RUSH: Jussie Smollett: The story that just won’t go away. The latest is that the Empire producers have made the decision he’s not going to appear on the final two episodes of the season. A lot of people are upset that the clown hasn’t been fired. You remember Roseanne, her gargantuanly rated TV show, her comeback show? The first episode was pro-Trump, rates 30 million viewers in the first night. Then she tweets something out about Valerie Jarrett and they fire her — after one tweet!

And then they try to go on the TV show with everybody on the cast except her, and the show kind of falters, as you would expect. Here’s Jussie Smollett, and some of the cast are circling the wagons. The mayor of Chicago is circling the wagons, criticizing the media for a rush to judgment. The media? For crying out loud, the media did everything they could to protect this guy! Is everybody ignoring what the prosecutor read, that four-page list of charges and behavior yesterday?

I actually think, ladies and gentlemen, that it’s beginning to look like the Chicago PD and some others are wrong to conclude that what he did this for was to get more money. I mean, I guess it’s possible it was a factor. Everybody wants more money. But, according to the Hollywood Reporter, his current rate is about $130,000, $125,000 an episode. It was originally reported that he was getting 65 grand an episode, but that’s not true. It’s actually twice that, which puts him on a par with other actors.

Apparently, he’s never even asked for a raise. The Hollywood Reporter also claims that, neither Jussie Smollett nor his agent have ever asked for a raise, and Smollett has never — at least it’s never been seen or heard — had any dissatisfaction with his salary. So I think we have to look elsewhere for a motive, and I think his motive is politics, because everything on the left is politics (it’s corrupted everything that they do) and his desire to become a hero for the left.

I have a story here that I don’t think too many people know about yet. This is from the archives of the New York Times. Let’s go back here to March 9, 2016, New York Times, three years ago. It shows that Smollett was from a family of radical left-wing activists. In fact, his mother was heavily involved with the old Black Panthers. Not the new clowns, but the old Black Panthers. I mean, the real bad dudes from way, way back in the ’60s. These guys palled around with the Weather Underground of Bill… Obama’s friend.

What’s his name? Bill…? Not Gates. Bill Ayers. She is still best friends with Angela Davis, Smollett’s mom is. One of Angela Davis’ many “historic achievements” was that she “purchased the firearms that were used in a 1970 armed takeover of a courtroom in Marin County, California. Four people were killed. [Angela Davis] was prosecuted for three capital felonies, including conspiracy to murder, but she was acquitted, thanks to jury nullification.”

But that’s who Smollett’s mom best bud is.

“When Jussie Smollett and Jurnee Smollett-Bell were growing up, bouncing with their parents and four siblings between New York and Los Angeles, as the kids pursued careers in modeling, acting and music, their downtime was just another chance for performance and togetherness. … ‘Their sense of justice is very strong, and it permeates everything that they do,’ said Alfre Woodard, who has known Jussie and Jurnee since they were children; they worked with her at the nonprofit Artists for a New South Africa. …

“The Smolletts have also been outspoken politically and, since their school years, devoted to causes like HIV/AIDS prevention and ending Apartheid. They were raised in the orbit of the Black Panthers and, lately, have lent their voices to the Black Lives Matter movement. Their trajectory, from child stars to successful adults, is born of their family and its history of activism. … An African-American from New Orleans, Ms. Smollett [Jussie’s mother] met their father, Joel Smollett Sr., a Russian-Polish Jew…”

As I pointed out yesterday, this guy is a black Russian, Smollett is. He’s half white, half black. His father is Russian. So does that make him a Russian spy? Smollett’s mother “met their father, Joel Smollett Sr., a Russian-Polish Jew, in the Bay Area, where they campaigned for civil rights.” Who didn’t? “‘My mom was in the movement with Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, and one of her first mentors was Julian Bond,’ Mr. Smollett said of the Black Panther founders and the civil rights leader.

