RUSH: My friends, I have to tell you, I did not see any super-talented presentation orchestrated by Big Tech. I didn’t see any Hollywood production values. I didn’t see anything that stood out. I mean, they got Hollywood producing this thing. Eva Longoria not wearing a bra. Well, you know, she’s got a connection to the NBA. She was married to a player there for a couple minutes. Then they bring out — you know what it was?

The convention is just like Biden’s campaign, they’re phoning it in. They literally looked like they were phoning the thing in. They could have mailed it in, except Trump stole all the post office boxes, right? Trump stole all the mailboxes. Isn’t that some story out there, that Trump is stealing — ah, my friends, I told you it was gonna be fun. It’s great to have you here. Rush Limbaugh, behind the golden — did anybody kneel?

Was there anybody kneeling? (interruption) Did they play the anthem? (interruption) Because maybe that’s why there was no kneeling. (interruption) They did Pledge of Allegiance? They did Pledge of Allegiance to the flag? (interruption) Well, I don’t know — you know, it’s true, they could have been kneeling because they were shooting everybody from the neck up.

You’ve heard the phrase politics is showbiz for the ugly? Well, there it was, if you’ve ever wondered what that means, there it was. What a boring presentation. And the fact that the media was salivating over it and going nuts over it is all the evidence you need. They haven’t been telling the truth about things now for four straight years.

There’s a lot to discuss about the Democrat convention, and every four years we do this. Every four years I’m inundated with emails from people who are alternately scared that people are gonna fall for everything, all the lies, and people are alternately angry that people are gonna fall for all the lies and they’re alternately just really, really worried that all of this is going to succeed and work.

I have to tell you, folks, you want to know how out of touch the party is, the big speech last night was delivered by, everybody knows, Michelle (My Belle) Obama. Now, two things about Michelle (My Belle) Obama. She did not mention — and I didn’t even catch this. I was watching it on Fox, and when it was over, they went to Donna Brazile, who was fit to be tied. Donna Brazile was mad as hell because Michelle (My Belle) didn’t mention Kamala Harris. Not once.

Well, folks, it’s easily understandable. Michelle (My Belle) Obama lives in a $12 million mansion in Martha’s Vineyard. She’s sitting up there with a hundred million-dollar Netflix deal. She wasn’t gonna get anywhere near wherever this convention was. She was holed up at Martha’s Vineyard where you’re not, and you probably never will be. But she taped this — this is the excuse — she taped it a week ago. Taped it.

I have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, you know, I personalize a lot of this stuff in terms of performance. I do everything I do live. I do my best work live. I do my best work under the pressure of live, because you can’t stop and do it again. You can’t stop and say, “Take two.” This is the way I have worked for 40, 50 years in radio. And I’m not, in my estimation — this is another one of the reasons I don’t do TV — I’m not nearly as good when things have to be planned, when certain things have to be on the teleprompter and then read because they have to be said.

In television a lot of times you have to write down what you’re gonna say so legal, the legal department can make sure that they’re not gonna get sued after you say it. And that’s just not the way I work best. My brain, my vocabulary expands, such as right now, when I’m doing things live. I can’t sit and write a speech. I literally don’t have the ability to do it. Because there’s no pressure. I get distracted and sidetracked. And as I start typing, my fingers can’t keep up with my brain. And if I make a typo, I stop and correct it, and then I lose my train of thought. So I do things much better under the pressure of live.

There’s not one person in that convention — other than Eva Longoria, and I don’t even know if that’s true — who was live. Everything was on tape. I don’t know how many takes they did, but I guarantee you Michelle Obama could have gone back in after Kamala Harris was announced and either redone the whole speech or just done an insert that they could have edited in, they could have made it look smooth. Because at some point that speech was done and in the can in plenty of time for Biden to have to made the announcement that it’s gonna be Kamala Harris.

So the point is, even after it was announced that Kamala Harris was the VP, Michelle (My Belle) Obama didn’t care enough and nobody else apparently did, didn’t care enough to go back in and, you know, do a little 15- or 20-second insert, or maybe redo the whole thing. Now, maybe they thought it was so hot, maybe they thought it was so good that they didn’t want to risk doing it again.

But I think that’s why when you’re watching one of these things, one of these conventions live, even though they have become predictable and they have become television shows, like miniseries — you know, when they stopped selecting the candidate at the convention, when the candidate, the nominee was selected in the state primary system, that made the conventions foregone conclusions. And so they had to come up with other ways to add drama. And they manufactured the drama, and they had professionals from Hollywood and so forth do it.

