RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number three. The TNT network does television coverage of the NBA. Now, we all know what’s happened to late-night comedy. It doesn’t exist anymore. There isn’t any. Late-night comedy has become left-wing agenda-driven anger and hate. Rather than looking for laughs from their audiences, late-night comics and stand-up comics are seeking applause for when they themselves endeavor to start getting into the hate game.

The hatred of Donald Trump, the hatred of Republicans, the hatred of conservatives. Well, this has left a void. There isn’t any humor? There isn’t any professional humor. I think it’s an amazing thing (chuckling) what Donald Trump has done. Look at all of the industries that he literally is doing great damage to. Late-night comics? I mean, these are the people that inherited the mantle and the role of Johnny Carson, David Letterman and all those?

You can’t find any humor on these shows! It is nothing but agenda-driven, left-wing hate — as I say — seeking applause. So, since it’s absent there, it surfaces elsewhere. The comedy isn’t gone. It’s just being mined and found by others. Last night, during the halftime show of an NBA game, my old buddy Chuck Barkley just unloaded on Jussie Smollett — and we have the audio sound bite of the highlights. It runs about a minute.

(background noise/music)

BARKLEY: Jussie!

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: You wasted all that damn time and money.

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: You know what you should have done?

SHAQ: What’s that?

BARKLEY: Just went over to Liam Neeson’s neighborhood.

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: You coulda solved —

ALL: (laughter)

BARKLEY: — all you damn problems!

ALL: (laughing)

SMITH: (looking at a series of Post-it Notes with predictions for the NBA season) Pick a ridiculous one over there that you say has no chance of happening?

JOHNSON: Ummmmmmm.

BARKLEY: Two black guys beating a black guy up?

SHAQ: (choking for air laughing)

ALL: (laughing)

SMITH: And having a MAGA hat on!

ALL: (laughing)

SMITH: Charles, say it out loud!

JOHNSON: Uh, that’s not on here, man.

ALL: (laughing)

SHAQ: What kind of hats they have on, Chuck?

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: MAGAs.

SMITH: MAGA hats.

BARKLEY: MAGA hats.

ALL: (laughing)

JOHNSON: All right, I think that’s probably… I think that’s probably it.

BARKLEY: Okay.

JOHNSON: The Lakers will not make the playoffs; the Kings will is the latest addition.

SHAQ: You’ pay ’em with cash, Chuck?

JOHNSON: Go ahead, Kenny.

ALL: (laughing)

JOHNSON: I can’t believe you, Chuck.

SHAQ: Would you pay ’em with cash?

JOHNSON: Chuckster?

SHAQ: You pay ’em with cash —

JOHNSON: Chuckster?

ALL: (laughing)

SHAQ: — or you writing ’em a check, Chuck?

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: America, let me just tell you somethin’.

(laughter)

SMITH: What’s that?

BARKLEY: Do not commit crimes with checks.

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: If you’re goin’ to break the law, do not write a check.

SHAQ: (choking for air laughing)

ALL: (laughing)

SMITH: ‘Cause you’re writing a check, then what?

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: Hey, get cash man!

SHAQ: (choking for air laughing)

ALL: (laughing)

SHAQ: Charles, stop, literally stop. Literally. Come on.

ALL: (laughing)

(music flares)

SMITH: Chuck, I have one more question to ask you. Do you buy the face mask, the rope and the thing in the same store?

BARKLEY: No!

ALL: (laughing)

BARKLEY: Hey, Kenny? You think they put that on the receipt, “face mask, rope, bleach”?

ALL: (laughing)

SMITH: In the same store?

BARKLEY: In the same store!

SMITH: They ain’t even going to three different stores.

SHAQ: (choking for air laughing)

ALL: (laughing)

RUSH: Shaquille O’Neal could not stop laughing. (laughing) Shaquille O’Neal was begging Barkley to stop. “Please stop, Chuck. You have to stop. I can’t stop laughing!” Later in the segment, they put this up. You on the Dittocam will see it. Barkley put up a check made out to “Muggers” for $3,500 and the memo section is for “mugging supplies” and it’s signed Jussie Smollett. And they are plastering this all — and Barkley can’t keep a straight face. He can’t talk about basketball.

He just totally destroyed Smollett in the way professional comedians used to, but they won’t go near this today. They will not go near it. They are not going to destroy anybody who is trying to destroy Trump. They are not going to call out anybody who is trying to destroy Trump. They’ll circle the wagons around him — and Barkley just couldn’t help himself. You can’t watch this… What you’re missing by listening to this, are Barkley’s facial expressions.

They want to get him back to basketball talking about the game and the highlights, and he can’t. They throw a serious comment to him about the game and he’s got this deadpan look on his face and he just can’t shut up about how stupid Smollett was and (laughing) “pay to the order of muggers,” $3,500 (laughing) for “mugging supplies.” We will put a screen shot of this up at RushLimbaugh.com so those of you not watching the Dittocam can see this.

It just is a reminder of how the left has abandoned so much. Their hatred and their vitriol is just causing every left-wing industry to implode upon itself — including our intelligence agencies, including the FBI, including the Drive-By Media. And now this politically active Jussie Smollett who has, as I say, been written out of the final two episodes of this TV show, which is on its last legs anyway, Empire. Let’s take a brief time-out.