“‘To this day, Angela Davis is one of her dearest friends. We’ve spent Mother’s Day with Angela.'” (laughs) Well, how cute! So the only point here is the idea that this guy is doing what he’s doing for more money is something that I think everybody has missed, including the Chicago PD. You have Jussie Smollett, and let’s lump him in with his fellow travelers, shall we? Let’s lump him in with James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and all of these conspirators attempting to overthrow the presidency of the United States.

They all hate Trump, and they all took steps to set Trump up to appear to be something he isn’t. Every damned one of these people. This is the crowd Jussie Smollett belongs in. They all hate Donald Trump, and they all took steps to set Trump up to appear to be something he isn’t. He isn’t a racist any more than he pays prostitutes to pee on beds in Moscow.

He isn’t a racist any more than he conspires with Vladimir Putin or is mentally incapacitated to carry out the duties of his office. A gigantic and total smear job, borne of the poison of hatred that these people harbor — all lies perpetrated by liars to feather their own beds. Jussie Smollett wanted to be part of the cabal that took down Donald Trump. Federal bureaucrats wanted job security and advancement with a President Clinton and cover for their crimes.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I made a prediction yesterday. It’s coming true in spades. Audio sound bite number 5.

RUSH ARCHIVE: [T]hey’ve gotta come up with a way of, quote-unquote, “credibly justifying their rush to judgment on this.” And I can pretty much tell you what it’s gonna be. “In this climate created by Donald Trump –” and they’ll talk about what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, when Donald Trump refused to criticize a bunch of white racists in that whole confab there. “Donald Trump has created this atmosphere where people are so enraged, and they are so out of sorts and they’re acting so abnormally, that we’ve got to do something about Donald Trump.”

RUSH: Now, granted that may not be a prediction that’s unique and somebody else couldn’t come up with it. But I did predict it, and boy, is it happening in spades. Washington Post, Jonathan “Capehart: Even if Smollett Story Is False, There’s Still an ‘Atmosphere of Fear'” out there. This is a replay of how they handled the made-up story about rape at the University of Virginia, the Rolling Stone story when it was exposed, entirely made up and fraudulent. The woman that wrote the story said (summarized), “Well, yeah, maybe, but that’s not the point.

“The point is, it’s happening out there, and this story was meant to call attention to it and to raise consciousness about the rapes that women are facing all over American college campuses.” Yeah, but… But you wrote wasn’t true. “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. It’s happening out there, and this story calls attention to it. ” It’s exactly what Capehart is doing. “Even if Smollett Story Is False, There’s Still an ‘Atmosphere of Fear'” out there because of Donald Trump.

Just as I predicted, even if the Smollett “hoax story is false, it still indicates the level of racial ‘menace’ and ‘fear’ in the United States” brought to us, of course, by Donald Trump. And, of course, this article quotes Capehart and a CBS this morning cohost parroting the claim that hate crimes are up anywhere from 10% to 17% under Trump. I mean, they are going all in on this. Even though this may have been a hoax, it’s happening, and it’s worse than ever.

Now from the Advocate mag. This is a gay magazine, gay publication. The editor of Advocate, Zach Stafford, “suggested that the Chicago Police Department leaked information to harm Jussie Smollett because the police officers support President Donald Trump.” A couple of pull quotes. “Stafford then suggested that the Chicago Police Department leaked information to make Smollett look bad because they support Trump, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was Smollett who called the police in the first place to report what officers are now saying was a staged attack.”

Never mind the fact that the Chicago PD left Trump out of this as one of Smollett’s motivations, which I think was the only thing wrong with the Chicago PD press conference yesterday. They said he dragged Chicago through the mud and made the police chief and police department waste resources. The whole thing was aimed at Donald Trump! The entire Smollett episode was aimed at Donald Trump.

He tried to create this story, and he wanted video where a couple of Trump supporters beat him up because he’s gay and black. Clearly Donald Trump was the target. The police chief didn’t even say this. Here is another quote from the Advocate: “Many people have felt that they have been so willing to call this a hoax, is because the central question of this case is, ‘Are Donald Trump supporters out here committing hate crimes?’ And that’s what really sparked a lot of the tension,” says the editor of the Advocate.

