RUSH: Britt McHenry, ESPN sideline infobabe. I want you to listen to this audio sound bite. Here’s what happened. She was somewhere and her car was towed, and she had to go pick it up from the towing company. The towing company person with whom she had to interact and pay in order to get her car back was another woman. Britt McHenry is a journalist at ESPN.
You know, I must be honest, I hadn’t watched ESPN since the Super Bowl. Well, it’s longer than that. I haven’t watched ESPN since the last time they had an NFL game, which might be regular season. So I frankly don’t know who this is, other than this one encounter. And I’m telling you, she is an uppity elitist and she proves an old adage of mine, something that I have maintained on this program since, well, even before I started hosting the program. And it is that women are meaner to other women than men could ever hope to be.
I’m not denying that some men mistreat women. But, man, oh, man, when women, girl on girl, woman on woman, you don’t want to get in the middle of it. The jealousy, you know, you guys never see it, but I’ll give you an example. Let’s say you’re in the mall. Well, no, I can’t use that ’cause I frankly don’t know what happens there anymore. Let’s say you’re flying coach. You’re flying coach and you are seated next to your spouse. You’re a guy, you’re sitting next to your wife or your girlfriend, and across the aisle boarding the plane after you — so you see this woman board the plane — this is a woman that you think is pretty attractive. So you look at her, your wife is sitting next to you, the woman finds her row, finds her seat and sits down.
What you don’t know, because you’re too busy ogling the woman, is that your wife is shooting her daggers. Your wife is looking at her with intense resentment or hatred or a combination of the three. “Who does she think she is? She can’t wear that. She thinks she can get away with wearing that?” She doesn’t say a word. If she discovers you’re looking at her, there’s gonna be hell to pay. But, I mean, there’s no, “Oh, wow, look at that dress. She looks so good in that dress.” No. “Who does she think she is, looking like that, getting on this airplane?” I know this happens. You can’t deny it.
Anyway, so that’s just a brief little setup. Britt McHenry, do you know who she is, Brian? You’re an ESPN aficionado. (interruption) You don’t either? So none of you know who this woman is? Until yesterday I had no idea who she was either. She’s a brat. She’s spoiled. She’s mean. She’s rude. She is class-conscious. She’s a reprobate.
Here is the encounter. It was caught by LiveLeak. There was a security camera when she went to pick up her car, and she was obviously angry her car had been towed, and I hope you’re able to hear all this. You probably will. I needed closed-captioning when I watched it to be able to understand what she was saying, but you people that hear normally probably should not have much trouble.
MCHENRY: IÂ’m in the news sweetheart, I will [bleep] sue this place. That’s why I have a degree.
CLERK: ThatÂ’s right.
MCHENRY: I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this. Makes’ my skin crawl even being here. Yep that is all you care about is taking people’s money, with no education, no skill set, just wanted to clarify that. Do you feel good about your job? So I could be a college drop out and do the same thing? Why cause I have a brain and you don’t? Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me, huh? Oh, like yours ‘cause they (laughter) look so stunning…
CLERK: Yeah.
MCHENRY: …cause I’m on television and youÂ’re…
CLERK: Right.
MCHENRY: …in a (bleeped) trailer honey.
CLERK: Have a nice…
MCHENRY: Lose some weight…
CLERK: Yeah.
MCHENRY: … baby girl.
RUSH: Okay, were you able to hear all that? All right, let me run through the transcript. We never see the woman she’s talking to. It’s a security camera looking down at the counter, and all you see is the customer. Early on in this, Britt McHenry of ESPN learns that she’s on video, and it doesn’t deter her at all, probably excited because she’s on TV again.
So she says, “I’m in the news, sweetheart. I will blank-blank F-bomb sue this place. That’s why I have a degree. That’s right. I wouldn’t work at a scumbag place like this. Makes my skin crawl even being here. Yep, that’s all you care about, taking people’s money. No education, no skill set, just wanted to clarify that. You feel good about your job? So, I could be a college dropout and do the same thing? Why, ’cause I have a brain and you don’t? Maybe if I was missing some teeth they’d hire me here, huh? Oh. Like yours, ’cause they look so stunning, ’cause I’m on television and you’re in a blank-blank F-bomb trailer. Honey, have a nice day, lose some weight, baby girl.”
