RUSH: This is Mark in western North Carolina. Great to have on the program, Mark. Hi.

CALLER: Hey there, Rush, how you doing?

RUSH: Well I’m fine.

CALLER: Smoky Mountain Friday over here.

RUSH: Nice to hear from you.

CALLER: Hey, listening to you from way back, way back from the probably early nineties.

RUSH: Appreciate that.

CALLER: And I think I’ve been listening too long. Because today, as you were speaking and talking about this event that happened in New York where Ted Cruz’s audio was disturbed with, I was just listening to the timbre of your voice, and I was just saying, “Rush is gonna go with this somehow or another.” And I guess about a half hour ago I was tooling down the highway listening, and the audio transmission of your show sounded suspiciously like the Cruz audio that we heard yesterday.

RUSH: What are you talking about?

CALLER: I’m talking about the fact there were tinkling dishes and audio that was posted right over your own voice. You could hear your voice in the background, but it was —

RUSH: When did this happen! When did this happen?

CALLER: A half hour ago.

RUSH: Half hour ago.

CALLER: Yeah. You may not be aware of it like Mr. Cruz —

RUSH: Well, I don’t know. I’m not aware of it. A half hour ago I was talking about —

CALLER: You were talking about Cruz.

RUSH: You’re right. I was talking about Cruz. I played the sound bite from Axelrod and that commie babe from MSNBC about the establishment wanting Cruz to win so that he would lose so they could say conservatism loses. Are you telling me that you heard noise over me, you couldn’t hear what I was saying? You heard a replay of what they did to Cruz?

CALLER: It sounded like you had a whole dinner party going on in there.

RUSH: I know exactly what happened. I know who did this. I can tell you why it happened is because the minute that I accused engineering of having any culpability of what happened to Cruz, Brian in there said that he didn’t think that because he couldn’t join me in condemning his engineering brothers. And so I know exactly what happened. What did you hear?

CALLER: Like I said, I heard dishes clanging —

RUSH: Oh, my God.

CALLER: — dinner conversation.

RUSH: Ha-ha.

CALLER: I heard some other newscaster, I don’t know where that came from, but it was kind of like a murmur —

RUSH: How long did this go on? How long did it go on?

CALLER: Oh, probably around three, four minutes.

RUSH: You gotta be kidding me.

CALLER: I’m not kidding you. I heard it, I know I did. And I know it has nothing to do —

RUSH: My own program, sabotaged by my own staff, and I didn’t even know it!

CALLER: It could happen to anyone.

RUSH: Wait a minute, now they’re telling me it didn’t happen.

CALLER: Oh, it happened.

RUSH: They’re telling me it didn’t happen.

CALLER: No, no, no, it happened. But you know what? Just like you said, nobody else reacted.

RUSH: Snerdley says you’re pulling my leg and making it up.

CALLER: I am not. Just like you said, that no one who’s a Cruz supporter made anything about it, I just happened to be the first one to have enough guts to call you and say I heard it.

RUSH: They’re saying nothing happened. His line just went dead? There’s a lot of strange stuff happening here. Folks, I can’t believe that couldn’ve happened without me knowing about it. I mean, they would be in there laughing. I would know something about it. I would know if somebody started monkeying around, at least here. Now, maybe at our satellite uplink, who knows. You know, there’s a lot of people who get their fingers on this program from the uplink here all the way to the various relay stations and repeaters before it finally ends up on the bird.

You know what, we probably got a bunch of commie people in that link, you know, the odds are that somebody — (interruption) What do you mean, it’s not fair. What? The guy claimed it happened. You’re denying that it happened. You’re denying that you did anything. It had to happen somewhere if it happened. You think the guy’s making it all up? (interruption) Open Line Friday, he’s pulling my leg.

Okay, all right, fine. It is Open Line Friday, and time is dwindling, and even if it did happen, folks, you know, I’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ll get to the bottom, because people monkey with this program that way and I don’t even know about it, that’s not gonna work. That’s a breach issue, if nothing else.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Valerie in Gurnee, Illinois. Hey, Valerie, great to have you here.

CALLER: Thanks. Well, I’m sure you’re really happy to hear from me. I called because, just like that guy from Carolina, I heard that same interference, and I just figured you were trying to prove a point.

RUSH: Wait a minute. (dial tone) All right. (laughing) She hung up. Right? (interruption) She hung up. I am supposed to think that right when she got to the payoff that she hung up. You know, I’m gonna tell you people in there, I’m getting emails from people who said they heard it, all right?

Now, I didn’t hear anything. But I’ve got email from other people on the staff who say they heard it, so I know you did something in there. I cannot believe that you are still trying to pass this off. I’ve got people that I trust telling me that something happened. And Snerdley’s just saying, “Open Line Friday, Rush, better get back to the phone.” Yeah. And you’re disconnecting phone calls next.

You think you can put this past me? You think I’m some guy making a speech in New York, doesn’t know what’s going on here? (interruption) Oh, the Verizon strike is why we got a dial tone, is that right? You just happened to know she’s calling in on Verizon? Right. They’ve got an answer for everything.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Luke, driving around in Houston. Luke, great to have you on the program, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush, how are you?

RUSH: I’m fine, sir.

CALLER: I had you on iHeartRadio driving from Houston to San Antonio, and you were doing the Ted Cruz speech and that background noise?

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And the other two callers are correct. I mean, the horrible white noise came on while you were explaining on your radio program. I don’t know who did it, but it was going on.

RUSH: Yeah, I don’t doubt that it happened now. I’ve just got no evidence right now. I can find out later. I can find the proof later. If it happened, it’ll be in the replay at RushLimbaugh.com.

CALLER: Probably Media Matters.

RUSH: (laughing) The one thing I don’t know is if they were able to also sabotage the Dittocam feed. That’s the thing I’m not sure about.

CALLER: Well, I don’t know.

RUSH: Well, you wouldn’t know that. You weren’t watching TV, as you’re driving down the road to San Antonio.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: Well, what did you do when you heard it?

CALLER: I don’t know. I thought it was a prank that you were playing just to, you know. I was trying to listen to your commentary.

RUSH: Wait. You thought I was in on it?

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: Oh. Oh. So you thought it was a pretty funny, brilliant bit.

CALLER: It became annoying afterwards, because you were making your point. I mean, in the past where I’ve been listening to you, you’ve been making a really, really significant point and then the radio just goes blank like something’s jamming the signal.

RUSH: Wait a minute! This has happened before?

CALLER: It’s happened to me. I live and work in Houston, Texas, and it’s like someone jams the signal and you’re really making a —

RUSH: I wonder —

CALLER: — good point about something.

RUSH: I wonder if our local affiliates would ever do something like this? You know I never thought about this. See, this is the damaging thing. This guy thought that I was doing it, but that it wasn’t any good. That’s not good. When I do a bit, you’re gonna think it’s great and brilliant, you’re gonna want to hear more of it. Whatever happened here today, yeah, it doesn’t have my fingerprints on it, obviously.