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I went in there every night practically after Rush Limbaugh, The Television Show. Half the audience was in there. And Sal is one of these people, Patsy\u2019s has been affected by Broadway being shut down, by a number of other things. The whole restaurant industry in New York, the hot dog carts. You know, Lincoln Center, the museums, shut down \u2019til next spring. You can\u2019t find a hot dog cart anywhere. They\u2019re gone. Are they ever coming back? Probably not. This is major, major stuff here.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been trying to warn people about it for months. And Governor Cuomo has ignored me until recently, and the mayor, even if I was talking to him face-to-face he still wouldn\u2019t get it. So I got this email from Sal, who said, “Boy, it\u2019s so great to listen to your show. You\u2019re so upbeat, it makes me feel better.”<\/p>\n
And while that was nice, I began to ask myself a question. Does Sal Scognamillo have anything to be upbeat about? His restaurant business, his pre-theater business, they\u2019ve set up some tables on the sidewalk, but they can\u2019t open because of COVID-19. They can\u2019t do any business inside. So I was asking myself all day yesterday, have I done the wrong thing by being upbeat? Look, it\u2019s my natural tendency, don\u2019t misunderstand. And I\u2019m a preternaturally optimistic person.<\/p>\n
But have I been preternaturally optimistic at the expense of dealing with the reality that a lot of people find themselves in? It can\u2019t be easy for Sal Scognamillo and millions, or thousands of other restaurateurs like him in New York and in Chicago. You know, wherever Democrats are running the show, folks, it is an absolute nightmare.<\/p>\n
So I\u2019m asking myself, have I — not let people down, but have I not shot straight with people on the circumstances that they find themselves? Don\u2019t misunderstand. I mean, I was very flattered to get Sal\u2019s reaction to the program. But he talked about how uplifting the experience was because there\u2019s so much despair out there. And it got me to thinking, am I making a mistake by not focusing on the hardships that people are experiencing? In other words, does it sound, has it sounded like I\u2019m out of touch?<\/p>\n
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Now, I don\u2019t think so. I mean, I\u2019ve not been falsely attached to a reality that doesn\u2019t exist. I mean, I haven\u2019t done that, but still, it\u2019s a question I was asking myself yesterday and last night. Now, I know the immediate reaction. “No, no, Rush, you gotta say upbeat. People need inspiration right now.” But what if inspiration doesn\u2019t quite get the job done?<\/p>\n
What if, for example, Sal and other restaurateurs like him, what if he\u2019s never gonna be able to return to his business the way it was. And if that\u2019s the case, how long can he hold out? Next spring? Broadway shows next spring? We\u2019re not even into the fall yet. That won\u2019t happen \u2019til September 21st. So it got me to thinking about all of the different changes that I have warned people about that New York City is undergoing right now.<\/p>\n
And I don\u2019t think whole lot of people have actually — because they\u2019d rather stay upbeat, “We\u2019re gonna beat this thing, we\u2019re gonna beat this virus back, we\u2019re gonna return.” Everybody wants to return to normal, as do I. There is nobody that wants to return to normal more than I do. And nobody wants to return to normal more for other people than I do.<\/p>\n
So I have been thinking about this, and this was gonna be what I was going to lead the program off with. Now, it turns out I have led the program with it, but now I\u2019m gonna put it off to the side and come back to it. All of the things in New York that have changed and maybe forever. For example, do you know how many college students are there in New York on a weekly basis?<\/p>\n
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How many college students? (interruption) It\u2019s 600,000 — 600,000 college students who are not there. They\u2019re doing remote learning. Now, just think of the ancillary impact of 600,000 students just not there. Buildings not open, education not happening, teachers not doing whatever they\u2019re doing. And that\u2019s just one tiny little slice of the eight million or so people the city swells to during your average workday — 600,000.<\/p>\n
So, education. What\u2019s gonna become of education in New York? Are those universities ever gonna open up again? You might say, “Oh, yeah, Rush. At some point we\u2019re gonna have a vaccine. We\u2019re gonna have therapeutics. We\u2019re gonna…” Well, you would think so. But the longer this goes, the more people are going to adapt to how they\u2019re getting things done now.<\/p>\n
And the longer it goes and the longer it takes to adapt, the tougher it\u2019s gonna be to change and go back to what was because people are going to adapt. This is what human beings do. We\u2019re adaptable, and we are going to find ways to adapt to the things we can\u2019t do because we want to do them. So we\u2019re gonna find ways to get them done, and those ways are gonna be the ones that pass the test of time and experience.<\/p>\n
