RUSH: We had a press conference, all of us judges had a press conference yesterday afternoon at one o’clock here, four o’clock Eastern time, with the entertainment media: four people from State-Controlled Associated Press, Las Vegas media, People magazine, all those kind of people. Robin Leach was there in the front row. And toward the end of the press conference one of the female reporters asked me, I’m paraphrasing her question: ‘Do you penalize any contestants — I mean you’re a big conservative — do you penalize any contestants if they have answers which are more liberal on issues than what you believe?’ And I said no. No, no, no, no. We don’t do that. What we’re looking for is people who actually believe what they say and can demonstrate it and can tell us why. We want to make sure that they’re not just saying it because they expect people to think that they should have that attitude or whatever. We’re trying to find women who are poised and actually hold whatever beliefs they hold, but we’re not the opinion police here. We’re judging other things, not what they think, judging how informed they are on whatever issue we ask them about, and issues that they say they’re interested in.
I said, ‘Besides, I’m not looking for Miss Conservative. I’ve already found her.’ And the place erupted in laughter. Now, there’s a YouTube clip of another section of the press conference. Robin Leach, the first night of preliminaries, introduced all the judges individually and we stand up and receive applause and accolades, and mine was particularly huge from the audience. We’re right in front of the stage and as I turned around and faced the audience I see a couple women in the back just waving their arms at me like crazy. So I did my traditional grab my fist and pumped my heart, and Robin Leach said, ‘What was that? Were you having a heart attack? What was that?’ I said, ‘No, no, no, I saw these women shaking their hands at me and waving their arms, that just means I’m the best,’ and that brought the house down. There’s a YouTube clip of that that Cookie found. I don’t know where this press conference is aired in total, I forgot to ask that. But there were a lot of people there, and I suspect at some point parts of it will air.