RUSH: Ed is in Brookline, Massachusetts, which is a great, great place and they’ve got a great country club there. How you doing, Ed? Great to have you on the program.

CALLER: First of all, Rush, I need to really restrain myself on this. I’m a Jew, okay? I live in Massachusetts here. And I saw the Joe Biden launch video for his campaign, you know, the giant lie that the tiki torch marchers shouting, “The Jews will not replace us” and somehow saying that Trump thought those are fine people. But for Biden to use that video, “The Jews will not replace us” video as the launch of his campaign, I feel is such an utter, utter exploitation of Jewish people, an outrage and so utterly offensive, I can’t even say in words how insulting that is —

RUSH: We get it.

CALLER: — really exploiting the Jews.

RUSH: I got it. You’re exactly right. This is what they do. That’s what Candace Owens’ complaint is. He’s exploiting black people at the same time he’s exploiting Jewish people, which is exactly what they do.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, I purposely didn’t want to get in this in the first hour. There are other things I wanted to get to, get them out of the way. I wanted to make sure I got to them.

Now we go to Biden, full speed ahead, his presidential announcement today, and I know that many of you are livid over how Biden chose to announce his entrance into the race today using this bogus fake news story of what supposedly was said by the president, Donald Trump, in the aftermath of the incident in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Now, interestingly, Biden wanted to actually announce his entry into the campaign live in Charlottesville and they told him in Charlottesville they didn’t want it, they’re sick of it. Charlottesville is a leftist domain, but this is something that even they want to try to get past and don’t want to be known for, and so they asked Biden not to do it live.

So he decided for the rigors of a video announcement. And he chose to focus his reason for getting into the race because the soul of America is the verge of being lost because of what Donald Trump said after the protests that took place in Charlottesville over the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate heroes and so forth.

Now, Joe Biden has an interesting challenge. Joe Biden is from an era of the Democrat Party which was not blatantly anti-America. They were full-speed-ahead liberals, and they did believe that the government was the answer to every problem, and they knew that government control of it meant never ending power. But they didn’t hate the country. They might have believed it had serious problems, but they didn’t hate it like the current base of the Democrat Party does.

So Joe Biden’s first challenge today in announcing his candidacy, it’s not enough to hate Donald Trump. That’s a given. Anybody running for the Democrat presidential nomination has to hate Donald Trump. But anybody hoping to secure the nomination has to hate America too. It’s not enough for Biden to hate Trump, he has to now make people think he hates America. Meaning, he’s got problems with the foundations of this country.

He has got to convince the base of the Democrat that he agrees with them, that this the country was rotten from the day it was founded, that was it founded on rotten, racist, sexist, bigoted principles and those principles still rule the day and they’ve got to be swept away.

Joe Biden doesn’t hate America. His challenge is to convince Democrat voters that he does. If he has any hope of securing the Democratic Party nomination, he’s going to have to persuade a lot of people that he has huge problems with this country, not just Donald Trump. Hating Donald Trump is not enough. Because they all hate Donald Trump. You have to hate the reason for Donald Trump. The reason for Donald Trump is the flaws in this country that allow for, quote, unquote, white supremacy, white nationalism, bigotry, sexism, and racism to triumph and prosper. You have to almost hate relatively half the population of the country. You have to hate, period.

Now, Joe Biden can do strident, partisan liberalism with anybody. He can stay in that competition all day long, but hating America he really doesn’t. And I’m gonna tell you right now, there isn’t any huge excitement that is effervescing and bubbling up about the Biden campaign.

You know what I just saw? I just saw Biden leave his humble dwelling, someplace in Wilmington, Delaware. You know how many people were there? There were more media people than there were voters there.

Joe walked out, and he was not wearing a coat and tie, he was wearing an open shirt, open collared shirt, and he was walking down the steps of wherever he was to an awaiting car, which is gonna whisk him off to who knows where.

He didn’t have to wade through large crowd. There wasn’t any security within immediate reach. There just wasn’t a lot of people there. And he announced for the presidency today. Now, there is no public event, obviously. The first one is scheduled for Monday, in Pittsburgh, a fundraiser. And again, that is taking a page out of the Hillary book. I mean, doing an opening and introduction video. That takes a lot out of anybody 77 years old. And you need two or three days to recover, to recuperate from all the hard work of producing that video.

