RUSH: Here’s Steven. Steven’s in Stamford, Connecticut. It’s great to have you, sir. Glad you waited. Welcome.
CALLER: Great to be with you, Rush. Been a fan a long time, since before the Gulf War. I’m calling today because I’m very upset the way Biden treated that reporter. I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw that. I can’t get over it. Just because he was asked a question whether he had a —
RUSH: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You gotta assume here that some people in the audience don’t know what you’re talking about and you gotta tell ’em.
CALLER: Biden had a press conference this morning, or spoke to the press, and the reporter asked him if he had a cognitive test yet.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And he said to the reporter, gentleman’s around 40, I guess, whether he had been tested for cocaine, a narcotic. And then when you scratch a little deeper, that gentleman happened to be a black man. And I’m saying if that happened to Trump —
RUSH: I was waiting for you to get to that.
CALLER: No, no. I was gonna say, Rush, if that had happened to Trump, the emergency alert system would have been activated.
RUSH: Oh, I know that. I mean, there would be Amber Alerts all over our phones out there.
CALLER: Yes. You can’t answer a question like that and be president. Is irritability a sign of dementia? That’s why I ask.
RUSH: I wanted you to do what you have to do, if you ever become a talk show host, you have to explain to people what you’re reacting to so that they know why. So you just got a free lesson. Now, let’s go to the audio and document here what Steven has just pointed out. We have two sound bites. This is actually last night, the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists — wait a minute. Why aren’t they called brown?
Why is one of them the National Association of Black Journalists and the other one is the National Association of Hispanic Journalists? Oh, that’s right, ’cause there’s some “white Hispanics.” They live in Florida. Exactly right. They live in gated communities in Florida. I’m sorry. I forget that.
Okay. So during the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of “White Hispanic” Journalists, a virtual convention ’cause nobody could get together ’cause of COVID-19, Errol Barnett of CBS News said to Biden: “What do you say to President Trump, who brags about his [cognitive] test and makes your mental state an issue for voters?”
BIDEN: If he can’t figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Did you watch that? Look, c’mon man, I- I- know you’re trying to goad me. And, by the way, as I joke with him, you know… I, I shouldn’t say it, I’m gonna say something I don’t– I probably shouldn’t say, anyway… I am, I am very willing to let the American public judge my physical and mental fil… my physical as well as my mental fil… fitness.
RUSH: (imitating Biden) Mental — fill — mental — fill — what — I’m very competent here. The American people judge my physical and mental fill — uh, mental — my physical as well as my mental — uh, let ’em judge it, man, come on. So the same guy, “Have you taken a cognitive test?”
BIDEN: No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? C’mon, man. That’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?
RUSH: There you go. That’s what our caller was talking about. I took those out of order on purpose. I wanted that to be the last one he heard. Now you want to hear that again? The reporter is African-American. Now, you imagine if this guy, his name is Errol Barnett, not to be confused with Erin Burnett. She is a white reporterette infobabe at CNN. This is Errol Barnett from the National Association of Black Journalists, CBS reporter. And he’s there to help Plugs.
Trump is out making fun of Biden’s lack of mental acuity. Well, he has made fun of it. Mostly he’s calling attention to Biden’s lack of cognitive ability. And you know Trump took the cognitive test and then bragged about how well he did on it with Chris Wallace. So now these guys, they’re trying to defend Biden.
So the question is, “Have you taken a cognitive test?” Biden’s supposed to say, “Oh, yeah, man, I aced it, I aced it, yeah.” He’s supposed to just give him a five or six word answer and move on. He didn’t even recognize that this guy from CBS is trying to help him. So listen to it again, the question, the reporter, African-American, “Have you taken a cognitive test?”
BIDEN: No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? C’mon, man. That’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?
RUSH: Are you a junkie, man, you a junkie? Now, again, ask yourself, if Trump had asked this question of a black reporter, “Are you a junkie, you take cocaine before you come in to talk to me?” Can you imagine? You wouldn’t have stopped hearing about it. But I don’t know how many of you have heard about this. I don’t know how widespread. Snerdley, you were acting like you hadn’t heard this before. (interruption) Oh, you read about it but you hadn’t heard the bite anywhere. Yeah, okay. ‘Cause I think this is the kind of thing that the Drive-Bys are gonna try or were trying to suppress.
