RUSH: So I have to tell you a little funny story here, folks. Last night I was sitting at home minding my own business not bothering anybody, and I got an e-mail from a friend who was forwarding an e-mail from his friend. It was quite a funny e-mail about Chris Christie and his adventures with Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys Sunday for the game with the Lions. And the opinion expressed in both e-mails from these guys was that Chris Christie was — well, let’s put it this way.
There were two things. That Christie looked really out of place. It was sad. Here was a guy in his red sweater, just looks like he doesn’t belong with these sports guys. And they are kind of making fun of him in these e-mails to me, and they were mocking him and they were saying, “He’s just a groupie sitting in there, and he just doesn’t look like he belongs.” And they both said, “I’ll tell you, this guy, he’s forcing his way in there. He’s calling Jerry Jones, Jerry Jones looks very nervous, like doesn’t want Christie in there, but when the governor calls you, you gotta put him in there.”
So I thought about how to reply diplomatically. And I explained to you yesterday how it works at AT&T Stadium, Texas Stadium. Jerry Jones has two locations for himself and fans and friends and family at the stadium for games. He’s got his box. It holds about 10 or 12 people, and it’s the football people. And it’s all business. There’s no party in there. I mean, it’s catered, but it’s all business.
Where the people that show up at a football game to be entertained and have fun and have a party and eat, drink, and be merry are seated in a huge suite that holds hundreds one floor below and Jerry doesn’t go there, because this is a workday for him. It’s a business. It’s his team. He’s the general manager. He owns it. And these days, Sundays are not party days. And he only puts real football people in there. And I told these guys, I responded in the e-mail, I said, “I don’t think Chris Christie forced his way in there. The only way Chris Christie’s in Jerry Jones’ box is if Jerry Jones invited him.”
And, therefore, the theory that Christie’s in there for political considerations to take on Rick Perry or get favorable reaction from Texas conservatives — I don’t think that’s what this is about. I think if you want to know what really happened, you’ve got to answer one question: Why does Jerry Jones want Chris Christie in there? The question is not, why does Christie want to be there, because that’s easy. Christie loves stars. Remember Bruce Springsteen? Remember Christie cried. He told people he cried when he finally got on the phone with Bruce Springsteen the first time.
Obama, remember after they walked arm in arm, side hugged and all that, after Hurricane Sandy one week before the 2012 election, and Christie caught a lot of grief for doing that because it undercut Romney and it promoted Obama. Christie said (imitating Christie), “Hey, my state got beat up in a hurricane here. I need federal help, and Obama is my buddy,” is the point. Part and parcel of that was that Obama put Springsteen on the phone with Christie, who had been a lifelong fan, and Christie told everybody, he said he cried, he was so excited. And you know what happens next.
Springsteen goes on Jimmy Fallon or some other late-night TV show and makes fun of Christie over Bridgegate in a specially written song. Now, we don’t know, but I guarantee that probably had to really hurt Christie’s feelings. He thought he had just become big buds with The Boss. It’s a big deal. But Christie is a huge Cowboy fan, and to be invited to that suite, I mean, this is nirvana for him. The real question is, how does Jerry Jones benefit from having Christie there? If you’re really curious about this. And then, lo and behold, the news hits today that indeed old El Rushbo right again, simply following my instincts.
It turns out that Jerry Jones had not only invited Chris Christie, but flew him to Dallas on the Cowboys’ private jet, and would have done so the first time except Christie was already in Texas. I guess he was already taking on Rick Perry and trying to gin up favor among Texas conservatives. He was down there and he was already in Texas, so Jerry Jones invited him, but this time Christie was back in New Jersey, he got invited, and he went. Wife, kids, family, and all that, but you’ll notice that Christie’s wife was downstairs. She wasn’t in that business-only football suite where Jerry Jones was.
And then if you read further you find out that there is an observation deck on top of the Freedom Tower. And did you know who owns or who has invested in that observation deck? Why, none other than Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys. And that observation deck is essentially a concession place that is expected to generate, what did I read today, $815 million or $850 million in profits over whatever number of years in the future. And then you find out that the Port Authority of New Jersey and New York and whoever runs the damn thing, or regulates it, you find out that Christie is a major part of that.
If Christie can close bridge lanes, he has influence on this concession here at the top of the Freedom Tower. So it all finally comes together. And it still doesn’t take away from the fact their characterization of the way — I mean, I don’t want to read the e-mails I got verbatim, but they were hilarious in their characterizations of what was going on. And then furthermore, all kinds of people who started talking about, “Well, you know what? Christie’s really stepped in it now. This probably proves he doesn’t want to be president because these are major ethics violations.”
No, they’re not. Because there used to be a governor before Christie named Jim McGreevey and he was a real odd duck. But one thing McGreevey did, there is no ethical problem, it’s perfectly legal for a governor to accept trips on somebody’s private jet, friend or what have you. There’s no ethics problem here whatsoever, in terms of the law. Voters, their perception, that may be another thing.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Here’s Jerry Jones this morning in Dallas on the radio talking about Governor Chris Christie being an omnipresent guest in the owner’s box at Cowboys games.