So Joe’s gotta go back there and rest and rejuvenate, recharge and all, get ready for the big fundraiser in Pittsburgh on Monday. So we have two sound bites of the video from Joe Biden announcing his campaign based on an abject lie of what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia a couple years ago, I forget the year, just within the past two years. And President Trump’s reaction to it. Here’s the first bite.

BIDEN: He said there were, quote, “Some very fine people on both sides.” Very fine people on both sides? With those words the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And at that moment I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.

RUSH: I want you to stop and think for a moment here. What happened in Charlottesville is a much greater threat than what happened on 9/11? In fact, he’s not even upset over what happened in Charlottesville. He’s upset about what the president supposedly said about it, which is a lie.

That was the catalyst, that is what woke Joe Biden up, that is what made Joe Biden realize that the threat to this nation was unlike anything he had ever seen in his lifetime? The president did not draw a moral equivalence between those protesting in Charlottesville. I’ll get to that in a minute. Here’s another bite from the Bite Me presidential announcement video.

BIDEN: If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation — who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen. The core values of this nation, our standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that’s made America America is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for president of the United States. We can’t forget what happened in Charlottesville. Even more important, we have to remember who we are. This is America.

RUSH: Man, this is just amazing. This one event, they know that they’re lying about it, and they continue to go back. It’s what I said yesterday. They cannot innovate. The Mueller investigation has got to become Watergate. And there has to be a John Dean, and they hope that that’s Don McGahn. Everything has to be something from the past repeated.

So Charlottesville is the equivalent of the Oklahoma City bombing or whatever it is they’re trying to draw connections to. But they’re making it up! They’re lying about it just as they lied about it the moment it happened. But of all the events that have happened in this country, say in the last two years, that might want to inspire somebody to run for president, Charlottesville?

What does it tell you? It’s exactly what our last caller said. He is attempting to exploit African-American voters and Jewish voters. They are being used again by Biden as though they are thoughtless and as though they are helpless, they can’t take care of themselves, they can’t protect themselves. It takes somebody like Joe Biden and the Democrat Party to protect them from all of the evils out there who happen to be Donald Trump. It’s cheap, insufficient, but more importantly, the whole thing is a lie.

We’re gonna go back and listen to what Donald Trump said. Charlottesville is another hoax! It’s another made-up, fake news hoax. What Trump really said is very different than what Biden is launching his campaign based on today. Donald Trump never said that white, neo-Nazis are good people and that they are a moral equivalence to the protesters that were there opposing whatever was going on with the Confederate statues and so forth that the left was demanding all be torn down. Here’s Trump sound bite number one…

THE PRESIDENT: I will tell you something. I watched those very closely, much more closely than you people watched it, and you have… You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that. But I’ll say it right now.

REPORTERS: (grumbling)

THE PRESIDENT: You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent. I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me.

REPORTER: They were white nationalists!

THE PRESIDENT: Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.

RUSH: So right there is this whole so-called controversy, in a nutshell, because Trump refused to follow the fake news structure that everybody opposing the left had to be white supremacist, neo-Nazis, and racist bigots. Trump pointed out that the left protesters didn’t even have the permit! They’re the ones that caused the trouble. The other people had a permit to assemble.

The left group didn’t. They stormed in there and tried to shut this event down. Trump simply points out they didn’t have a permit, and that not everybody in this protest was legitimate. There were some people who legitimately believe in Robert E. Lee and don’t think that his statue ought to come down, and they are not white supremacists, and they are not neo-Nazis or Nazis of any kind. Well, that’s all it took.

When you violate the tenets of political correctness and when you go against what is the established narrative, that gave them the opening to suggest that Trump was suggesting a moral equivalence between the two groups. Now, that was August 15th, 2017, Trump Tower. The event happened on August 12th. Here’s the second Trump sound bite on this — and over and over again, you hear him. He will differentiate between the neo-Nazis and the people who were there protesting the removal of the statue.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I think there’s blame on both sides. You look at —

FEMALE REPORTER: Is there bigotry on both sides?

THE PRESIDENT: You look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don’t have any doubt about it, either —

REPORTER: (unintelligible)

THE PRESIDENT: — and if you reported it accurately, you would say it.

