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RUSH:  Claire in Akron, Ohio.  Welcome. It’s great to have you here.

CALLER:  Thank you, Rush.  How are you doing today?

RUSH:  I’m excellent.  Thank you.

CALLER:  Awesome.  Hey, I’ve got two comments.  I was starting out with one, but I wanted to say real quickly, first of all, with Hillary, everybody’s missing the big picture.  They’re happy to pin it on a health problem because she truly is wearing out, and she’s proving what Donald Trump has said that she cannot do this job. But it’s because of her health.  This has run the dog out of her, and I believe that it is just exhausting, and they can’t say that.

RUSH:  Wait, wait. Hold it.  Why are they happy to pin it on her health if she’s wearing out?

CALLER:  Because that can at least be explained away.  If you’re gonna be the president of the United States, you can’t be taking… Well, you can, ’cause Barack does it. But you have to be working every day.  It’s like Donald Trump is superhuman.  That man, he never… You just don’t ever see him taking the day off ever, and she can only work every couple of days and has to have a long weekday. It’s just like they’ve coddled her all along.

But the chips are down and I don’t think she can handle it because she’s not fit health-wise to handle it.  That was one comment.  And then I have another comment and a suggestion.  Real quickly, going back to the NFL, I wanted to say, you know, they need to understand that, yeah, they’re season ticket holders. But there’s a lot of people that are going to on these games that are spending money they might not even have but they want to go see their teams play.  You know, the people want to go and enjoy football.

We don’t really care what their political stance is on anything.  And I feel like, you know, we’re paying a lot of money to go see him, so just shut up and do your job.  And, if Roger Goodell had an ounce of chutzpah he would say — and I’m coming from a conservative point of view here and kind of tongue-in-cheek, but — “Let’s make the NFL our safe zone.  Let’s say we cannot do this because all of the people need to be protected.  This is our safe zone.  We can go escape for a few hours and not be harmed by liberal points of view, you know, and these kinds of stands.”  It’s just ridiculous.

RUSH:  Well, I’m just… I had a monologue. In fact, we had the sound bite yesterday. I had it available to replay, and I didn’t get to it.  Cookie, get me that. Get that Mike.  It’ll dovetail nicely with what you’ve said.  I just want to warn you, though, Claire. It’s only gonna get worse because of all the attention these players are getting doing this. I saw a story, a 12-year-old high school team is now taking a knee or refusing to stand for the national anthem.  This is only gonna get worse.  You’re gonna see it happening with even greater frequency because the players are getting all kinds of attention for this — for things other than playing football.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay.  We had our caller at the bottom of the hour.  She was describing the effect all these players protesting in the NFL are having on her. “Hey, we don’t want to see it! That’s not why we’re watching. You’re gonna destroy it.”  Ratings are down opening night this year versus last year.  It’s only getting worse. Claire in Akron, that’s who it was, and I told her that I had made similar comments. This is all the way back on August 30th.  This was shortly after Kaepernick first pulled the stunt.  I think was the next day or two days later. This is my take on all of this.

BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH ARCHIVE:  I just want to say something to you players of the National Football League.  The American people love your sport.  The American people respect you who have the unique human ability to play it at the level you play it.  But the American people are not going to sit by idly and watch the stage of the National Football League stolen and used for personal political purposes.

You players in the NFL, you can go ahead and try to continue stealing the stage of the NFL if you want.  You can take the example of Kaepernick and you can try to get some news coverage, you can draw attention to yourself, but you run the risk of obliterating the stage on which you perform that earns you your living and gives you the opportunity to succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

You better be careful in what and how you express your thoughts on this country, the greatest place in the history of mankind.  And the residents of this country are among the luckiest in the history of all humanity.  The National Football League is on TV.  It can easily be turned off.  The National Football League is sponsored by beer and cars and soft drinks that can easily be not purchased.  It’s not that hard.  Just turn it off. You better be especially careful because the opening weekend of the National Football League this year is the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

END ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH:  That sounds perfectly reasonable, right?  Now, I know what some of you are saying.  “Wait a minute, Rush! Are you saying that just ’cause they’re athletes and players they ought to shut up about their political beliefs?”  Not at all.  I’m saying don’t do it on the NFL stage.  Do it on ESPN when they’re interviewing you after the game. Do it on ESPN when you’re doing a show.  But to take over the game and to turn the game into a political stage, you’re stealing the stage that the NFL built.

You are a temporary occupant of this stage, relevant and highly talented and all that. But this wasn’t even really intended as criticism as much as it was guidance.  You know, I… (sigh) I don’t know.  I really don’t know how many people understand the whole concept of “compensation.”  Why do people make what they make and where does that money come from?  Do you realize how many people think jobs are for health care?

You’d be stunned if you had young people today and you asked ’em, “Why is there an XYZ Widget Company in your town?” They’d say, “They’re there to provide jobs for the community and provide health care!”  Really?  That’s why the XYZ Widget Company is there?  Go ask your average NFL player, “Where does the team get the money to pay you?”  “Hey, I don’t know, dude. It doesn’t matter to me. All I know is, my contract’s guaranteed the first couple years.”

“Seriously, where do they get the money?”  “Well, I’m sure they get it from TV and I get sponsors and so forth.  That’s not my problem.”  “Yes, it is — and the more money you make, the more you had better be intimately aware of how it gets to you.  It obviously matters a lot to you.  It may be a bit of an off-the-wall statement here. But I dare say if more people understood compensation — how they or anybody else gets it paid — people would be earning a lot more than they are.  But that is for another time.

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