“To have a police department that hasn’t been as cooperative as they have been this round, do not openly give information, do openly lie and mishold (sic) information in cases and then to know that they have openly supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election, a lot of activists on the ground are saying, ‘Wait, what’s going on here?'” Who do we believe out of these two people? Really? The central question of the Smollett case is: Are Donald Trump supporters out here committing hate crimes? No. Donald Trump supporters and conservatives are the victims of hate crimes.

Turning Point USA had a conservative recruitment rally out at Berkeley, and one of them got beat up yesterday. It’s all over Campus Reform, the conservative… The kids from Covington wearing MAGA hats. Look what happened to them. The Trump people are not beating people to smithereens. It’s another way around. Another pull quote: The editor of the Advocate “twisted himself into pretzels trying to rationalize and make excuses for Smollett’s actions, even saying at one point that ‘Jussie may have created this whole situation to highlight a reality that is happening every day…'”

So now Smollett’s real motivation for doing this — for faking it, for staging it — was to make sure people know it’s happening every day. This is more than circling the wagons. This is rewriting the entire event and creating brand-new motives for it, based on another series of lies. Everything that is in the Drive-By Media, everything that’s in the pop-culture, everything that’s in social media about Trump is based on total lies. Russian collusion, Trump supporters beating up gay black people. Women will be next.

They are losing their minds. You know, I mentioned Conrad black’s piece at American Greatness earlier. By all that’s right, this ought to be destroying the Democrat Party in the eye of every ordinary Americans — and it may yet do that, if they ever find out about all of this. But we are not through with the examples. Let’s go to CNN, Fredo Live — Fredo Prime Time — on CNN. He had a comedian on there named D.L. Hughley, who had this to say to Fredo about the Smollett case…

HUGHLEY: When you use racism and bigotry and hatred and lying for your own selfish end, and you’re a young, gay, black kid you get indicted. If you do it when you’re an old white guy, you become president. We live in an America right now where racial hatred and bigotry and animus and lying can elevate you to the coffers [sic] of power, and he’s seen it work. I don’t care what anybody says. One’ll get you elected and one’ll get you indicted, but we have seen how hate and lying and fear and stoking bigotry will work.

RUSH: That is a left-wing comedian. How many of you are laughing out there? (laughing) “Man, this guy is a riot!” None of you, right? This is incoherent. This is absolutely incoherent. This does not even suffice as a loose connection of random thoughts. “When you use racism and bigotry and hatred and lying for your own selfish ends, and you’re a young, gay, black kid you get indicted. If you do it when you’re an old white guy, you become president. We live in an America right now where racial hatred and bigotry and animus…”

We live in a country that has done more to correct racial animus, racism and bigotry. We live in the country in the world that has done more to fix and repair it, and note that it doesn’t count for anything. We have bent over backwards to correct some of the errors, mistakes, injustices that were present in the early days of the country. No other country has gone to these lengths and yet it’s never enough. It’s like it never happened. It’s like in these people’s view, America is no different today than when it was founded, and that’s why it must be overthrown.

Here is, on the red carpet, before the 2019 Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards Luncheon yesterday in Beverly Hills. The actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and “life coach” Iyanla Vanzant had this to say about the Jussie Smollett case…

RALPH: I will not throw him under the bus! Is it a big, bad, mistake? Absolutely! But a lot of people have made some awful, awful, big bad mistakes!

VANZANT: Now we can make up whatever we want to make up about it. But, he told a lie the same way the leader of this country does every day.

RUSH: Okay, see? It’s all right. It’s justified. Trump sets the tone. Trump sets the atmosphere. Jussie is an innocent victim. He is a young child! He knows not what he does. Rampant passion, uncontrollable rage brought about by this racist bigot in the White House. Here’s Auntie Maxine, also on the red carpet before the 2019 Essence Black Women in Hollywood Awards Luncheon. A reporter for Variety said: Auntie Maxine, “How do we make sense of the Jussie Smollett situation?”