REPORTER: — killed a person! Ever hired —

ACOSTA: The neo-Nazis started this thing.

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me.

ACOSTA: They showed up in Charlottesville to protest the removal of that statue.

THE PRESIDENT: They didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group —

REPORTERS: (shouting)

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me. Excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

RUSH: Right. So there it is. “You had fine people on both sides.” It’s undeniable! But the left has constructed a fake scenario in which the only angelic and decent protesters were the left — who wanted to eliminate any monuments, any remembrances of the Confederacy and so forth — and those who didn’t. And then the neo-Nazis, a small segment of the group, storm in there, try to take over the event or disrupt it and so forth — and Trump did not fall for the trick.

He refused to follow through on what the media and everybody was demanding, that he condemn everybody the other side. That’s what they demanded that he do, and he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t condemn everybody, which is what the left always demands: Condemn everybody on the right, disavow everybody on the right. Trump would not do it! And this is the payback. They go out and they lie, and they now claim that Trump was defending the neo-Nazis and claiming that there’s some good people in the neo-Nazis.

“We all must be united,” Trump said. “We must all condemn all that hate stands for. There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. Let’s come together as one. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, many sides. What’s vital now is a swift restoration of law and order.” This is another thing that he shouldn’t have done. He actually pointed out that there were some violent ne’er-do-wells on the left in this protest, too, which there were!

But you’re not supposed to say it.

That was on August 12th. Three days later, at Trump Tower, you heard Trump taking questions from the media, asking questions about Charlottesville, and Trump defended his statement on August 12th that I just read to you, and repeated his claim that there was blame on both sides. He said, “Not all those people were neo-Nazis. Believe me, not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.”

He said, “The push to remove Confederate statues was an attempt to change history,” which it is, adding that he believed there were “very fine people on both sides.” He then added, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists. They should be condemned totally.” That part of what he said, nobody airs. There were “fine people on both sides,” and then he added, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis.”

They did not air that aspect. Nobody has. It’s left for us to dig up. So this is what Biden has sought to exploit to announce his candidacy, because what his candidacy is really about is hating Donald Trump. But now he’s got to go out and convince Democrat base voters that he also hates America, because it’s America as currently constituted that gave us Donald Trump. You gotta hate America, you gotta hate Trump, and you gotta hate the people who voted for Trump.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, let’s stop and think for just a second. Here’s Bite Me. He’s introducing his campaign for the presidency. He can use anything he wants to explain why he wants to do this, why he wants to be president. Of all the things, Charlottesville, Virginia?

Most people have forgotten Charlottesville, Virginia. Most people don’t even know what it was about. It’s long been forgotten by most. The real primary, immediate threat to our nation is illegal immigration — and where’s Biden? Biden is plugged into racial politics, because that’s all he knows. That’s all… As an aging, ancient Democrat, that’s all he knows.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re gonna go to Cleveland. This is Fred. Fred, I’m glad you waited. Welcome. Great to have you here with us.

CALLER: Good day, Rush. For Biden to perpetuate such a lie as his opening announcement, I find it to be an insult to every single American. Binden is proven to be a two-time loser. And what he did this morning was the act of a coward. And I think that 90 days from today he will be out of the race, and he will be hiring an attorney to protect himself for the floodgates that are about to open.

RUSH: An attorney!

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: What floodgates would open that would require Bite Me to have a lawyer?

CALLER: The Horowitz report, Barr, the attorney general. I have to agree with your caller the other day. I think they are using Rosenstein as a pawn. He is spilling the beans, and I believe that as soon as the floodgates open, every single Democrat in power will be running for the hills.

RUSH: Oh, I see what you. You think Bite Me is gonna have some linkage to the coup that has been run because he was in the Obama administration? Maybe so. Let me say this. Now, some of you may disagree with me here. But I think, you know, Biden has to be calculating. He wants supposedly — I’m not even really convinced that he wants this, folks. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be insulting anybody here.

I just don’t see the — you can see when somebody has the lust, the thirst, the real desire for something, and this has seemed like something he hasn’t even been able to pull the trigger on. And I’m thinking Charlottesville, with all the things out there, the one thing, the one thing that woke him up, the one thing that made Joe Biden say, “This country needs me. We’re heading off the rails. Somebody’s gotta stand up,” Charlottesville just doesn’t do that.