And then one day, magically we\u2019re gonna be told, “Okay. Virus is beat! Virus vaccine! Virus therapeutics,” maybe. “We can now go back to the way it was.” It just isn\u2019t gonna be like throwing a switch and everybody going back. Because, folks, now people have learned that you don\u2019t need to spend $4,000 for one half of a closet to live in in New York. You can live in your hometown of 20,000 people and have a huge place for half of what it was costing you in New York.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to be in New York. The business owners don\u2019t have to rent all the commercial real estate to house you and give you a place to work, \u2019cause you ain\u2019t gonna be there anyway — and then what happens to all the restaurants that depend on that and all of the bodegas and all of the cultural centers that exist because they\u2019re populated by people, various pockets of the city.<\/p>\n
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I think Cuomo is just starting to get an idea of the dramatic and major impact of all this. But I want to run through it by subject or by area — like education, food, restaurants, culture, any number of ways that this is gonna have an impact. And some of the change may end up being good. I don\u2019t want to be misunderstood. Change happens all the time. Change is constant.<\/p>\n
Even when you don\u2019t think things are changing, they\u2019re going to if they haven\u2019t, and people adapt. Especially the ones who are flexible and open to it adapt first and sooner than others do. You\u2019ve got some other people that resist the change, \u2019cause they were dialed in and they had it made. They had it figured out, and that\u2019s what they want to go back to.<\/p>\n
And they may not be able to. So, are they gonna be able to adapt? And this is true of Silicon Valley by the same token. You know, Apple just finished building a gazillion-dollar, spaceship-type building, and they earned a profit during their second quarter during a pandemic with nobody in the building! They don\u2019t have to ever send people back if they don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n
Now, they obviously will at some point send some back. But there any number of things that took place before the pandemic hit that we are learning were not necessary. We were spending money out the wazoo because we had it. The United States is an economic super engine, and it was creating wealth in ways that people… This is what so frustrates me about listening to Democrats now.<\/p>\n
They haven\u2019t any concept of the wealth that this country creates when it\u2019s devoted to capitalism. Instead of that, we turn it over to Black Lives Matter and Antifa and so forth. We were creating and producing so much wealth that we were able to extract huge sums of money from people for their education, for their rent. If they wanted to purchase something, we were able to extract that money from them.<\/p>\n
We might have called it student loans, we might call it FHA loans, but we were still able to get the money from \u2019em. By “we,” I mean, the culture, the society was able to extract. But now people have learned, or in the process of learning, that it really doesn\u2019t cost as much as they were spending for a lot of things.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: This Aberdeen, South Dakota, and Ryan. Great to have you, sir. Thank you for waiting. I appreciate it.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Thank you for taking my call, Rush. Mega dittos.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Suffice to say I\u2019m about as far from either coast as you can be, and I grew up here, so I\u2019ve never lived in New York or LA and I think maybe that\u2019s why I might have a little bit of a unique cynical take on what\u2019s going on over there. I think that what you\u2019re witnessing in New York City is nothing short of a desperation move that\u2019s been going on for months, of Democrats to try to weaponize the economy against Trump. They\u2019re willing to torch what had been considered major cultural and culinary centers in order to find something to blame on him, blame him on. It\u2019s not working. I think the polls that are out today are evident that it\u2019s not working for them.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-042020-Covid-b.jpg\")
RUSH: Well, I think there\u2019s evidence for that. Again, I don\u2019t disagree. My point was not why they are doing what they\u2019re doing in New York and Los Angeles. My point was what they are destroying that they may not know, that they may not see. You\u2019re right. The reason they\u2019re doing this, the reason that they are staying locked down and shut down is because it\u2019s the easiest thing they think they can do to keep the economy from recovering.<\/p>\n
New York and California, the two big states, are needed for an economic recovery. And if they stay locked down, essentially, if nothing\u2019s open, then the massive economic growth that Trump is promising may not happen, although I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s gonna either happen for the Democrats.<\/p>\n
No. My point about this is whatever is the motivation, they don\u2019t have the slightest idea — they may just now be starting to get an inkling of the snowball from hell they have put in motion. You know, since these are a bunch of liberal Democrats who hate capitalism and thus don\u2019t really understand it — and don\u2019t dispute me on this — and because of their self-aggrandizement of their own political talents and abilities, they think they can turn an economy on by flipping a switch whenever they need to just by having government do something.<\/p>\n