So that was, in the order of sound bites, that was the first one. Here is the second one. This is the one I led off with. Which is on our roster number 6. Same reporter. This is after he’s been insulted. This is after Biden’s called this guy a junkie. He didn’t even react to it. He says, “What do you say to President Trump, who brags about his test and makes your mental state an issue for voters?”
BIDEN: If he can’t figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Did you watch that? Look, c’mon man, I- I- know you’re trying to goad me. And by the way, as I joke with him, you know… I, I shouldn’t say it, I’m gonna say something I don’t- I probably shouldn’t say, anyway… I am, I am very willing to let the American public judge my physical and mental fil… my physical as well as my mental fil… fitness.
RUSH: Yeah. “I am very happy to let the American people judge my physical and mental fill.” Well, let’s go back, shall we? June 30th. So, you know, roughly what are we talking, a little over a month. Wilmington, Delaware, Plugs with a press conference in the basement, Fox correspondent Doug McKelway and Biden have a question about cognitive abilities and decline.
MCKELWAY: Some have speculated —
BIDEN: You’re a lying, dog face —
MCKELWAY: — that you are subject to some degree of cognitive decline. I’m 65. I don’t have the word recollection I used to have. I forget my train of thought from time to time. You’ve got 12 years on me, sir. Have you been tested for some degree of cognitive decline?
BIDEN: I’ve been testing. I’m constantly testing. Look. All you’ve gotta do is watch me and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against.
RUSH: Did you all hear the first thing Biden said answering this question? Doug McKelway who, by the way, what yeoman duty is this, to admit that you’re losing your mind in framing a question for Plugs Biden. Just to show Plugs that you’re not out to get the him, you admit that you’re losing your mind too. “Don’t remember as many words as I used to. I don’t do things as quickly as I used to, and you’re 12 years older than I am. So what’s the status of your mental -”
But Biden’s answer, “You’re a lying, dog face -” (laughing) — here. I’m gonna give a countdown, three, two, one, give us a couple seconds of dead air, not enough to trigger automation machines out there, just a couple seconds of dead air and you’ll hear McKelway say, “Some have speculated,” and then Biden comes in with, “You’re a lying, dog face,” and McKelway just keeps going. Okay, three, two, one.
MCKELWAY: Some have speculated —
BIDEN: You’re a lying, dog face —
MCKELWAY: You have suffered from some degree of cognitive —
RUSH: Stop the tape. Do it again. “Some have speculated -” “You’re a lying, dog face -” Three, two, one.
MCKELWAY: Some have speculated —
BIDEN: You’re a lying, dog face —
MCKELWAY: — that you are subject to some degree of cognitive decline. I’m 65.
RUSH: All righty. We gotta go. We gotta go. We gotta go.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Dr. Jill Biden says that — she said this yesterday. This is Wednesday, right? Yesterday I thought was Wednesday. It was Tuesday. This is Wednesday. So I guess a little bit of Biden crept into me yesterday.
But yesterday the former second lady, Dr. Jill Biden, the wife of Plugs, pledged that her husband would indeed participate in three debates against Trump. She was on yesterday afternoon with Dana Perino on the Fox News Channel. And she was asked about the debates, given the speculation that her husband wants to avoid ’em. (Imitating Jill Biden) “Oh, no, no, he’ll do it, he’ll do it. I think they’ve already rigged these debates, they’ve already decided. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he’ll be there. My husband’s gonna be there.” Okay. Keep a sharp eye out for that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: One more thing here about Plugs Biden before we move on to other things. And it is a column today in the New York Post by Michael Goodwin, and the headline — well, I guess you could say the title of his column, “Joe Biden’s Basement Strategy Will Backfire.” And I just want to share with you a couple pull quotes from this because it obviously is a strategy.
And I think it’s abundantly clear that the Democrats know what’s going on. They know that this campaign is not really Trump versus Biden. You know what Biden is? You want to get down to brass tacks? In my humble — and believe me, I am humble — in my humble estimation I think Biden is the equivalent of a generic candidate. You know how in polling the pollsters have all kinds of, quote, unquote, tricks that they employ to get the result they want.
And one of the tricks is to run candidates up against a generic opponent. So you’ll have in this example Donald Trump versus a nameless Democrat. So you go poll that. Donald Trump versus a Democrat — don’t name anybody. And when respondents can provide any name they want as the Democrat, then that usually is going to guarantee a result where Trump is being defeated in the poll.
