your head for?
You agree?
It's about time, you think?
Well, bad parenting government needs to take over.
If the government were loving him when he was a kid, this probably wouldn't happen.
At least if he were homeless, he'd be paid for it.
Guess I get it.
Okay, and the National Football League is going to investigate alleged impermissible combine questions by certain teams.
In light of the Manti Teos situation, questions at the NFL scouting combine during player interviews appear to have touched, strange choice of words here, appear to have touched on some subjects that are not supposed to come up in job interviews.
Well, sexual orientation.
Apparently, they're asking prospects, are you heterosexual?
I don't know that they're saying, are you gay?
They're saying, are you heterosexual?
Now, for most of them, that's a question on an IQ test.
You got to know what that word means.
So I don't know what kind of.
I'm sorry.
I mean, I'm in a mood today.
I don't know what kind of reaction that's going to sequester.
We are, what, counting down the hours now.
I'm surprised I don't see a countdown clock at MSNBC.
They'll count down the hours until a press conference.
They'll count down the hours until Obama has dinner.
They'll count down the hours until he'll throw Netanyahu out of the White House.
There's no sequester countdown here anywhere.
There's no sequester countdown at CNN.
They've all been preoccupied, not pre, they've all been occupied with the Pope quitting and flying off to Castel Gandalfo.
Have you seen that place?
It is stunning.
It is absolutely gorgeous, Castel Gandalfo, overlooking the lake there.
It's about 15 miles away from Rome.
I first heard of it in a novel by Robert Ludlam, Road to Gandalfo.
I never heard of it.
So I said, what's this?
And it's the summer residence of the Pope.
And guess what the book was about?
Now, the sequester is going to cut, they're saying $85 billion.
We asking us $22, but we'll go with their $85.
We're going to cut $85 billion this year, right?
Look at this story.
Wall Street Journal today.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, said that the United States is preparing for the first time to directly provide non-lethal assistance to rebel Syrian fighters as part of a bid to change President Bashir al-Assad's calculations and to expedite his removal from office,
meaning we're going to pay freedom fighters in Syria some money to get rid of Bashur Assad.
You know how much?
$60 million.
$60 million in assistance.
Now it's just chump change at $60 million here.
But do you think maybe we could save that $60 million and keep some firemen employed?
Save the way we give $60 million to Syrian freedom fighters here on the eve of the sequester.
I hadn't planned on offering grief counseling services for those hurt by the sequester tomorrow, but I'll be glad to help them through their darkest hours.
And there will be some dark hours starting tomorrow.
You know, speaking of which, grab soundbite number nine.
No, grab soundbite number 10.
I want to take you back to February 19th, nine days ago.
You heard this once, twice.
If you haven't heard it, I want you to hear it again.
It's President Obama at the Eisenhower Executive Office building on February 19th.
Emergency responders, like the ones who are here today, their ability to help communities respond to and recover from disasters will be degraded.
Border Patrol agents will see their hours reduced.
FBI agents will be furloughed.
Federal prosecutors will have to close cases and let criminals go.
Air traffic controllers and airport security will see cutbacks, which means more delays at airports across the country.
Thousands of teachers and educators will be laid off.
Tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care for their kids.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans will lose access to primary care and preventive care like flu vaccinations and cancer screenings.
This is not an abstraction.
People will lose their jobs.
The unemployment rate might tick up again.
That sounds like it's going to be pretty dark out there, folks.
Dark hours, dark days.
All starts tomorrow, right?
That's Obama nine days ago.
Here's Obama last night.
This is not a cliff, but it is a tumble downward.
It's conceivable that in the first week, the first two weeks, first three weeks, first month, a lot of people may not notice the full impact of the sequester.
But this is going to be a big hit on the economy.
They're getting cold feet out there.
They tried to get the Republicans to cave.
They did everything they could to get the Republicans to cave and go along with raising taxes and making some kind of deal.
Now the sequester is going to hit, and guess what?
The president has to go out there and say, you're not even going to notice it the first month.
It's going to happen.
It's going to really kill the economy.
But you're not going to notice for the first week, first two weeks, first three weeks, first month.
A lot of people may not notice the full impact.
May not even notice.
There was no need to release the illegal alien prisoners.
By the way, we find that that decision was made last week, folks.