They believe that government is magic, can turn on economic activity like that. They\u2019re gonna find out they can\u2019t. And I don\u2019t believe that they had the slightest idea the massive cultural, political, and economic changes they were ushering in. It is those changes that I am going to mention, expand on, put into perspective for people, because it is destroying — New York City is being changed forever in a bunch of key ways that I don\u2019t think Andrew Cuomo yet realizes.<\/p>\n
Now, he does realize that too many rich people who moved out may not be coming back, so he\u2019s trying to beg them, entice them to come back and bring their tax revenue with them. But he\u2019s still mostly joking about it rather than dealing with it seriously. But it is a devastating series of things that — you\u2019re right. The purpose of this is to deny Trump any good news, to deny the country an economic recovery. That\u2019s the sole reason for this.<\/p>\n
They forced his SUV off the road and to crash, and he was livid. He got out of the car, started pointing fingers at \u2019em, what the hell, and they just knocked the guy unconscious and came close to killing him. Shouting at him, calling him vulgar names. He\u2019s a white guy. Everybody else in the picture\u2019s black. And they hope that Trump is gonna end up being blamed for all of this.<\/p>\n And these mayors and governors are allowing this to happen in their states and in their cities precisely because it\u2019s part of what they think is the equation of defeating Trump.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, let me get back to what I originally was gonna start the program with today. One of my good friends, Sal Scognamillo, is the chef at Patsy\u2019s in New York on 56th between 8th and Broadway. Great family, the Scognamillo family. They\u2019ve run Patsy\u2019s for 50 plus years, maybe longer now. I used to go there after Rush the TV Show three nights a week, the audience, half the studio audience went there. They were just fine, fine people.<\/p>\n And Sal wrote an email recently to me. You know, he\u2019s like everybody else. Sal Scognamillo, Patsy\u2019s, had a very, very successful pre-theater dinner business. A lot of New York restaurants do. You know, the theater kicks off at 7, curtain goes up, 7, 7:30, people don\u2019t want to wait \u2019til 10 o\u2019clock to eat, especially out-of-towners, so they go to restaurants that are serving class, quality, five-star meals, they go at 5 in the afternoon so that they can take their time and have a really nice meal and still get to the Broadway show they\u2019re going to with plenty of time.<\/p>\n And a lot of New York restaurants made a lot of their daily nut catering to that crowd. Well, Broadway has been shut down since the city and since the country was locked down. And the people that run the show say it\u2019s not opening, Broadway is not opening until the spring of 2021 at the earliest. So these people in the restaurant business, it\u2019s just them. They\u2019ve got nothing. They can\u2019t serve dinner anyway because the city is still locked down.<\/p>\n They\u2019ve set up, you know, a few tables on the sidewalk outside, but it doesn\u2019t come close to replicating the actual capacity of the restaurant. Anyway, so Sal sends me this note thanking me for being so uplifting, talking about how uplifting the experience of listening to my show is because there\u2019s so much despair out there.<\/p>\n And it got me to thinking. The despair is real. The despair is genuine. And I asked myself, am I making a mistake by not focusing on the hardships that they are all experiencing and facing? Which led me to ask, am I sounding like I\u2019m out of touch? And, you know, it\u2019s not hard to do that, if people are in the midst of despair and I\u2019m sounding all up and happy and optimistic, it may be tough for people to relate to.<\/p>\n See, I don\u2019t have a business like theirs. The COVID-19 lockdowns and shutdowns haven\u2019t affected my business. I\u2019m aware of all the businesses that are affected. The restaurant business, but there are countless others. So what if all this upbeat inspiration from me is missing the boat? What if, for example, Sal is not gonna be able to return to his business model because the business model is going to have to change? I mean, if his business model depends on the pre-theater crowd, and he\u2019s already being told spring, what does that mean?<\/p>\n Spring runs from March to June. If he\u2019s already being told spring at the earliest, that means he\u2019s looking at six months before he can start recouping any of that business. Is New York City, is Los Angeles, Chicago, any of these places, are they ever gonna resemble the recent past? I have warned about this very real possibility countless times.<\/p>\n So I ran across a story — this is what reminded me of Sal Scognamillo\u2019s email. I ran across a story that was reprint from a guy who does a podcast. His name is James Altucher, and I have no idea if I\u2019m pronouncing it right. It\u2019s A-l-t-u-c-h-e-r. And he\u2019s the founder of The James Altucher Show podcast<\/a>. And he\u2019s got a story here, I printed it out, five pages, “NYC Is Dead Forever. Here\u2019s Why.”<\/p>\n And he goes through the various categories he uses to make a these assertions — business, culture, food, commercial real estate, colleges, and education in general. And it\u2019s hard to disagree with.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, there is one reason — and are there many reasons — but there\u2019s a big reason why cities like New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago don\u2019t have much of a prayer of rebounding. And it\u2019s bandwidth, folks. Bandwidth. The cheapness of high-speed internet. This is what enables people to not have to be in these cities. This is what enables people to live where rent is reasonable, a smaller town, safer town.