RUSH: Jay-Z being hired by the NFL. We were going to get into this yesterday and of course time expired before I had a chance to get into it. And here’s what happened: Jay-Z’s real name is Shawn Carter. He’s the husband of Beyonce. And they’ve put together a massive musical empire.

His net worth reportedly is a billion dollars. You should know that’s not enough to own an NFL team. You need more than that to be approved for ownership. It’s not enough anymore. So the NFL has hired Jay-Z essentially as music director for the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. But it’s going to be more than that.

Now, if you go back to the beginnings of the Kaepernick taking a knee over the Anthem and the flag at NFL games, we were told that this was being done because Kaepernick was sick and tired of the cops running around and murdering people of color. And he had had it. And as such, he couldn’t stand and honor America either by way of the National Anthem or the flag.

So he took a knee. Other players joined him. The media loved it. The media ate it up. And one of his first early supporters and advocates was none other than Jay-Z. Jay-Z joined forces. Jay-Z has a sports agency group, by the way, too, called Roc Nation — R-o-c Nation. Jay-Z has athletes as clients. I think what this is, I think Jay-Z wants to be an NFL owner at some point down the road, and this is a step-by-step process to try to become approvable with the NFL ownership group.

So the first thing that he did, he threw Kaepernick under the bus. Audio sound bite one, yesterday, New York City, at Jay-Z’s Roc Nation entertainment company offices, he and the commissioner, Roger Goodell held a press conference to explain what Jay-Z is going to be doing here with the halftime show and presiding over that, basically being musical director and producer for the National Football League. So a reporter who remembered that Jay-Z was once in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick said, “Mr. Z, would you kneel or would you stand today?”

JAY-Z: I think we passed kneeling. You know, I think it’s time to go into actionable items. I think everyone knows what the issue is, and we’re done with that. I’m not minimizing that part of it, ’cause that has to happen. That’s a necessary part of the process. But now we all know what’s going on, what are we going to do, how are we going to stop? ‘Cause the kneeling was not about a job, it was about injustice.

RUSH: Ohhh!

JAY-Z: Everyone’s saying, “How are you going forward if Kap doesn’t have a job?” This wasn’t about him having a job. That became a part of the discussion. He was kneeling to bring attention to injustice. Now how do we address that injustice?

RUSH: He just threw Kap overboard, folks. He said it was never about a job. He said he was never supporting Kaepernick so Kaepernick could get a job. That’s going to come as a shock to the Drive-By Media because to them all this is about is Kaepernick getting a job. They want to bring the NFL ownership to its knees. They want to force the NFL ownership to hire Kaepernick.

They would love, the sports Drive-Bys would love to force the NFL to hire Kaepernick, hire the guy who refused to honor America. Hire the guy so that they can show that they aren’t racist. That’s what the media wants. So here comes Mr. Z who has been hired by the NFL and he promptly throws Kaepernick overboard and said his involvement was never about getting Kaepernick a job.

Now, I want to read — this may need some parsing. “I think we passed kneeling, you know, I think it’s time to go into actionable items.” Don’t ask me, I’m just telling you what he said. “I think everyone knows what the issue is, and we’re done with that.”

What are we done with? Are we done with kneeling? Are we done with protesting? Is that what the issue is? And we’re done with it? He said, “I’m not minimizing that part of it because that has to happen.” What has to happen? “That’s a necessary part of the process, but now we all know what’s going on, what are we going to do? How are we going to stop?” I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ve started the Jay-Z stuff and the NFL.  I want to get back to it because it’s fundamental to what Trump is doing.  Now, to set the table again: It’s 800 days since Colin Kaepernick has worked in the NFL.  There are 365 days in a year.  So it’s a little over two seasons that Kaepernick has not worked.  Kaepernick began the protests against the flag and the anthem.