WATERS: I don’t think we can at this point make sense of it. Uh, there’s still some questions that we have, some answers that have to be given. He’s a friend. Uh, he was at my office. We marched in the Pride parades together. He introduced me, uh, at Black Girls Rock!, and so I — I — I believed him, uh, when I heard about it. I still don’t know all of the details. I’m waiting for the final results of all of this. If, in fact, it is a hoax, of course I would be disappointed.

RUSH: Right. Doesn’t have much regard for the police superintendent, Eddie Johnson, there. She’s not ready to believe the cops, not ready to believe an African American cop in Chicago. “There’s still some questions that we have, some answers that have to be given. He’s a friend. Uh, he was at my office. We marched in the Pride parades together. He introduced me at Black Girls Rock!” I think he wanted more money. This guy is a political activist like nobody is. Finally, on The View today, Maude Behar was talking to cohost Sunny Hostin about the Smollett case.

Maude said, “Hey, Sunny, you talked to Mark Geragos, one of Jussie’s lawyers. What’s the latest?”

HOSTIN: He’s going to mount a vigorous defense, and he’s made it very clear that Jussie is still entitled to a presumption of innocence, and I think we do need to remember that. For the police department to come and lay this all out, we have to still be skeptical. We don’t know what is going to happen. I mean, did everybody think? Did everybody think that Casey Anthony would be found guilty? Yes. Did everybody think that O.J. was gonna be found guilty? Yes.

MAUDE: Mmm-hmm!

HOSTIN: And those people were not found guilty.

RUSH: (chuckles) It doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. (laughing) That’s the point.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To Bass Lake, California, first. Greg, you’re next. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. I’ll get right to my point. I think you missed the superintendent’s James Comey moment yesterday. He did everything James Comey did with Hillary Clinton in laying out the case against Smollett, and then he said, quote: “Absolute justice would be an apology to this city that he smeared, admitting what he did, and then be man enough to offer up what he should offer up in terms of all the resources that were put into this.” So he’s saying the absolute… As he lays out the case, he thinks absolute justice would be a simple apology to the city of Chicago, and then to offer up some kind of payment for all the expense that they had in investigating this thing. I’ll tell you what absolute justice would be: Throw the book at this guy, because he was committing a hate crime.

RUSH: Well, that’s what the Chicago prosecutor —

CALLER: I don’t like the term “hate crime.” I think a crime is a crime, like you said the other day. But this guy, he didn’t offend just the city of Chicago. He offended every one of us Trump supporters. If he’s going to apologize to somebody, he needs to apologize to us.

RUSH: Well, I totally agree with that, but Chicago is not going easy on the guy. The police chief doesn’t charge. The police chief collects the evidence. He announced what they had. The prosecutors are throwing the book at the guy. I don’t know what penalties they are seeking here, but they read four pages of explanation of what evidence they have of Smollett doing. It doesn’t appear that the prosecutors in Chicago are going easy on the guy at all. Now, I agree with you that the one element that the police superintendent did not recognize or mention is the actual targets of this whole thing, and that’s Trump and his supporters. I couldn’t agree with you more about that.

CALLER: Well, I guess my biggest problem is where he says “absolute justice.” “Absolute justice would be an apology to the city.” You know, he’s setting it up so that —

RUSH: Well, wait a minute. I can understand your rage if the prosecutors were not going to do anything to the guy.

CALLER: Well, I’m sure the prosecutors are going to after him because it’s so high profile and they’ve got to do it now. But my point is that the superintendent laid out this case, and then he laid the groundworks by saying — by intimating — that if he just apologizes, that would be “absolute justice.” Really, the way to get around all this is for the guy to just simply apologize and then offer up something to the city of Chicago for all expense and work that they laid into doing the investigation. I’m just saying he’s laying the groundwork. I’m not saying they are going to go after the guy and prosecute him. I think they have to. But I think he’s laying the groundwork for circling the wagons, making him feel like a victim. “Hey, if the guy just apologizes, maybe we can go a little easier on the guy.”