Well, they had professionals trying to help ’em last night. Silicon Valley experts, Hollywood experts. But you could not tell that anybody that knows what they’re doing in putting together entertainment razzmatazz had any involvement in that last night.

Now, I think if the speakers had been live, it would have been much more dramatic, it would have been much better simply because the pressure is on. When you go in and you can tape something and you know when you start that you can stop after five seconds and start again or you can stop after 20 seconds and start again or you can stop and do an insert, I’m telling you, it just changes the sense of urgency you have to get it right, the sense of urgency to perform to your peak level. When you can stop anytime and go back and fix any mistake you make — the idea, of course, is to not make any mistakes.

So I know I am transposing myself into the circumstance, but I’m doing this primarily just to share with you how I work best. And it’s simply because this is how I’ve done it my entire career. If you do something a certain way for five years, then 10, then it’s gonna become old hat to you. It’s gonna become second nature. It’s not gonna be difficult at all. And people tell me they couldn’t do ad-lib three hours a day, and most people are probably right, they couldn’t do that. It takes a certain mind-set. It takes a profound degree of being informed and a profound amount of knowledge and the ability to recall it. But that’s that I do. That’s the challenge I give myself every day.

And there didn’t seem to be anything challenging; there didn’t seem to be anything special. And to top it off, here’s Michelle Obama with this big topic, this big investment in the subject of empathy. Empathy. She talked about how you can’t be in politics without empathy, knowing what it’s like to be in other people’s shoes. Empathy is different than sympathy, you understand. Now, the empathy is just another word for caring. And I maintain to you that the left is a bunch of phony empathetic carers.

They don’t really care. They just want you to think they do, and that is supposed to convince you that they are special people, that they care. Doesn’t matter. Ask African-Americans how much the Democrats have cared about ’em in 50 years, how much it’s meant to their lives improving. Answer is zip, zero, nada. But if you want to give a speech and you want to talk about empathy, how in the world do you not mention the victims of the riots and the violent criminals? How in the world, if you’re gonna talk about empathy and how you’ve got more empathy than the Republicans, how in the world do you not talk about what is happening to law-abiding people in your own cities and states, like Seattle and like Portland?

They didn’t even mention it. Not just Michelle (My Belle). Nobody mentioned it. So by extension, we have to think they don’t care about what is happening to the law-abiding in Portland or Seattle. Hint, hint — they don’t. Because they have made it clear that they align themselves with Antifa. They align themselves with Black Lives Matter. They align themselves with the lawbreakers. They align themselves with the looters and the rioters and the people who are destroying private property and businesses.

And then Michelle (My Belle) Obama starts talking in those dystopian terms. Is this how they’re gonna win the election, really? She sits up there and she says, “If you think it can’t get any worse, you better think again, because it sure as hell can.” Really? These people need to go back and look at how other Democrats who have won the White House campaigned for it. And there’s not a one of them — Mondale tried it against Reagan in 1984. Lost in a 49-state landslide. McGovern tried it against Nixon in 1972. He lost in a similarly sized landslide defeat. JFK do not do that in 1960 against Nixon, and he wins.

But I don’t know what it is about these people that they are obsessed, while talking about empathy, they are obsessed with dystopia. They are obsessed with relating to people on the basis that life is misery and that it sucks and that there isn’t much chance to improve, there isn’t much we can do. There’s certainly nothing you can do. Maybe Biden can fix it, maybe Kamala Harris. But you gotta vote for ’em if you want to have any chance whatsoever. What the hell kind of message is that? I know there’s a lot of Democrats who respond to that. I know that maybe 35, 40% of the country will fall for this. I understand that. I’m not naive about this.

But I just… I don’t think. You know, the media is salivating over this. By the way, not all the media is salivating over this. I have examples here of some in the Drive-Bys really worried about what happened last night. (interruption) What? (interruption) Nope. Nope. Wait ’til you hear it. It’s some people in New York Times and some others who are very, very worried about what happened. We got media montages of what you think where they are in lockstep.

But you know what they’re in lockstep about?

They wish that Michelle (My Belle) Obama was the nominee. Wait ’til you hear that montage. They wish she was the nominee. Hey, Drive-Bys? She ain’t leaving the $12 million mansion in Martha’s Vineyard, where just down the road is Skip Gates from Harvard. She’s not leaving it. She’s not giving up the $100 million Netflix deal to go back and live in a house that she said was built by slaves and she felt very uncomfortable the whole time she was there.