JONES: He’s a Cowboy fan through and through. I met him through the Cowboys, and I’m excited about it, and he’s part of our mojo. I want him there all the way. I don’t know how we, in any way, can even think about going up there without having him, with the way we’re playing, and the mojo. He’s got enough mojo to pull this thing out, he ought to be looked at as president of the United States.
RUSH: (laughing) Jerry Jones. If Christie’s mojo — (laughing) he must be talking about the side hugs. If he’s talking about Christie’s mojo as being the deciding factor in the Cowboys winning these football games, well, he obviously can be president of the United States. I told everybody that Christie did not force his way in this box. You can’t do that. The other box you can. If you’re a governor and you call Jerry, “Hey, man, I’d love to come to the game.” He’ll invite you, and he’ll put you down there with the hundreds of others that are guests of his in his other big time party box.
But you have to really rate — and this isn’t a criticism. I think it makes sense. This is Jerry Jones’ business. That box of his during the game is his office, and he’s got his football people in there, his scouts and the communications people down to the sideline and all that.
I’ll tell you one thing that hasn’t happened to keep a sharp eye out for. Now, we’ve seen Christie in the owner’s box. We’ve seen him give Jerry Jones a high five that was ignored. Well, it looked like it was ignored, but I think everybody is so ecstatic, Christie held up a high five and Jones started hugging his son Stephen so Christie got in the act and it was a three-way man hug with Christie coming in on the side. And then after the game there was a single-file procession of Jerry Jones, his son Stephen Jones, into the Cowboys locker room, and Christie was in the front of that line. He was leading that line into the locker room.
He was not side by side with Jerry Jones. He was in front of Jerry Jones. That would makes sense that in the lineup on the way to the locker room people would stop Jerry, congratulate him, and Christie would keep walking and so forth. But Christie was still on his own. He didn’t have to wait for permission. He had the lanyard. He was ready to go. He walked right in that locker. That’s another tough take. You can’t just walk into an NFL locker room. In fact, it’s easier to jump the fence at the White House, apparently, than it is to get into an NFL locker room. I’m not kidding you.
We’ve seen Christie on the field pregame with Jerry Jones. But as we all know, Jerry Jones takes frequent trips to the sidelines during games, usually when things are not going well and the team needs to be inspired by the presence of the owner. Now, the next game is at high noon Central time Lambeau Field, where it’s going to be between three and 10 degrees on Sunday. No snow in the forecast. That’s for Saturday and Monday. But on Sunday it’s supposed to be just bone-chilling cold. What if — and I think it likely to happen now with all the attention and knowing Jerry Jones the way I do, he’s gonna have fun with this.
I think if Jerry Jones sees the need to visit the Cowboys sideline during the game, like near the end of the first half, he’ll take Christie with him. And they’ll both be down there on the sideline, and then you wait. (laughing) Twitter will go nuts, turned inside out, hashtag after hashtag. He-he-he-he-he. I mean, Jerry Jones is the part of Bailey here of P. T. Barnum. He’s got this all working exactly the way he wants.
I mean, the NFL, stop and think about it. Here we’ve got, for NFL fans, this is the absolute best weekend of the season. You’ve got the divisional championship games or the playoff games here. And you know what’s interesting about this about this? This from an inside baseball media standpoint. Arguably the best games on Saturday and Sunday are the early games, not in prime time. The early game Saturday is the Patriots and Ravens. You’d think normally that would be the night game on Saturday. But geography is the problem. You got two teams that play in the Pacific time zone. That presents a problem.
So on Saturday night, prime time, the Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers. It’s a big weekend. And on Sunday the Cowboys are not in the late game? The Cowboys are at high noon Central time, one o’clock? One o’clock is Purgatory in the NFL. When they schedule you at one o’clock, it means your game doesn’t matter during the regular season. Well, not that, but you fans know what I mean. And yet here we go, one o’clock Eastern time, it’s the Cowboys and the Packers. And the late game is — and the NFL thinks this is the big attraction of the weekend. Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck, the Broncos and the Colts, as Phil Simms says.
So it’s weird scheduling. But this is the nirvana weekend, four games. No wild card games. These are actual playoff games. And what’s everybody talking about in the NFL? What they’re talking about is Chris Christie in Jerry Jones box and the officiating in the Dallas-Detroit game. Those are the two primary topics in social media in the NFL. Not these upcoming games, but Chris Christie and his side man hugs in the box with Jerry Jones and the officiating in that game. And people are saying the NFL’s missing it, this is bad marketing, that game’s in past now. You don’t want Chris Christie was in the box being the subject, you don’t want the officiating. You want the games coming up to be the focal point. And they’re not.
They will be. They will be.
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