His stated reason for doing so was he’s sick and tired of the cops murdering people of color, sick and tired of the social injustice of America.  This created a number of people in the NFL also joining him in the kneeling.  The media ate it up.  The media loved it!  The media televised all of this during the anthem, and the NFL didn’t know what to do.  The NFL didn’t… They think their audience is people that love what Kaepernick was doing.  They were afraid to condemn it.  They were afraid to do anything other than…

They tried to throw money at these players with social justice buy-offs and any number of things.  It took Donald Trump to end it.  Donald Trump saved the NFL. I firmly believe that Trump saved the NFL by calling everybody out on this.  Now the protests are over.  The kneeling, if it happens, nobody cares. Nobody televises it. It’s come and gone, and Kaepernick does not have a job.  Now the Drive-By Media has had an objective since this happened, and that’s to force the NFL to get Kaepernick back on a team, on a roster.

And the reason they want that is the sports Drive-Bys want to be able to force these racist, rich, white owners to have to hire the guy who was trying to bring down the league.  That, to them, would be the epitome of — the ultimate in — social justice.  And the owners have refused to do so.  Now, one of the early advocates that Kaepernick had in his mission was none other than the music impresario Mr. Jay-Z, otherwise known as Shawn Carter.  Mr. Z was an early ally, an early supporter.

He joined in the refrain that cops were indiscriminately murdering black people.  And he wrote songs including this fact in his lyrics.  In one of them in 2009, he even included me, your host, in the lyric! It claimed that I was doing something vaguely obscene to him, and I was totally… I’m not even aware that I’ve met Mr. Z.  So the NFL has hired Jay-Z, who is a rap music and hip hop impresario, to ostensibly be the music director of the NFL Super Bowl halftime extravaganza.  Now, it’s got to be for more than that.  The halftime show at the Super Bowl takes 20 minutes, max.  You don’t need to have somebody on payroll for the whole year to do that.

Now, the NFL claims, no, that 20 minutes, that’s the biggest 20 minutes in showbiz. And this is how they think the league can expand its demographic reach, and you can tell which way they think the demographic reach ought to go by virtue of hiring Jay-Z.

So there was a press conference between the commissioner, Roger Goodell — we’re back to sound bite one here — and the newly hired director of music and halftime entertainment, Mr. Z, and after the press conference a reporter said, “Mr. Z, would you kneel or would you stand today if there was a protest at a game?”

JAY-Z: I think we passed kneeling. You know, I think it’s time to go into actionable items. I think everyone knows what the issue is, and we’re done with that. I’m not minimizing that part of it, ’cause that has to happen. That’s a necessary part of the process. But now we all know what’s going on, what are we going to do, how are we going to stop? ‘Cause the kneeling was not about a job, it was about injustice. Everyone’s saying, “How are you going forward if Kap doesn’t have a job?” This wasn’t about him having a job. That became a part of the discussion. He was kneeling to bring attention to injustice. Now how do we address that injustice?

RUSH: I’ve listened to this. I’ve read this two or three times. I think I know what Mr. Z is saying. Mr. Z’s saying, I didn’t come on board this protest to help Kap get a job. It’s never been about Kap getting a job. Kap may think it’s about him getting a job, but it ain’t. It’s about the injustice. It’s about white cops murdering black kids, but we’re done with the kneeling now. Been there, done that. That’s over with. It ain’t about getting Kap a job.

Well, Kaepernick is out there tweeting and all kinds of stuff. “Colin Kaepernick Celebrates Three-Year Anthem Protest Anniversary with Graphic Video of Police Violence.” So it ain’t over for Kaepernick. He’s still out there tweeting about the injustices of the cops while one of his early allies, Jay-Z, just threw him under the bus and overboard at the same time by saying the kneeling wasn’t about a job; it was about injustice. Everybody’s saying how are you going forward if Kap doesn’t have a job. That’s the sports Drive-Bys. The sports Drive-Bys have set up this narrative that this can’t end until Kaepernick gets a job. Yntil the NFL is forced to hire this guy, this cannot end.