We’re talking about the White House. No, the Democrats, not a one of them — not just Michelle (My Belle) Obama, not a one of them last night — acknowledged what’s going on in our cities. Their cities! Democrat, blue states, blue cities. And do you know something else? There’s a lot of polling data out there that shows that a majority of Biden voters are not really voting for Biden.

They’re voting against Trump. And I saw some analysis on cable today saying, “That’s bad news for Trump! That is really bad news, that a lot of Biden voters” and I think it’s close to like 50%, “are not really enthused about Biden. They’re just gonna vote against Trump,” and that this is somehow bad news for Trump.

I profoundly disagree with that. (chuckles) I think it’s the exact opposite. You gotta have people who want to vote for you, and you gotta be able to build that number. You gotta be able to grow that number. You have to be able to create some momentum out of that number. If these people are running around and admit that a significant portion of the Biden class doesn’t care about him, they’re just gonna vote against Trump?

I think Trump can change the minds of enough of those people to wipe out whatever advantage people think this gives Biden. But I told you… You need to listen. I told you that Biden doesn’t have a connection with any of his voters, and neither does Kamala Harris. He’s just the guy on the ballot with the D next to his name.

He’s just like a generic candidate — and I’m telling you, folks, generic candidates, people that are just placeholders?

It’s a myth that that is the way to win and win big.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mr. Snerdley seemed stunned when I told him that there were media figures out there in the Drive-Bys who were not happy with what they saw last night. Philip Lewis, front page editor for the Huffing and Puffington Post — i’s a very left-wing, crazed website out there — summarized it this way. “The DNC so far feels like one long ad on YouTube you’d usually skip.”

Charles M. Blow, a New York Times columnist who is a really angry guy. This guy is angry. He’s Spike Lee kind of angry. He’s Cornel West kind of angry. Everything is racism. Everything is bigoted. He tweeted, “This is a good effort by the DNC, but you can already tell that a virtual convention is going to be tough.” Not happy — and then they point out, there’s gonna be three additional days of this. They had the hot-to-trot speakers last night.

By the way, the one guy… There was one guy smiling last night, and that was Crazy Bernie, and you know why? Because his take over the Democrat Party is now complete, and he knows it — and he’s not even a Democrat. He’s been an independent all these years. He’s a socialist. (interruption) A what? (interruption) No. I think there’s something going on between Michelle (My Belle) Obama and Kamala Harris, ’cause how hard would it have been to go in there and either redo the tape…?

Maybe they couldn’t redo the whole thing because they think they nailed it and, you know, she was properly empathetic the way they define it, and she was properly scary and properly dystopian, and she was emoting all over the place. Her speech was dripping with emotion. But how hard would it have been to go in there and record? They got the best talent they can find from Silicon Valley.

They supposedly have the best of the best from Hollywood, and everybody’s got all the time in the world ’cause nobody’s working. So how hard would it have been to go in and record a one-minute insert? ‘Cause, look, these people on the Democrat side think that history occurred with her selection. She is the first Indian-American, Jamaican-American, slave-owning vice presidential nominee.

Well, her family owned slaves. Five different plantations! That’s noteworthy. That’s historic. The Democrats have actually… You talk about getting back at the founders? “Hey, George Washington, look at this! Hey, Thomas Jefferson, we got a VP here that also owned slaves. You got nothin’ on us!” And Michelle (My Belle) Obama couldn’t record a one-minute insert?

She had a week to do this. Now, I — and here’s another thing. The excuse being offered is that she didn’t know, she didn’t know who Biden was gonna pick — and maybe by the time Michelle (My Belle) Obama sat down to record this, Biden didn’t know. But some point Biden knew — or whoever made the pick — and they didn’t tell the Obamas? They didn’t tell the Obamas?

They didn’t run the pick by the Obamas? They didn’t run the pick by the Clintons? By the way, Bill Clinton speaks tonight — Bill Clinton of Jeffrey Epstein fame. This is the party that gave us the #MeToo movement. But now I guess that doesn’t matter. Bill Clinton is actually going to do a virtual address the Democrat national convention.

Did you catch the song they played to end the ceremonies last night? (interruption) It’s 57 years old, Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth,” or For What It… What’s the title of that song? I have a mental block — 1966, I think, was the year. Stephen Stills wrote it. It’s not an… It’s a protest song. It was not anti-Vietnam. But they are going back 57…?