RUSH: Look, I understand what you’re saying about trying to tie this to Comey, but really what Comey said was the final word. Comey assumed the role of prosecutor, because the actual attorney general was corrupted. She had met with Hillary Clinton’s husband in a jet on a tarmac at the airport in Phoenix. So Comey’s words were the last words. “She’s not going to be prosecuted. Nobody would prosecute here because we can’t find intent,” and that’s where it ended.

It doesn’t end with the police chief or superintendent. Look, I don’t want to nitpick with you here, but the police chief can say all day what he thinks total justice would be, and it’s not going to have a thing to do with what the prosecutors do. Theoretically. The prosecutors read the Riot Act! Now, we still don’t know how this is going to end up and what they are actually going to pursue. He’s got the celebrity lawyer, Mark Geragos, and his firm — and who knows what kind of deal may yet be struck, a plea or what have you.

More important to me than the police superintendent is the ongoing effort here to nullify what Smollett did and redefine and justify it by the media. Forget the Democrats! You would expect that. The media is laying the groundwork to ultimately justify what he did, because it’s Trump’s fault that he wanted to do it, because it’s Trump’s fault that he’s mad, because it’s Trump’s fault that everybody has become racist in America. That’s where the damage here is being done, and that’s where the damage has been done since Trump entered the race.

The media is doing the damage.

The media is destroying the ability of the public to consume truth and evidence about virtually any story in politics happening today.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We have a couple more sound bites on the Smollett episode. Here is the state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney of Cook County, at the courthouse. Yesterday. Her name is Risa Lanier. She held a press conference and she read… I listened to this, and I was envious of this. She had a perfectly professional voice. Her pronunciation was perfect. Her phrasing was perfect. She was not shrill. She was just the epitome of professionalism reading. Really. Not one stutter.

I notice these kinds of things. I notice when keep say (impression), “You know, uh — and, you know, and, uh, uh, you know.” I made the studious effort my entire professional broadcaster’s life not to rely on those kinds of crutches when my brain is vacant looking for a thought, because my brain is never vacant looking for a thought. Other people can’t say that, but I can. She was flawless in this. And she got to the point where she was describing the fact that Smollett bought drugs from the Nigerian brothers, the “muggers” that he hired to beat him up.

LANIER: Text messages between defendant Smollett and Abel revealed that Abel was a source of designer drugs for defendant Smollett. Specifically, since the spring of 2018 and on several occasions, defendant Smollett requested Abel to provide him with Molly, which is street name for the narcotic Ecstasy.

RUSH: Right, and the Drive-Bys are totally ignoring this — and so far, the prosecutors are, too. But I think this is going to be Smollett’s fallback. If everything else falls apart, it’s going to fall back on, “The drugs made me do it.” “I’m an untreated drug user,” he will say. Now, here’s Van Jones. Back to CNN yesterday. The info babe hosting the show is Kate Bolduan, and she’s got the green jobs czar from the Obama administration, Van Jones, on there, and she said, “Something you and I have been talking about not on TV but with each other is finding ways to bring people together.”

So we’re to believe that Kate Bolduan and Van Jones, the former green jobs czar for the Obama administration, are hanging around a green room in the offices of CNN and they are talking to each other about how to bring people together. Which, of course, they blow to smithereens when they end up on camera doing what CNN does, which does nothing but divide people. CNN, MSNBC, the Democrat Party, they are dividing this country likes it’s never been divided, except maybe for the Civil War. But now we’re to believe that they sit around talking about how to bring people together, but they didn’t do that on TV until now. So she said, “Something you and I have been talking about, finding ways to bring people together. The superintendent of police says this is the opposite of that.”

JONES: I don’t think people understand how important he has been in the black community. Empire, as a show —

BOLDUAN: Yeah!

JONES: — to have him, as a beloved character, I think did a great deal to knock back homophobia in the black community. The fact that ‘Empire’ has been celebrated, the fact that he has been celebrated. And you see homophobia in the black community, through his eyes on this show, this is a Jackie Robinson against homophobia in the black community. An icon, a beloved icon — and now you have the fall of an icon, at a time when we need icon’s, when we need heroes, when we need people to stand up.