So it tells me that this is totally calculated, which is what politicians do, except for Trump. But everybody else is out there calculating this. Remember who their base is. Remember the things that tick their base off. And remember how their base is deluded, deranged, and so forth. So there’s some internal polling data that tells them that this is something that will resonate with Democrat voters.

If Biden were running for president before Charlottesville had happened, he obviously wouldn’t be using Charlottesville, but he wouldn’t even be going to this direction. He might be focusing on race in a certain way, but this just seems not the issue that Biden on his own would have chosen to say, “We’re going off the rails and the country needs me.” Charlottesville is long gone. People don’t even remember really when it was. It’s not something that was permanently defining pro or con.

And so when these calculations begin is the first sign you have that you don’t have real genuineness, real passion. So it’s gotta be contrived and made up, written and focus-grouped in order to reach a certain group of people you think you can’t get started without.

Now, I realize some of this may sound contradictory ’cause all of politics is calculating and marketing and messaging. But the candidate, the candidate has to be perceived as real. The candidate has to be perceived as the real deal. Even within the realm of politics where people distrust and think that a lot of lies are lies and promises are not meant to be kept and that everything is said for media gain. Even within that universe it’s still up to a candidate to break through some of that and be perceived as genuine. This just didn’t do it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Charles, Philadelphia, great to have you. Welcome to the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: How you doing, Rush?

RUSH: Good, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: I’d just like to tell you that I’m standing and I’m look at the St. Augustine Beach right now, but I waited to talk to you about Joe Biden. But it looks like you answered some of the questions. I was wondering why he was not opening in Scranton, Pennsylvania, since he’s always bragging about being Irish and being from Scranton. It’s coal-mining country, Rush, and the people there don’t want the Democrats no more. You had to see Jim Thorpe, PA, in 2016. But it is interesting that he came out with racial comments.

I did not want to call you on this. This wasn’t the topic of my call. But after listening to you, you know, I’m an inner-city kid from Philadelphia who grew up in the sixties. When the Democrats make these racial comments, do they ever think about the 13 or 14-year-old white boy that’s on a public transportation bus by himself and gets attacked? I mean, it happens. That stuff needs to stop. Let’s get back to Biden. It is interesting that he’s not taking his voice to Scranton but he’s taking it to Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, which is Democrats. I don’t believe any Democrat, this day, will ever win Pennsylvania again, and that is because of the miners: Jim Thorpe, the Molly Maguires, and all that up in that area.

RUSH: Well, certainly not Biden. I agree with you about that. He’s going back to Allegheny County because Obama was strong as hell in Allegheny County, which is Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania. That’s one of the reasons he’s going there, ’cause it’s a fundraiser. And, you know, the race for money with all these people in this race is gonna be very key.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s Pearl in Minneapolis. Great to have you, Pearl. Glad you waited. Hello.

CALLER: Hi! Hi, Rush. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: Longtime… Yeah, longtime listener, and thank you so much for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet.

CALLER: So (chuckles) on the whole Biden white supremacy candidacy, it just put me over the edge today and gave me an idea. I just want to say to the start, I am one of the millions of nonracist, patriotic Americans who have completely had it with the race and gender division these candidates inject in every single statement they run on. It is so racist in itself, and I am with Candace Owens 1,000% on the exploitation of blacks. It has got to stop. With another election cycle, with more of it shoved down our throats, it just got me thinking about something. It would be so awesome, Russia, if you could give an EIB Network American campaign challenge to every single one of the 2020 candidates in the name of equal justice, equal opportunity, and equal rights for all as Biden just put it today. Candidates are not to mention race or gender during the entire campaign.

RUSH: (bursts out laughing)

CALLER: I know. I know.

RUSH: (coughing)

CALLER: But we know this would be for fairness reasons. Remember fairness. Only policies and policy ideas and policy structure: National defense, (crosstalk) the economy and so forth.

RUSH: Tell you what, Pearl. I’d be more than happy to issue the challenge, and they might take that sound bite and make it the opening gag on Saturday Night Live if I do it, but I might be willing to try it.