When you pick a name, when the pollster inserts a name of a likely nominee, that’s when the poll evens out. And I think, because Biden is not — you get right down to brass tacks, everybody knows this, and particularly on Democrat side, Biden’s not the candidate. We don’t know who is. I mean, he’s gonna be on the ballot as a candidate. I’m not trying to be too cute by half here. I’m saying that he’s not going to be serving as the president day to day.
He’ll be the placeholder and he’ll be the figurehead, and he will be who you see, but he’s simply not capable, folks. And it’s no fault of his. I don’t want to be misunderstood. Nobody’s making fun of the guy, you know, like young people make fun of old people ’cause they don’t know any better. That’s not what’s happening here.
The guy is suffering from a malady that afflicts a lot of people as they age. And that is he’s got mental acuity problems. He’s got cognitive problems. He forgets. For example, when Biden says, “I probably shouldn’t say that.” He’s lost his train of thought. It means he’s forgotten what he was gonna say. It means he doesn’t know what was gonna come next. He’s forgotten it.
So he says things like, “Ah, better not say that, man. I better not go there.” There are all kinds of mechanisms like that that people who have memory problems employ to try to cover ’em up. So I think everybody on the Democrat side knows this, and this is one of the reasons why Biden’s so attractive to them. Whoever is behind the scenes running this campaign is more than likely who is going to be the power behind the throne.
Now, a lot of people think that’s gonna be the vice presidential nominee. And I don’t believe so ’cause we don’t have one of these yet and yet somebody is running this campaign, and it isn’t Biden. Somebody is doing the strategy, somebody’s coming up with the ad campaign, somebody’s buying the media, somebody is buying the commercials. Somebody is running this campaign. Somebody is figuring out how to go after Trump. Somebody is writing the speeches of the words that ends up on Biden’s teleprompter that they hope he doesn’t screw up.
And it’s a neat trick because whoever it is, we don’t really know. We could guess, we could start throwing names out who are Biden’s friends, who are the Democrat Party power brokers, who could be setting this up. But I think whoever he chooses as vice president is gonna have to acknowledge that they are not the power laying in wait. Now, what’s gonna happen — let’s project this out. Just for the sake of this, let’s say Biden’s gonna pick a vice presidential nominee and we’re told today that the two frontrunners are Susan Rice and Kamala Harris.
Now, both of those women have direct ties to Barack Obama, particularly Susan Rice. So those women are gonna be interviewed, quote, unquote. Somebody’s gonna tell them that the odds are they’re gonna be president sometime in the first term if Plugs wins. He’s not gonna serve, the odds are, and so they’re gonna accept this job. Normally they would want the job because they’re literally accepting the job of president at some point because the odds are that Biden will have to step down, or something worse.
But I think they’re being told, “No, no, don’t look at this job that way. You’re not being chosen here because we want you to be the next president.” Whoever is interviewing them — and it’s probably a committee, somebody in that committee is the power behind the throne. Somebody in that committee is telling them: “Do not think, if you accept this, that you are president-in-waiting. You’re gonna be no more than a figurehead like Biden is.”
I actually believe that this is very likely to happen, I think it is happening, very likely to be the reality. This makes no sense otherwise. This makes no sense whatsoever, to actively run a guy for president who doesn’t know where he is. I’m not saying this trying to be funny and I’m not saying anything trying to be critical. A guy who really is losing rapidly his cognitive abilities.
And I’ve talked to people who are very close to the Biden campaign who say it is getting worse and yet they’re throwing him out there every day. Well, not every day. They’re throwing him out there. You might say this is elderly abuse in one sense, but the payoff of course is a big deal. President of the United States if you win.
Now, back to Goodwin, Goodwin thinks that they’ve got to keep him in the basement, there’s no other way they can go about this because he is the generic candidate. It really isn’t Trump voters Biden, it’s Trump versus any Democrat, it’s Trump versus the virus, it’s Trump versus the economy, it’s Trump versus Trump. That’s the way the Democrats are looking at this. They don’t believe it’s Trump versus Biden, and they don’t want it to be.
Because if it becomes Trump versus Biden, they’re finished, because Biden’s finished. This is what the Trump people have got to remember. They have got to make this campaign Trump versus Biden, even if they realize that they gotta do, you know, some things on the virus front to restore confidence, they got do some things on the economy, gotta get people back to work. All of that’s true. That would be something or things Trump would have to do anyway as a responsible president.