Now, the woman collecting the money from Britt McHenry was very restrained. She treated the customer accordingly, said, “Right, yeah,” did not rise to the bait. It turns out that Britt McHenry has been suspended for a week. Just a week. A whole big week. So they’ve issued a statement, ESPN, purporting to be her apology.
“In a intense and stressful moment I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and I said some insulting and regrettable things. As frustrated as I was, I should always choose to be respectful and take the high road. I am so sorry for my actions, and I will learn from this mistake.”
Shortly after the apology was issued ESPN released a statement saying that McHenry had been suspended for a week, and honest to God, folks, I have read several accounts of this in various sports and Drive-By Media and damned if people aren’t making excuses for her. Some people, not everybody, but some people are making excuses for her. “Well, you know, she might have been stressed out. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to have to go pick up your car after it’s been towed. I could see how somebody would be stressed out.”
It’s amazing. This woman has no manners whatsoever, doesn’t respect anybody, is a total egomaniac. Let me just ask you, conservative or liberal? Let’s play it again, Friday, and see what people think. Britt McHenry, ESPN, conservative or liberal.
MCHENRY: IÂ’m in the news sweetheart, I will [bleep] sue this place. That’s why I have a degree.
CLERK: ThatÂ’s right.
MCHENRY: I wouldn’t work in a scumbag place like this. Makes’ my skin crawl even being here. Yep that is all you care about is taking people’s money, with no education, no skill set, just wanted to clarify that. Do you feel good about your job? So I could be a college drop out and do the same thing? Why cause I have a brain and you don’t? Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me, huh? Oh, like yours ‘cause they (laughter) look so stunning…
CLERK: Yeah.
MCHENRY: …cause I’m on television and youÂ’re…
CLERK: Right.
MCHENRY: …in a (bleeped) trailer honey.
CLERK: Have a nice…
MCHENRY: Lose some weight…
CLERK: Yeah.
MCHENRY: … baby girl.
RUSH: What she needs to do is go back to wherever this tow place is and find that woman and personally apologize to her, whether there are cameras there or not. I don’t know if that’s even occurred to her. This public apology doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t mean anything. “I’m going to learn from this.” You should know by now that’s not how you treat people.
You know, my dad told me something I’ve never forgotten. He said, “You can always know a person’s character by watching how he treats people who can’t do anything for him.” Like flight attendants or anybody, you can tell somebody’s character right off the bat by how they treat people who can’t do anything for ’em. (interruption) You want me to mention Schumer. You’re so New York centric you can’t wait ’til I mention Schumer. Okay, I’ll do it. Schumer called a flight attendant a b-i-itch under his breath. There, happy? (interruption) Well, I will do the whole story.
Schumer’s on the shuttle from LaGuardia down to Reagan National. He’s on there with Kirsten Gillibrand, and he’s on the cell phone. They can’t push back until he gets off the phone. It’s regs, and he won’t get off the phone. They’re asking him to get off the phone, he says, “No, I’m busy.”
The flight attendant says, “You’ve gotta get off the phone, regs are regs.” And he says, “I know I can stay on this phone ’til you close the door.” She says, “No. We cannot push back until you get off the phone.” So he gets off the phone and under his breath but loud enough to be heard by people he said b-i-itch. They pushed back and flew down to Washington so forth.
Why is that so exciting to you? (interruption) Right. I know. I know. Right, right, right. It’s the hypocrisy angle for you. He’s a big lib, always lecturing us, War on Women. It’s conservatives and Republicans, we’re mean-spirited to women, don’t respect them, blah, blah. And then when you see them in action it’s actually those guys who mistreat, disrespect women.
