RUSH: So we’ve got some competing television. I got Thursday Night Football tonight, and we have two political town halls tonight, and NBC is facing a huge backlash for booking Donald Trump in a town hall against Joe Biden on ABC. I’m here to tell you, the left is so mad at NBC for scheduling Trump against Biden.

I don’t think I’ve seen anybody on our side say a thing about this conflict. They’re worried about it for some reason. I don’t know. But this is potentially fascinating here. There’s a companion story: “Don Lemon Rips NBC for ‘Rewarding’ Trump with Town Hall…” So here’s the upshot here. “Calling it the ‘story of the day,’ Lemon told his primetime colleague [Fredo] Cuomo that people were ‘outraged’ about the dueling town halls…

“‘Why on earth would NBC agree to do that?’ Lemon asked. ‘You can do equal time on a different night! You can do equal time at a different time! You don’t have to do it at the same time and then divide the country further by having them choose!’ [Lemon] accused NBC of ‘learning nothing from 2016’ in ‘allowing a man who made all the wrong decisions’ regarding the president’s handling of the coronavirus and ‘rewarding him with prime time.’

“‘How does it help the American people? How does that help the electorate by putting those two people on at the same time and making people choose from one to the other?'” They don’t like competition, do they? They just don’t like it. So, according to Don Lemon, ABC should do their town hall with Plugs, and NBC, if they want to do one with Trump… They actually shouldn’t.

But if they want to do one, it should not be at the same time that ABC is doing one with Biden. You know what they’re afraid of? What do you think they’re afraid of, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) Right. They’re afraid that NBC is going to be the most watched town hall tonight because that’s where Trump is, and that the ABC town hall is gonna be trounced and that therefore, it’s gonna look like Trump is so much more popular than Biden.

Now, that will be a fascinating juxtaposition. So you’ve got two competing town halls here tonight. NBC, ABC. Trump’s NBC, and if Trump’s NBC town hall draws far more audience than Biden’s on ABC, then the Democrats are gonna be scared. Democrats gonna say, “Oh, no!” Their polling is gonna be challenged. Their baked-in-the-cake beliefs are gonna be challenged.

“Insiders told [the New York Post] Page Six the last-minute decision is causing ‘a great deal of internal consternation’ at NBC. ‘People saw the backlash coming, and bosses went ahead with the scheduling anyway because they thought it would get the best ratings…’ But NBC is pushing back on claims that the Trump town hall is an aggressive ratings ploy.

“‘Ratings were the last on a long list of concerns after public health and [NBC’s] public responsibility to inform viewers. The event is taking place on Thursday because that night is available for both candidates, and NBC offered 8 p.m. because it’s the same time slot that was offered to Joe Biden last week.'”

“Former NBC News VP Slams Network’s Decision to Air Donald Trump Town Hall — Cheryl Gould, the former vice president of NBC News, has publicly criticized the network for agreeing to host … Trump’s town hall … ‘I am dismayed — more like disgusted — by NBC’s decision… Is this what the new leadership at NBC thinks is the right thing to do?

“‘To be complicit in Trump’s tantrum? A shameless grab for ratings!’ ‘I wouldn’t be shocked if this were Fox News. But NBC? My former home?’ Gould continued. ‘I’ve never been happier to say the word “former.”‘ Can you believe how upset these people are? This is just about ratings? This is just about they’re mad at NBC for undermining ABC?

No, no, no, no. It’s far more than that. They really don’t want the specter of a… Look, they’re out there promoting Plugs as winning in a landslide. They’re out there promoting Plugs as owning it. He’s up by double digits. Trump’s chances of victory are in the single digits. Plugs is at 91% chance of winning, and now they’re gonna do a town hall with them head-to-head and Plugs is barely gonna get any viewers.

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RUSH: Trump’s doing a rally right now. You know why he’s doing a rally right now? It’s ’cause he’s going on “Concast” tonight. It’s what he calls Comcast. They own NBC. He’s got a rally on NBC tonight at the same time Biden has a rally on ABC, and they are livid. Oh! The Drive-By Media is so mad at NBC for doing this. Oh, they are fit to be tied.

Carl Bernstein can’t see over it, he’s so mad. All of them are ticked off out there ’cause they know that Trump ratings-wise is just gonna skunk Plugs, and they are afraid that that’s going to lead people to believe that Trump is just so much more popular than Biden, and it could affect the way people vote and all that.

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RUSH: Here’s Carl Bernstein. This is audio sound bite number 22. This afternoon CNN’s Newsroom. He’s talking to the infobabe Brianna Keilar, who said, “NBC says that if they moved the event to a different time slot -” the Trump rally “– they’d be violating their agreement to give both candidates the same platform. I know you see it differently. So explain to us how you see it.”