Here’s Jay-Z saying, oh, yes, it can, because it has. It is over. Now that I’m part of the league, it’s over. Now that I’m part of the league, all that stuff that went on, why, that’s over with and done now. The reporter said, “Did you speak to Colin Kaepernick about this? Did you talk to him about you taking this new gig with the NFL?”

JAY-Z: I would never tell you what me and Kap’s private conversation was about, but we spoke, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: And is he supportive?

JAY-Z: I will never tell you about our conversation. (laughter)

RUSH: Obviously, Kaepernick is not supportive of Mr. Z taking this new gig with the NFL because Mr. Z does not want to divulge the nature of the conversation. Kaepernick is no doubt feeling sold out. Kaepernick is feeling sold down the river by one of his allies, Jay-Z, who was originally on the bus with him, protesting the injustice and whatever else was being protested. But now Kap has learned today that it was never about him. It was never about getting a job.

The sports Drive-Bys are not going to be happy about this, because to them that’s all this has been about, forcing these owners to hire Kaepernick. Here’s the commissioner, Roger Goodell had this to say about the league’s relationship with the players at the joint press conference with Mr. Z.

ROGER GOODELL: We listened to our players, we understood what our players were saying, and we created a platform of which to help drive change. This partnership, in addition to the entertainment aspect and bringing football and music together, is going to help us make even greater change. And we call it protest to progress. Right? We need to make progress.

RUSH: Does anybody have any idea what either of these two guys are saying? Okay, well, tell me. Protest to progress, bringing football and music together. Football and music have been together for I don’t know how long. There’s nothing new about football and music. What is this?

So you tell me, Mr. Program Observer, what are these guys saying? (interruption) Okay. So what they’re saying is they’re going to make so much money but they can’t talk about that being the reason they’re doing this and they’ve got to tell everybody they’re doing this for justice reasons and they’re doing this for progress reasons, and they’re doing this for reasons of demographics. They’re doing this for spreading the reach of the league to stop the protests, but actually all this is, is greed.

All this is, is the pursuit of profit, which is not greed. Let me take that back. But they’re just trying to hide the fact they’re both trying to get rich here by saying it’s about something other than that. Last night, one more bite here, before we have to go to the break. Harvey Levin at TMZ caught up with Mr. Z and got an interview with him and it’s just about 20 seconds. Very quick. Listen fast.

LEVIN: The halftime show, I thought he boycotted last year’s?

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: He did!

MALE PRODUCER 1: He has completely cut the legs out from underneath Colin Kaepernick.

FEMALE PRODUCER: This is a typical Jay-Z move. He is going to go in that room, he’s going to try and make it where he is speaking for people that are not in that room.

MALE PRODUCER 2: Isn’t it more likely the NFL’s going to hide behind Jay-Z next time they have a controversy?

FEMALE PRODUCER: Anybody who first heard about it was like, what the heck is happening?

RUSH: I misread this. This is not an interview with Jay-Z. This is TMZ throwing Jay-Z overboard. Jay-Z throws Kaepernick overboard. TMZ throws Jay-Z overboard. And basically what they’re saying is he threw Kaepernick overboard, and it’s a typical Jay-Z move. He’s just going in there to provide cover for the league on these racial matters and getting paid a lot of money to do so. That’s what Harvey Levin’s opinion is. It could well be.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So, it’s clear that the NFL thinks that they are buying some cover here. And for Jay-Z, he’s willing to be paid to provide the cover and so forth. I was telling people earlier today that I think Jay-Z would like to be an NFL owner, but there’s problems. Some of the Jay-Z lyrics in previous songs are problematic. He’s going to have to do some things to allay any concerns owners might have.

This is going to give him direct contact with owners. It’s going to give him a chance to change their thinking of him. He’s already got people like Robert Kraft in his corner. I can see a day where a team might be owned by Jon Bon Jovi and Jay-Z. (interruption) Has Beyonce weighed in? (laughing) Beyonce will be doing the halftime show every year. (interruption) Why wasn’t Beyonce at the press conference? That’s a good question.