Here’s a flight attendant who’s a hardworking person, can’t do anything for Chuck-U Schumer except maybe bring him a drink or whatever, you see how he treats her. It’s the same thing with Britt McHenry. I don’t know how old Britt McHenry is, 30 some odd, late twenties or what have you, but the idea that she doesn’t yet know how to treat people? Why is that? Why does she now have to learn how to treat people? What is there to learn from this?
What there is to learn from this is what it tells us about her, not how this is a learning experience for her. We’ve already figured out she is a reprobate. She has no consideration for people. The thing she needs to do is find that woman and apologize to her face to face. I don’t even know if that kind of thing occurs to her.
We’re told Millennials, oh, yeah, we’ve gotta pay attention, these are the future of America. We’re always gonna be able to find examples of bad actors in whatever group of people that we create or segregate or what have you. How did she get hired? Well, I can tell you how she got hired. But then they would say I’m a sexist, if I gave you the reason why she got hired. She clearly didn’t get hired ’cause she knows how to work with people. She didn’t get hired because she respects people. She didn’t get hired because she has any manners.
Her communications skills are obviously a little lacking here. Obviously an elitist, obviously thinks that she’s better than everybody else because she’s on TV, right. “I’m on TV. Lose some weight, baby girl. Think I could get your job if I didn’t have all of my teeth?” I mean, this is not even the person that towed her car. This is just the poor woman collecting the money. This is not even the person that towed her car, and we still haven’t learned why her car was towed. What happened there? Who did she not pay, or what did she not do that resulted in it?
Did she park illegally like Hillary did? She’s not Hillary, she can’t get away with parking Scooby in a handicap zone. These people, they preach to us about how they are the most tolerant, they’re the most respectful, they’re this, they’re that. You get them in their real environment and they’re just mean-spirited superiorists who look down on everybody, and particularly those who can’t do anything for ’em.
Anyway, suspended for a week. You know, they’ve suspended people over there for three weeks for much less than this. “Yes, but she wasn’t on duty when this happened. She wasn’t on duty for ESPN, and, as such, Mr. Limbaugh, she wasn’t really representing ESPN when this incident happened. And, as such, the punishment will not be as strict as it could have been.”
Really? She’s out there bragging she’s on TV. “That’s right, Mr. Limbaugh, but nevertheless, she did not represent her employer when she engaged in this conversation with the fat — with the tow truck, uhhh, collection agency, the woman missing the teeth, the fat woman, she did not.” And that’s how people are making excuses for her. This is like, you know, “I’ve been out of work for three weeks.”
“Are you a high school graduate?”
“Yeah. But I need a job training center.”
“Well, what do you think high school was?”
So where do you go now to learn manners? I think this woman graduated from journalism school at Northwestern, if I’m not mistaken.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Okay. I remember this incident, but I do not remember her. This ESPN reporterette is 28, by the way, Britt McHenry is 28. She was at the center of a controversy last season when the Redskins coach — sorry — when the Redskins! coach Jay Gruden call her reporting amateurish. So she was involved with something to do with the Redskins! that the coach was not appreciative of and basically called her an amateur.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me put this in context, this behavior by this Britt McHenry woman of ESPN, who is nothing more than a spoiled brat. Well, maybe more than that, but spoiled brat encompasses this. She’s probably a diva. Well, no doubt a diva. This is why I spent some time on Monday congratulating Jordan Spieth, the young man that won the Masters and the way he comported himself in victory and his character. It stood out.
Here’s a young man 21 years old, seven years younger than this woman, arguably you would say not nearly as mature. I mean, 28 versus 21 could be close, but it’s not a contest, as it turns out. Total class, total dignity, humility, everything that you would want in a champion. Obviously raised well, well mannered, respectful of people, and that’s why I mentioned it, because it stood out. Everybody talks about our culture getting coarser and coarser, and I think that’s true from generation to generation. There’s nothing new, no generation’s worse than another.
The difference is how much attention reprobates get from generation to generation vis-a-vis media. The media attention focusing on something can make everybody think that it’s worse than it’s ever been when it’s actually the same. She’s not the first spoiled brat to come along and get a job on TV; she won’t be the last. And Jordan Spieth is not the first well-mannered, dignified, humble guy to win the Masters to come along, but the contrast — this is why I called attention to him. Because it is such a pleasant difference from the normal portrayal and reporting of behavior in young generations that we get from today’s media.