RUSH: That’s right. We need gay icons in the black community. That’s what the black community needs. We need gay icons. One just blew himself up there, just destroyed himself. That’s what we need: Gay icons in the black community. Now, why would that be? Well, it has been the case that the African-American community… Mr. Snerdley has told me this. (sigh) It’s one of the last groups that gay people in that group admitted.

It has traditionally really been a taboo, and that is what Van Jones is saying. Jussie Smollett… What do you think? How many people in America have heard of Jussie Smollett versus how many people have heard of Jackie Robinson? I mean, before this. Before this, how many people…? The show has 5 million viewers. C’mon. How many people have heard of Jussie Smollett? He’s an icon? So Jussie Smollett supposedly, he plowed new ground.

He carved new territory. He made it okay for gay African-American males to come out. And now that’s all gone. It’s so bad. It’s so sad. It’s so disappointing. He had so much Jackie Robinson in him. I’ll tell you, what these people are doing… I heard somebody the other day come out and compare themselves to Martin Luther King. Oh, it was Le’Veon Bell of the Pittsburgh Steelers. When the Steelers announced they wouldn’t put the franchise tag on him., he said, “I’m free at last. Free at last!”

He’s a guy making $14 million, $15 million, $20 million a year equating himself to Martin Luther King. I’ll tell you, these great civil rights icons have been bastardized like you can’t believe in the modern-day Democrat Party. The last thing the Democrat Party looks at today is the content of anybody’s character. The Democrat Party is full-fledged, 100% identity politics, which is the opposite of what Dr. King was striving for. Anyway, after acknowledging that the young new version of Jackie Robinson has a problem, Van Jones, the green jobs czar of the Obama administration, continued…

JONES: He owes those same young, black, gay men that he was addressing in that interview… He owes them not just an apology but a lifetime of atonement. Uh, because this ain’t nothing to play with. This ain’t nothing to play with, and he was playing with it. Shame on him.

RUSH: Now, for those of you who may not know what that means, being gay and black and being an icon, “This ain’t nothing to play with. This ain’t nothing to joke around about. This ain’t nothing to take lightly — and if he was playing around with it,” meaning if he was parlaying it and if he was using it for some other purpose (like to get more money or whatever,) then he’s lost Van Jones. He now faces a lifetime of atonement.

That’s what the Drive-Bys and Democrats are trying to shorten. Maybe a couple of days of atonement and we can move on. Not a lifetime. The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, finally weighed in last night on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon. The question, “I don’t normally see you get this emotional,” Rahm. You’re really emotional out there over this. “I don’t normally see you get this emotional. Why is that,” Rahm? (impression) Is it because there’s no crisis here that you can parlay? You said, “Never let a crisis go to waste,” but is this one going to waste? What are we looking at here?

EMANUEL: Well, because it’s… (sputtering) Look, I was, uhhhh… You know, my mother started her career and started us in politics working on Congress and racial equality in Chicago. I’m the son and grandson of an immigrant. That is the Chicago I know. You know, if you want to get paid more, get an agent, but don’t use your sexual orientation, don’t use your race, and have everybody’s sympathies come to you, and it turns out none of that was true. And some young man in school is going to be attacked (dramatic pause), somebody at work is going to face discrimination (dramatic pause), and everybody now is going to have two doubts about whether that is true.

RUSH: If I may, Mr. Mayor: People have doubts now and yesterday and last week and 19 years ago and seven years. We’ve had doubts ever since Duke lacrosse. We’ve had doubts ever since Ferguson. Doubts ever since Baltimore. We’ve had doubts ever since the Covington kids. We have had doubts because you people have been faking these things for years! You have been falsely accusing people of these things for years.

Now all of a sudden, you’re worried about the real? You know, we went through the whole Kavanaugh joke where ultimately, they said, “Well…. Well… Maybe Blasey Ford was mistaken, but at least she raised consciousness to all of the abusive women by conservative judges out there.” We are so used to this, Mr. Mayor. That’s why we all hang back when these stories happen. That’s why we all hang back and don’t start runnin’ in, because we know that the first version of these stories is never right if the mainstream media is carrying the banner.