And they found a fall guy for that who is resigning.
He's not retiring.
He's not resigning for.
They found a fall guy.
So how about this?
How about this?
No big deal.
Nobody's going to even notice it for the first month.
You're not going to notice it at all is the bottom line.
I mean, here it is.
The Republicans, for whatever reason, held firm.
They didn't buckle.
Well, there's still time, though.
They didn't buckle and they didn't cave.
And so the regime, and by the way, it's not just Obama.
The Democrats all over the place are now in a big CYA mode, uttering things similar to what you just heard Obama say.
You're not even going to notice it.
And, of course, the low-information voters, we had the poll yesterday.
Only 25% of the American people are paying attention, so it ain't going to matter anyway.
You and I know, but it's about it.
So we'll take a break.
That's the umbrella.
There's more on this.
Yeah, much more in the sequester, much more in the prison release.
I'm just setting a table here.
We'll take a brief timeout and we'll come back and we'll dig deep, complete with audio sound bites and stuff on this Bob Woodward stuff.
Whether or not he actually was threatened.
Now, keep in mind, I'm not sure that Woodward was actually threatened, but he thinks he was, and that's what counts.
If he was offended, that's all that matters.
We've learned that.
He thinks he was threatened, and that's the key.
And he's telling everybody, Lanny Davis, he has poofed that he was threatened.
And I don't doubt the White House.
I mean, that's how this type of president and regime operates.
I have no doubt they threaten reporters everywhere.
Cheryl Atkinson, do you remember her?
She was the CBS info babe who really dug deep on Fast and Furious.
And she did a report on the air on CBS about how they were yelling at her and screaming at her on the phone for what she was doing.
So there's no doubt that the regime attempts to intimidate reporters.
And there's no doubt that they threaten them.
They don't have to, is the bottom line.
They're throwing Woodward overboard.
The drive-bys are throwing, MSNBC is throwing.
Media Matters for America is throwing Woodward overboard.
That's, I will admit, kind of surprise.
I was waiting for this.
This is what was interesting to me about this since it happened.
On whose side will the drive-bys come down?
Obama or Woodward?
And I actually thought that more people would defend Woodward than are, that they're coming out of the woodwork and ripping him to shreds.
Oh, and one other thing before we go to the break, Woodward, when he said it's been a long time since he's seen this kind of madness, there's no question he's talking about Nixon.
That's his formative experience.
He destroyed the Nixon presidency.
Nixon was mad.
And I just wanted, I just, it's on the cutting edge here, folks.
I want to take you back August 21st, 2009.
This is Obama's first year, basically seventh month in office, seventh or eighth month.
And I offered this comparison to those of you in this audience.
You know, to Obama, the devil is anybody who doesn't blindly follow him.
I think Obama's coming off as two levels below Nixon, even on Nixon's best day.
That's right.
It was I, El Rushbo, who first drew the comparison to Obama and Nixon.
And I think I even did it during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Anyway, let's take our first obscene profit time out of the day.
We'll come back and resume with all the rest of the program before you know it.
And we're back, Rush Limboy and the EIB network.
And I'm having a what's the word?
There's two things that Woodward reported.
And I can't remember one of them.
Two things here that have caused the White House to get upset.
One of them is that Woodward reported that Obama was the one who came up with the idea for the sequester.
But that's not the email.
That's not what Sperling wrote Woodward about.
And darn it, I'm having a mental block here on what it was that Sperling was chastising Woodward for.
There was another aspect to Woodward's reporting about this.
Well, there was something about – Woodward's comment about madness was Obama's refusing to deploy an aircraft carrier, for example, in the Middle East because of a budget document.
And he started comparing other presidents who would certainly not have failed to defend the country, who would not have failed to do their presidential duty because of a budget document.
But I'm having a mental block.
The thing that I think the White House has really ticked about, and this was not what Sperling's email is about, that Obama did not come up with the idea.
Obama's trying to create the impression that the sequester was not his idea, that it was the Republicans' idea.
And the first thing that got this off and running was Woodward writing a column and going on television and reminding everybody sequester was indeed Obama's idea.
And then the idea over who had control of what does get cut during the sequester, and that's also Obama, and Woodward was also pointing that out.
I tried to find it during the break, and I just remembered it.