But if they can frame this campaign as Trump verse Biden then they are gonna blow up the dynamic the Democrats want to create. The Democrats do not want Biden to be seen as anything other than the generic Democrat seeking the presidency. They can’t afford to put Biden up against Trump mano y mano. They can’t do it. There can’t be any debates. They’re keeping Biden in his basement not because of COVID-19 but because, just like Hillary, the more she showed up, the more visible she was the worse her numbers got.
I guarantee you be the same thing with Plugs. But Goodwin here believes that all this is gonna backfire. “So far, Biden’s team hasn’t suggested he won’t debate Trump, but it is almost certainly something they have thought about. It’s even possible they have given a silent approval to the media Praetorian Guard floating the trial balloon to see if it flies. As of now, it’s still flying, unmolested by any hostile fire from other top Democrats. Where are Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi? Where is the Democratic National Committee? Where is Barack Obama on this one?”
They’re not saying a word. “Their silence shows they, too, want to know if the no-show ruse will work. After all, they, too, must suspect that Biden cannot go for three 90-minute encounters with Trump and emerge intact.” There’s no way, folks. And I don’t think Biden could do it in his heyday. Now, he would be able to fake the rhetoric, and he’d be able to fake the energy. But even in his heyday I don’t think Biden could keep up with Trump.
Trump is a different animal. Trump’s not debating Paul Ryan. That’s the last famous debate that Biden had. No. He did debate Biden. It was a disaster. It was a disaster for us. But that’s because Paul Ryan as a Republican insider was a very known quantity, very predictable. Trump is none of those things.
So we’re not hearing a word about this from Schumer, from Pelosi, Democrat National Committee, Barack Obama. Their silence shows they want to know if this basement strategy is going to work.
“Think what that means: It means the Biden campaign and the entire establishment of the Democratic Party are prepared to foist an impaired man into the Oval Office, uncertain that he can fulfill his duties. Trump Derangement Syndrome has done some strange things to people, but this one takes the cake.”
This, Mr. Goodwin, is where I must distance myself a little bit. ‘Cause I don’t think that the people running this show on the Democrat side think that they are foisting an impaired man into the Oval Office because whoever’s doing this is gonna be whoever’s in the Oval Office is gonna be president, is gonna be the power behind the throne. Biden’s the placeholder. I firmly believe this.
But let’s say he’s right. That is a hell of an indictment, is it not, that they would literally put before the nation somebody this mentally impaired. But they can’t possibly really think this guy can win. If the campaign is Trump versus this guy, they’ve gotta make it Trump versus Trump. They gotta make it Trump versus the virus or Trump versus the economy or Trump versus anything but Biden.
Goodwin says, “In reality, if it became widely understood among independent voters that the insiders wanted Biden to skip the debates because they knew he wasn’t up to them, that would almost certainly lead to a Trump victory. Put it this way: Why would anyone who isn’t mad with Trump hatred vote for an opponent whose most intimate associates know he can’t do the job?” That’s why they don’t want it ever positioned as that. I think what’s happening here is really insidious, like Mr. Goodwin does, but I think for different reasons. I think it’s insidious because we don’t really know. If Plugs wins, we don’t really know who it is — if it’s one person, if it’s a committee, we don’t know who it is.
And that’s why we’re not hearing from Obama. And that’s why we’re not hearing from Schumer and Pelosi, ’cause they already know who’s gonna be running the executive branch if Biden wins. But, you see, if the Trump campaign succeeds in making this Trump versus Biden, there is no way this guy wins. That’s what they also have to know, so they’ve gotta have some kind of backup plan to make sure that this campaign is never seen as Trump versus Biden.
Now, some of you might be laughing, “Rush, what do you mean? It is Trump versus Biden. Biden’s the guy on the ballot.” No, I’m talking about the way they position the campaign. Look, you can do any number of things you want if you’re the consultant or if you’re the actual campaign manager. And, believe me, if they want to try to force Trump into a defensive posture where his campaign is defending his work on the virus and defending his work on the economy, they can try it. I’m just telling you it’s their only hope. No debates.
Now they got people running around writing columns saying we shouldn’t even decide the presidency based on debates when most people tell you that that’s what they wait to decide their vote on is debates. This is crazy what the Democrats are attempting here. It could be that they’re so poisoned with hatred they’ve lost their minds and there’s, I guess, an element of potential truth to that.