It’s Open Line Friday, always try to take a call in the first hour. That seldom happens Monday through Thursday. I’m gonna start with Lynn in Hotchkiss, Colorado. I’m glad you called, and it’s great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. You are wonderful. I just want to say real quick this Britt McHenry, my husband and I are watching TV and we see her picture first, and I said, “What a pretty woman, look at that woman.” And then I heard what she said, and sad and ugly. Ugly, ugly, and sad. My mama used to say pretty is as pretty does. She is ugly, ugly. But I gotta disagree with you about the lady on the plane with her husband and sending the daggers ’cause she sees a pretty woman. When I see someone pretty, my husband and I are together, he, of course, will see her first, probably, but if I see somebody, I’ll say, “That woman is gorgeous.” So not all women are sending daggers to pretty women.
RUSH: Okay, granted, granted, I might have made what some would call a hasty generalization.
CALLER: Yes. Yes.
RUSH: Okay. And I will be glad to rein that back in. Let me say, my real point there was that the intensity, when you find a woman who did not look — you’re very rare.
CALLER: (laughing) No.
RUSH: You let your husband look at a gorgeous woman and tell you? And then you begin to discuss it?
CALLER: (laughing) No.
RUSH: And then he starts getting specific but why he thinks she’s gorgeous, and you still enjoy it? I’m telling you, you’re rare.
CALLER: No, he’s smart. No, he’s smart. He wouldn’t sit there and — you know, I think —
RUSH: A-ha. So you do have a tipping point.
CALLER: (laughing).
RUSH: You do have a threshold on this, then? Yes?
CALLER: Well, we’ve been married for 30 years, so, you know, it’s okay.
RUSH: I get it. My point is that women are the harshest critics of other women, not men.
CALLER: Yes. I agree, I agree. But one other thing, too. If they could punish that Britt McHenry some way to make her work in that gal’s job, you know, for about a month, let her walk in her shoes.
RUSH: Well, ESPN can’t do that, but that’s an interesting question. Now, ESPN could not make that happen, maybe they could, I don’t know. What do you think is an appropriate punishment, if any? You think she should be punished or is she being punished by being called out nationally here?
CALLER: You know what? She’ll never be happy. She’s gonna be punished. Even if she becomes rich and famous, in her heart, she’s sad, she’s a sad person and —
RUSH: What is she sad and unhappy about?
CALLER: She doesn’t have any love. When you see somebody who’s in a lower socioeconomic position and she’s missing teeth or she has this job, you know, my heart goes out to somebody like that.
RUSH: Yeah, I know. Why insult somebody?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: We’re taught to love the underclass.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: We’re taught to sympathize for them. They’re victims of Republicans after all.
CALLER: Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe all this will change, maybe when Britt goes through this, and I think she should lose her job. That’s just so sad what she did and said to that poor woman.
RUSH: Well, here’s the thing. This is the question that ESPN has to ask. And, by the way, ESPN’s not actually a trailblazer in hiring quality, dignified, on- and off-air people, let’s be honest about it. But the thing they have to ask, is this who she really is? Was that the real woman when she was picking up her car at the tow place? Or is the real Britt the nice, loving, adorable, whatever she is on the sidelines reporting what male athletes are doing during competition? Which is the real one?
But the punishment, there’s gonna be a lot of people going back and forth on whether the punishment is sufficient. One week being off the air. That’s gonna be torture. You know, some people live to be on TV. It’s the only thing they want to do. That, by the way, that is a characteristic that is, I think, unique to this and the previous generation, because there’s so much media.
When I was growing up, if you wanted to be on TV, there were three places to go: ABC, CBS and NBC. I’m talking about nationally. If you wanted to be on TV and you wanted to do journalism, you had three places to go. If you wanted to be on TV, be an actor, of course that was a little bit broader universe, but still a very, very small number of jobs overall. But now anybody with a hobby has a TV network along with it, so it’s a little easier to get on TV these days, and it’s not as big a deal.