And the reason I'm doing this, folks, is because a lot of people disagreeing with me here that Woodward actually wasn't threatened.
And it got me to thinking that the Sperling email to Woodward saying, you'll regret reporting this was not about Woodward accusing Obama of being the architect of the sequester.
It was his idea.
There was something else.
It's that I can't remember.
And it's that that makes me think that Sperling was not.
But regardless, Woodward thinks he's being threatened, and we know the regime does.
They're entirely capable of it.
It is how they operate.
They do use intimidation.
They do fear.
I mean, they're trying to scare the American people.
The idea they wouldn't try to fear-monger reporters about access or anything else is ridiculous as well.
So when we get to the break here, I'm going to find out what I'm talking about here.
I don't have these mental blocks very often.
They really frustrate me.
So sit tight.
We'll come back in a moment.
Okay, I found what I was looking for.
Everybody, I think, I shouldn't say everybody.
I think a lot of people are laboring under a misunderstanding.
I think that people think that the White House threatened Woodward because Woodward was writing that the sequester was Obama's idea.
That's not what they were threatening him about.
What they were threatening him for was Sperling said that Woodward was going to regret writing that the president was trying to move the goalposts by trying to replace the sequester with a mix of tax increases and spending cuts instead of solely spending cuts.
So Sperling to Woodward, you're going to regret writing that, meaning you're going to regret saying that the president was trying to move the goalposts, otherwise change the deal so that no deal could be reached.
And by the way, Obama does do that.
If you recall the fiscal cliff, Boehner, in a moment of frustration, gave Obama everything he wanted on the so-called revenue tax increase side, and Obama refused it because he didn't want a deal.
He never, there can't be a deal.
There can't be any common ground because that would require Obama putting his name to something.
Obama can never be seen governing.
None of this that happens can ever be seen to be happening because Obama did something or agreed to something.
Everything must happen because somebody else is doing it.
In this case, the Republicans.
And that's why I've always said there is no common ground.
There is no way for the two sides to come together.
Bipartisanship is impossible because two reasons.
The two sides don't agree on anything.
But secondly, Obama doesn't want an agreement.
And he didn't want an agreement on the sequester.
So Woodward is writing that Obama is moving the goalposts.
Essentially saying what I just said, that Obama doesn't want a deal.
He's moving the goalposts.
And that's what Sperling was reacting to.
Now, and that's what Woodward thinks that he was threatened over.
But don't forget also that it was Woodward who wrote and was on television saying that the sequester was Obama's idea.
So there are two things going on here.
Now, the White House now claiming the notes suggested that Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more.
And Woodward responded to the aid's email in a friendly manner.
And this is exactly what Obama did with the grand bargain during the fiscal cliff.
So I just talked about.
Basically, Obama gives Obama, or Boehner gives Obama everything he wants, and Obama says, nope, not enough.
And then asks for more, making a deal impossible.
So there are two things that are working here.
And the bottom line of this is that whether I think the White House was threatening Woodward or not is irrelevant.
He does.
And they yelled at Woodward.
There was a 30-minute shout session after the email was sent.
Maybe it was before it was sent.
Let's go to the audio tape and let's actually listen to Woodward on this.
It's last night's CNN Situation Room.
He's on with Wolf Blitzer.
And Blitzer conflicted.
All these media guys are conflicted.
They love Woodward.
Woodward is God.
Woodward's their idol.
But Obama's the creator.
Who do they side with?
They can't believe that Woodward is actually not helping Obama here.
So Blitzer says, you're used to this kind of stuff, being threatened by presidents and stuff.
But share with our viewers what's going on between you and the White House, Bob.
Well, they're not happy at all.
And some people kind of, you know, said, look, we don't see eye to eye on this.
They never really said, though, afterwards, they've said that this is factually wrong.
And it was said to me in an email by a top president.
It was said very clearly, you will regret doing this.
Who sent that email?
Well, I'm not going to say.
I mean, a very senior person.
We now know it was Gene Sperling, who's an economic advisor, been around with Clinton.
He's been around a long time now with Obama.
It was Gene Sperling, and the email said that you are going to regret doing this.
And again, that is in reference to Woodward reporting that Obama was moving the goalposts, thereby preventing a deal from being made.