Look, I’m flattered they’re picking music from my generation. I think it was one of the best generations worth of music there is, compared especially to the crap that’s out there now. But 57 years old to…? At least the Clintons played some Fleetwood Mac stuff. (interruption) For What It’s Worth. That’s right. For What It’s Worth. “What a field day for the doo doo doo doo doo doo.”

I just think she could have found a way to acknowledge that Kamala Harris was the pick. But no matter how you slice this, it isn’t good. Their excuse is, “We didn’t know. We had to record this a week in advance, and they hand’t picked and they didn’t tell…?” Yeah, they didn’t tell you? They didn’t run it by you? I mean, Barack Hussein Obama is the Democrat Party.

Barack Hussein Obama hijacked the John Lewis funeral and turned it into an attempt to define the Democrat Party agenda for the next 30 years. Barack Hussein Obama is trying to pass himself off as the leader, the kingmaker of the party, and they didn’t tell him? And they didn’t tell Michelle? And maybe they did. Maybe they did tell ’em and they didn’t care.

Maybe they told them, and they disagreed. Maybe Michelle Obama doesn’t like the pick. Maybe Barack Hussein O doesn’t like the pick. Maybe they realized this woman hadn’t got a single vote running for president. Maybe they realize that it was a bad choice. It could be anything. It could be simple jealousy, like, “There is no black person in this party — no black woman — other than for me,” Michelle could be saying.

You just don’t know. But I’m telling you, this is a competitive business, and everybody is led to believe that Democrats are unified and they’re all on the same page and they’re all working together for the same objective. Don’t you believe that for a minute! They’re no different than any other group of people in a cutthroat business where competition is vicious.

They are doing everything they can to put people out of the way so that they can climb the ladder of success in this party — and I’ll guarantee you this. You know what? The pinnacle is acquiring massive power without having to be elected, and that is what the person running the Biden campaign has achieved here. We don’t know who it is. Some people might think they do.

But whoever is running the Biden campaign has a hell of a lot of power, and has not had to spend any money, has not had to raise any money, has not had to go before the voters, had not had seen had to run for office him or herself. That’s the pinnacle of power, and somebody there has it. And I’ll guarantee you if Obama and Michelle (My Belle) Obama are angling for that power, then it could well be that there is some friction there.

We just have to speculate. We don’t know. Anyway, Charles Blow, New York Times. “This is a good effort by the DNC, but you can already tell that a virtual convention is going to be tough,” meaning they aren’t gonna pull this off. There’s no way they can make it exciting. You know why they can’t make it exciting? ‘Cause they’re a bunch of dullards, number one.

Number two, there’s no audience in there. There’s no crowd to react. There’s no applause. There’s no anything. And the speeches are canned and recorded and brief and they’re short. “Author Matt Stoller mocked the convention for its dated feel: ‘This convention so far makes me think the Democrats are the party ready to lead America into the ’80s.’ …

“David Pakman, a political TV and radio show host, tweeted, ‘Someone please talk me off the ledge. I want to win, and the first 22 minutes of this [convention] … I’m scared. Can someone tell me how great this is or something?'” (paraphrased) Can somebody make me feel better?

Didn’t start well. You know how you know that? I don’t know where you watching it, if you did. I watched Fox, and the Fox anchors and the reporters, they wouldn’t shut up. I mean, there’s a Democrat convention, it’s taking place, we see the speakers, but they’re not going to any of ’em ’cause they’re waiting for one. They’re waiting for one — actually, two.

They’re waiting for Crazy Bernie and they were waiting for Michelle (My Belle) Obama. They did kind of shut up when those two showed up. “Arizona Republic columnist Elvia Diaz called the convention ‘unwatchable.’ She tweeted, ‘Holy cow. I’m dying watching #DNC. Message is good but wow, just unwatchable.’ … Journalist Michael Tracey appeared to snark about the convention’s politicization of racial injustice.

“He tweeted, ‘Never could have guessed that the “reckoning with racial injustice” just automatically meant “elect Democrats.”‘” I don’t even think they did that. They did not acknowledge… All during her lecture to us on empathy, to not even talk about the victims of the riots, the victims of the property destruction? Many of those, you would assume…

They live in Democrat states and cities; many, you would assume, are Democrats. But they didn’t get one shoutout. I tell you, I think it’s quite telling, and I also… Folks, I do not believe for a second that a majority of the country supports this lawlessness and supports the rioting, supports Black Lives Matter. I think it’s all Twitter. I think it’s a bunch of people falling for the silly notion that Twitter is America.