For example, being the nightly news anchor at CBS, ABC or NBC is not nearly the big deal it used to be when they were the only three. And there’s another factor. By the time 6:30 comes around, most everybody already knows what is being reported at 6:30. There’s nothing to learn at 6:30. So the whole aura of the anchor and mystique and only three jobs, that’s just out the window now. As such, a consequence is more and more people would just give anything to be on TV. This woman’s obviously one of them.
I mean, here she is to pick up a car for being towed and one of the first things she wants to tell somebody that she thinks is beneath her is that she’s on TV? I’m not using myself in comparison because it isn’t fair. I’m a learned, quality, class, epitome of morality and virtue kind of guy, but I’m also much older and have more life experience. I can tell you the last thing I would ever do at any time, I’ve never done it, was to go up to somebody, anywhere, for any reason, “Hi, I’m on the radio, and you’re not, and therefore you’re nothing.” Never even would occur to me, and probably not to most. But it did to her.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Oceanside, California, beautiful place, and Laurie. Laurie, great to have you on Open Line Friday. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Mega dittos from someone who doesn’t matter. (laughing).
RUSH: (laughing) What do you mean someone who doesn’t matter?
CALLER: Oh, I’m being silly. It just struck a huge note with me. I didn’t tell Bo this, but my dad just died a couple weeks ago. One of the lessons that he taught me growing up — he was a marketing director for one of America’s largest savings and loans. So we would go to gatherings where lots of famous people would be, and when I would be near my dad, they would fawn over me and tell me how beautiful I was.
But when I would separate from him, if they hadn’t met me yet, you know, I would blend in with the wallpaper. And one of the things I quickly learned was to try to separate from my father and see who would be approachable and nice to me before. It was quite telling and it was a lesson that I learned, and he would take me aside actually before this happened, and he goes, “Don’t let this get to your head, you know, it’s just malarkey.” And it really helped me, in my life, pay attention to everyone and not treat anyone with disrespect.
RUSH: Yeah. So your father attempted to inculcate you with manners and integrity and so forth. You know, it really is a powerful statement, I think, and it’s really spot on. You can tell everything you want to know about somebody by watching how they treat people who can’t do anything for them. Well, using that, I mean, we learn quite a bit here about Britt McHenry.
I’ve learned a lot of things about life over the course of living it, and I had a great foundation in terms of the way I was raised. And I know that everybody — this is just human nature and this is actually kind of funny in its own way — everybody is interested or obsessed, somewhere along that scale, everybody is interested, cares a little, cares a lot, or is obsessed about what other people think of them.
And so in a situation like you describe, you go someplace with a lot of people, your dad takes you, and when he’s with you and you’re with him, people treat you with respect and are nice. When you separate, you find out who the nice people are and so forth. The mistake people make in this circumstance or in most circumstances, the individual thinks that everybody else has it all together and is very confident and has no doubts about anything and has time to start judging other people. When in fact everybody’s just like you, they’re all thinking about themselves.
Everybody in a room is asking themselves what other people think of them. And if you learn that, it can take you out of this defensive, inferior place that some people end up being, and you have a much better way of relating to people. When you realize everybody’s self-focused, everybody’s self-conscious, everybody in a room is wondering what everybody else thinks of ’em, but some people don’t portray that or betray that, so you think they’ve got their stuff together, and you let them judge you, when they aren’t judging you. You are imagining what they’re thinking of you, and then you start acting accordingly, and you’re making it all up. You’re telling yourself a story, while they’re more than likely doing the same thing.
Now, grab audio sound bite number 23, Friday. We have a substitute broadcast engineer here today. Friday is with us today. Mr. Maimone is out antiquing again. Well, his wife is antiquing, and he’s with her. I want you to hear, if things don’t change in just a few short years, who and what Britt McHenry is going to be become.
HILLARY 2003 (screeching): I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, “WE ARE AMERICANS AND WE HAVE A RIGHT TO DEBATE AND DISAGREE WITH ANY ADMINISTRATION!”