Blitzer said, well, you're used to this kind of stuff, but share with our viewers.
Wait a second.
Well, I forget.
Woodward's next question, or Blitzer's next question was asking Woodward to expand on what he had just said.
It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters you're going to regret doing something that you believe in.
And even though we don't look at it that way, you do look at it that way.
And I think if Barack Obama knew that was part of the communications strategy, let's hope it's not a strategy, that it's a tactic that somebody's employed.
Say, look, we don't go around trying to say to reporters, if you, in an honest way, present something we don't like, that you're going to regret this.
It's Mickey Mouse.
Well, you notice Woodward saying, I think if Obama knew that this was going on.
So Woodward himself is throwing up a little cloak of defense there.
He's accusing the regime of threatening him, but not Obama.
Obama doesn't even know.
And if Obama knew, I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate this.
That's Woodward.
I think that's a tantamount admission.
Woodward's scared.
That's why I think he thinks he feels threatened.
Because he's absolving Obama of any role in this.
And folks, I hope by now, now we've had all these.
How does a guy like Van Jones end up in that administration?
How does Obama get fooled with a guy like he's not fooled?
He picked Van Jones.
I'm telling you, everybody in this administration, Obama knows them.
He wants them doing what they're doing.
The idea that Obama doesn't know, here's the way to put this, Obama issues the orders.
Obama is the teacher.
Obama tells these people and shows them how to deal with these reporters.
The idea that in this man's administration, we have so many freelancers that are operating off the grid or outside proper boundaries is ridiculous.
We don't have that.
Obama's not the kind of guy that's going to tolerate freelancers like this.
He's not going to tolerate people off the reservation issuing their own threats unless, well, they're just not going to do it unless they know that he's entirely comfortable with it.
Of course, he's, there's no question he's the head of the family, if you want to put it that way.
There's no, there's, look at this administration is a reflection of Obama.
It's not a bunch of renegades who are acting without Obama's knowledge.
He is not one of these distant, unattached chief executives.
Not when it comes to the media.
I think what we have here is plausible deniability.
Won't, you know, Richard Daly didn't personally have to issue threats.
His lackeys did it, but they all knew where it was coming from.
And I think I don't want to put words in Bob Woodward's mouth, but I think this business, I think, of Obama knew that this was part of the strategy.
Let's hope it's not a strategy.
It's a tactic.
See, Woodward later on expresses fear for how this would work on a younger reporter, not him.
You see, he'd been around a long time.
Woodward, he's seen it all.
He's dealt with these kinds of people, he said.
But you get some young whipper snapper in there, they will be frightened of such threats from high-ranking regime officials, and they can be kept in line.
The bottom line is that I don't think they have to crack the whip.
And the fact that so many people in the left and on the media and outside the media, on the left, are throwing Woodward overboard is a tantamount admission.
And by the way, Obama's from Chicago.
This is the Daily Way.
I mean, this is, as they said in the movie The Untouchables, the Chicago Way.
This is it.
But the fact that Woodward acknowledged, well, if Obama knew about this, I don't think he would like this at all.
That says a lot to me.
And Lanny Davis, this morning on our blowtorch affiliate, the nation's capital, WMAL, the radio program Mornings on the Mall.
I talked to Lanny Davis, the lawyer that was on TV during the Clinton years, defending him to the hilt during the Lewinsky scandal.
That exact thing happened to me when I had my column in the Washington Times with the editor, John Solomon, received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns.
Even though I'm a supporter of Obama, I couldn't imagine why this call was made.
And he did threaten that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials.
Well, that's not unique.
Other regimes have threatened reporters with the loss of credentials.
What is of note here is to the extent that any low-information people are paying attention, this has to come as a surprise to them.
I don't think they see Obama this way at all.
And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe they do and they like it.
Maybe the low-information voters look at Obama as a king, want him to act like a king, want him to be able to make anything happen with a signature.
In fact, they probably do.
Many of the low-information people had voted for Obama.
So Brian Wilson of WMAL said, Lammy, we're going to take away your White House press credentials.
That threat was actually made to you.
I called three senior people at the White House and one of them outside the White House, who was close to the White House, and I said, I want this person to be told this can never happen again.
It's inappropriate.