<\/p>\n It enables businesses to let you work remotely without having to go out and pay exorbitant rent for an office tower or a floor or two in an office tower. And since that happens, what\u2019s the next shortage that New York City and other places are gonna have? Why, it\u2019s people. You need, for New York to recapture what it was — and Cuomo, they\u2019ve already blown this in their zeal to do damage to Donald Trump, in their zeal to do damage to the American economy, they have thus rendered it sensible and reasonable to not return to the city.<\/p>\n It\u2019s stunning. And that\u2019s why this change that these people are affecting is going to be likely permanent. Bandwidth. The ability to furnish high-speed connectivity at really affordable prices. That is what enables everybody to not have to live in these cities and do the work, same work they were doing when they did live there.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Now, folks, I wasn\u2019t gonna read this whole five-page story to you — and, even if I was, I don\u2019t have time to do it now. But we\u2019re gonna link to it at RushLimbaugh.com. You really need to read it — and not all of it, but you need to get some idea of it, because it really is… The reason it caught my attention is it\u2019s exactly… You know what this is? It\u2019s exactly what I was saying about all this without the emotion.<\/p>\n This guy has plenty of emotion in the story \u2019cause he loves New York. He is a New Yorker, an entrepreneur, an angel investor. He owns 17 companies, or started 17 companies — no, 20 companies; 17 have failed. One of them is a comedy club that he opened. He\u2019s written a best-selling book. He loves New York but has left. He lives in South Florida, and he thinks, whereas New York recovered from the financial crisis of \u201908, and recovered from 9\/11, recovered from the financial crisis of the seventies, that it\u2019s finished.<\/p>\n New York is finished now. Now, he doesn\u2019t say it\u2019s bandwidth, but, as you read it, bandwidth is one of the central reasons why. It enables people to work there without being there — and, if they\u2019re working there without being there, there\u2019s nothing they\u2019re doing there. They\u2019re not eating there. They\u2019re not using cabs. They\u2019re not spending any money there at all.<\/p>\n They don\u2019t live there. They don\u2019t patronize anything. They\u2019re probably gonna be happier. They\u2019re gonna be paying smaller taxes, any number of things. The culture isn\u2019t gonna be the same because the people aren\u2019t gonna be there. So let me give you just a couple of pull quotes to give you an idea. “Now [New York City]\u2019s completely dead<\/a>. ‘But NYC always, always bounces back.\u2019 No. Not this time. ‘But NYC is the center of the financial universe. Opportunities will flourish here again.\u2019<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/APP-NY-Post-TEARAWAY-081720.jpg\")
<\/a>The reason they\u2019re letting Black Lives Matter riot in Seattle and Portland, the reason they\u2019re letting Antifa riot is to make sure that they\u2019re given all that chaos to televise to blame on Donald Trump. People are being knocked conscientious, being beat up and Tasered by Antifa and Black Lives Matter. I saw a videotape of a guy getting stomped in the head and knocked unconscious — I think it was in Seattle. He looked like he was in a Ford Bronco.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/APP-081720-Patsys-1.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/APP-052720-Cuomo-Mask.jpg\")
And without the people, without the eight million bustling citizens coming into that town every day using mass transit, paying the taxes, without the people engaging in the daily effort to get into the city, to live in the city, to work in the city, to eat in the city, then to get out of the city at the end of the day, without that the cities have no prayer. They\u2019re not gonna have the workforce that will justify exorbitant real estate prices.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/APP-LinkedIN-TEARAWAY-081720.jpg\")
<\/a>“Not this time. ‘NYC has experienced worse.\u2019 No it hasn\u2019t,” and then he starts. Let\u2019s look at “business. Midtown Manhattan, the center of business in NYC, is empty.” Mr. Snerdley was just there. Fifth Avenue stores are boarded up, and they\u2019re not just boarded up to protect from looters. They are boarded up because they are closed. Fifth Avenue is Billionaire\u2019s, Millionaire\u2019s Row in New York. That\u2019s where the most expensive retail outlets in the world are.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-041520-Covid-NY-1.jpg\")
“There are thousands of performers, producers, artists, and the entire ecosystem of art, theater, production, curation, that surrounds these cultural centers. People who have worked all of their lives for the right to be able to perform even once on Broadway whose lives and careers have been put on hold. I get it. There was a pandemic.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/APP-040820-COVID-Stores-6.jpg\")
And this guy that writes the piece, Mr. Altucher, never mentions the botched leadership, never mentions the mayor, never mentions the governor. He gave \u2019em a complete pass, in fact, when he says, “This is not to say what should have been done or should not have been done. That part is over. Now we have to deal with what IS.”<\/p>\n