RUSH: That’s Hillary Clinton, of course, back on April 28th of 2003. She had voted for the use-of-force authorization in Iraq and then tried to act like she never did and was dissenting against the war and people were calling her hypocritical, and so she lashed out. It was the annual Jefferson-Jackson-Bailey dinner in Hartford, Connecticut.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Start with Chuck in Colorado Springs. Glad you waited, Chuck. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you so much, Rush. I appreciate Bo letting me get on the air. We’re out of here in the middle of a springtime in the Rockies where we’re recovering from a snowstorm, but sun came out when Bo put me on the line with you, so kind of a good sign. And if there’s justice in the world, Hillary Rodham Clinton would living in a van down by the river.
RUSH: Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. You have to slow down or I’m just gonna be guessing what at what you’re saying.
CALLER: Okay, I said that if there was justice in Hillary Rodham Bottom Clinton’s life, she’d be living in a van down by the river instead of driving around that van. But what I called to tell you about today, Rush, was you had mentioned there was jealousy that goes on among, you know, good-looking women when you’re with your wife and everything. About 35 years ago I had occasion to be down in the British West Indies on an island that had a lot of movie stars, Margaux Hemingway, Boz Scaggs and Bob Dylan were there and a whole lot of hippie trust fund kids and million-dollar yachts.
All of the women were in their thirties and were good-looking women, but they had that natural look of a baseball cap and no makeup and everything. At this resort they sent a beautiful woman from New York City down to take over this one hotel and run it and she was a stunning, you know, beautiful woman with makeup and heels and everything. She dressed up every day on the island. Suddenly every woman on that island had to have their hair done. They had to have makeup. They had to be looking good, because all their husbands were lined up in a line, honest to God, to buy her drinks. There is real jealousy in this —
RUSH: Wait a second, now. Wait, wait, wait just. I gotta make sure I — he-he-he-he — so somebody sends a looker to run a hotel on the island where you were, that’s basically it, right?
CALLER: Stunning looking woman. Yeah, New York City, first class, beautiful woman, wearing high heels —
RUSH: Wait, ah, ah, ah, ah. What distinguishes New York beauty in a woman as opposed to say Chicago beauty or LA beauty? You say New York, first class. What’s that?
CALLER: I just used that analogy because that’s where she was from, because it was that big city look.
RUSH: Oh. Well, what’s the big city look then?
CALLER: Well, for her it was makeup, she wore dresses, and she wore heels. She had her hair done. And they’re on this island, everybody, this was hippie land. Most of the women down there were wearing shorts, and no makeup, you know, they were in their —
RUSH: Oh, I see, and this is 30 years ago, so we’re talking now back in the 1980s?
CALLER: This was in the seventies about 35 years ago, and I was a younger man then, and this was a little hippie land.
RUSH: Okay. Okay. Okay. I got it. I got it. I got it. So what happens is that somebody decides to send this good-looking New York City babe wearing makeup and heels out to run this hotel. She’s just cream of the crop. And all of the women on the island, because all of their husbands began going to the hotel just to look at this woman, began to style their hair her way, began to dress the way she did.
And he’s calling here to confirm a theorem stated by me in the first hour that while men are ogling women that they find attractive, what they don’t see is women doing the same thing with much more scrutiny, much more attention, and in many cases, much more disapproval. (interruption) Is that right? A New York beautiful woman is impeccable, everything’s right. That’s what a New York beautiful woman means, impeccable down to the last detail, as opposed to a Los Angeles beautiful woman, as opposed to a Chicago beautiful. As opposed to a Dallas beautiful woman. (interruption) New York has more fashion sense. You’re agreeing with this premise, too?
For crying out loud, everybody in New York wears black. What do you mean New York beauty? (interruption) All right. All right. Well, see, I have never heard this. I’ve never heard that New York beautiful women are the most beautiful women anywhere. (interruption) Okay. Now Friday, the substitute engineer, is weighing in on it saying it’s true, it’s true. Okay, cool. Well, I appreciate, Chuck, you weighing in on this from Colorado Springs.