I got a call back from someone who was in the White House saying it will never happen again.
First of all, you don't threaten anyone.
Secondly, you don't threaten Bob Woodward.
He's one of the best reporters ever.
He's factual.
You can disagree with facts that he reports, but he's factual.
Don't mess with him about his facts.
You can mess with him about the interpretation of his facts.
But this is not a reporter you tangle with.
See what I mean?
He's infallible.
Woodward is infallible, and the reporters are throwing him overboard.
The reporters, as he said.
Woodward calls them reporters.
The reporters are being thrown overboard here.
They're throwing Woodward overboard.
But he's infallible.
You just heard Landy Davis.
You can challenge his facts, but he's factual.
All you can do, you can challenge the interpretation of his facts, but you don't threaten Bob Woodward.
Well, the White House did threaten Woodward, and the rest of the media is siding with the White House.
Now, last night on CNN's Erin Burnett Outfront, she spoke with the former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich about all of this.
And she said, that's impressive.
You'll regret doing this from someone in the White House?
Well, I think that's pretty outrageous if that came from somebody in the White House.
That's pretty outrageous, says former Labor Secretary Reich.
I'm pretty outrageous if that happens.
Wow.
Well, it'll be longer to pronounce his name than hear his soundbite.
The reason, for those of you new to the program, I'm not making fun of the former labor secretary.
He used to have commentary on the nightly McNeil Larrow News Hour.
And at the end of his commentary, he would always sign off by saying, I am Robert B. Reich as a signature way of having.
So I just, as all good impersonators do, exaggerate the signature item, and that's why we pronounce it that way.
Got to take a break.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
By the way, David Rodham Gergen, CNN, agrees with Woodward.
He can't believe what Obama's doing here.
David Rodham Gergen, we got the sound bites coming up, actually thinks Obama is harming the country.
The way he has been dealing with this sequester, and don't forget now, Obama is now saying that nobody's going to notice the sequester for the first month after all of the fear-mongering and after all the threats and all the dire predictions.
Now that we're one day away and now that it isn't much of anything at all, Obama's got to come out.
Hey, by the way, you're not going to notice it first week, two weeks, three, maybe first month.
You won't notice anything.
Here is Lou in Verde in Nevada.
Great to have you as you're up first today.
Hello.
Good morning, Rush, and thank you very much.
And to get right to the point, I think that anyone who lived in California in 1978 can put the sequester in perspective.
That's the year that the Proposition 13 was on the ballot to freeze property taxes.
Yeah, that's right.
At the time, I was in law enforcement in L.A. County, and we were bombarded with tales of massive layoffs, substation closures, and the end of life as we know it.
In briefings, we were told to tell everyone we knew or had contact with that Prop 13 passing would put everyone's safety at risk.
Yep, I remember.
It was the same for the fire department.
We were actually told that the county had leased land in the desert to store fire equipment that would be removed from service with fire station closures.
Stop and think of that.
Stop just thinking.
Wait a minute.
Now, just think of it.
Because he's right.
Prop 13, property tax freeze, California, 1978, the same threats.
And so the fire department got to move the equipment to the desert because they have to shut down the fire station.
It was absurd then and it's absurd now.
Yes, sir, it certainly is.
And you know something?
It passed.
Life got better.
And it was not the end of the world.
It was a much better world.
Well, there's no question.
But you know, that prop tax, Prop 13, still to this day agitates the left.
To this day, well, they've repealed some of it, but for the longest time, they were blaming everything that was going wrong in California in Prop 13.
But he's right.
The same stuff was predicted in California.
That state was going to basically have to shut down.
And it actually improved a whole lot of economic circumstances.
Freezing property taxes, it improved the quality of life in California for millions of people for quite a while.
So, Lou, I appreciate the call.
I'm glad for that reminder.
David Pluff, Obama campaign aide, tweeted the following about Woodward.
Watching Woodward the last two days is like imagining my idol Mike Schmidt of the Phillies facing live pitching again.
Perfection gained once is rarely repeated.
That's the regime's guy basically saying Woodward is old.
He's over the hill.
He's never going to be great again.
That's a slice and dice, folks.
Okay, there's still more to discuss in the Woodward business, but also the release of illegal alien prisoners.
It turns out there's much more to this than we even knew yesterday.