BERNSTEIN: It’s nonsense. What NBC has done here is indefensible. What they have chosen to do, NBC, is to be conned by Donald Trump. And that is what has really raised the most serious journalistic questions and the reason that so many people who work at NBC and MSNBC are so upset by what NBC has done here, capitulating to Donald Trump’s demands that will allow him to cut into Joe Biden’s audience, essentially, because MSNBC, CNBC, these cable channels, ABC, which is broadcasting Biden, has no similar cable channel. So obviously Trump will get the larger audience.

RUSH: Hey, Carl, Trump’s gonna get the larger audience if he’s on a pair of tin cans and a piece of string. Now, you can sit there and moan and whine all you want, but don’t you love the fact that these people think NBC capitulated to Trump? Oh, yeah, NBC capitulated to Trump. Does anybody know the time, the actual time of these things? I don’t even have any idea.

I also need to correct myself. There is no Thursday Night Football tonight. And I guess this is because of the COVID-19 circumstance. It was to be the Buffalo Bulls and the Kansas City Chiefs, but the Buffalo Bulls played on Tuesday and they got creamed. Who’d they lose to? The Tennessee Titans. So the Chiefs and the Buffalo Bulls will play on Monday night at 5 o’clock.

(interruption) Eight p.m. eastern for both of these? I thought there was a one half our overlap. Is one of them an hour long and one of them an hour and a half or are they both the same time frame? Do we know? Well, when you find out, let me know.

Here we go with ABC. Sound bites 23 and 24. These are from back in 2019. We’ve aired these. The purpose here, ABC knows the Hunter Biden story, the story I spent an hour breaking down for you today, concluding with the fact that Biden over the years has put his family in positions of influence, corruption with various foreign countries and foreign businesses using his power as a senator and as vice president.

And it was his family who received the payments and the family were required to send Pop half of every payment they got. That kept Pop — i.e., Joe Biden — out of the loop. They were getting the money, not him, so any money to that showed up in Pop’s account, why, look at this devoted family. Why, these family members are saying thank you to Pop. He was out of the line of fire. It’s a brilliantly conceived corruption setup. Point is, ABC News has known about this since 2019. Good Morning America, Tom Llamas reporting about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

LLAMAS: Was Hunter Biden profiting off his dad’s work as vice president, and did Joe Biden allow it? We’re talking about millions of dollars in at least two countries. “Mr. Vice President, Tom Llamas at ABC News, how you doing? Got a quick question for you.” It’s a question we tried to ask repeatedly. “Can we ask you about Ukraine and China?” But kept getting blocked. One person who did not want to talk about it, Joe Biden. “Mr. Vice President, what’s your take on that? Was there a conflict of interest there? Was there a clear conflict of interest?”

RUSH: Wow. All right. So that’s Tom Llamas asking Biden. “Hey, Tommy, buddy old buddy, how you doing?” Biden says. Gotta quick question for you, old buddy, old pal, tried to ask repeatedly, “Can we ask you about Ukraine and China?” Kept getting blocked. One person didn’t want to talk about it, Joe Biden. They knew about it. ABC cannot ignore this. Here’s the next bite, Tom Llamas.

LLAMAS: We went to Kiev and found even among Joe Biden’s supporters in Ukraine, Hunter’s hiring was troubling. How do you judge what Hunter Biden was doing?

DARIA KALENIUK: I think that Hunter did a very bad thing, and he was very wrong. He allowed his name to be abused.

LLAMAS: And Ukraine wasn’t the only country where Hunter Biden’s business and his father’s diplomacy as vice president intersected. It also happened in China. This video shows Chinese diplomats greeting Vice President Biden as he arrived in Beijing in December of 2013. Right by his side, his son Hunter. Less than two weeks later, Hunter’s firm had new business, creating an investment fund in China involving the government-controlled Bank of China with reports they hoped to raise $1.5 billion.

RUSH: One and a half billion dollars, Plugs makes it possible for his son to get in on this deal. What a great dad, what a great dad. Isn’t that wonderful? And then Hunter’s job is to send half of whatever goes through his office to Pop. What a scheme, folks. It keeps Biden clean. It exposes his family. It exposes his family. It makes them go out and be on the front lines. They’re the ones accepting questionable payments. But old Plugs, he just sits around and waits for half of it to be diverted to him by his son Hunter. The town halls are both at 8 p.m. tonight, my friends.

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RUSH: Julia Louis-Dreyfus has called for a boycott of the network that helped make her famous and wealthy. Julia Louis-Dreyfus took to Twitter this afternoon, called for her millions of followers to boycott NBC because they’re doing the Trump town hall at the same time ABC is doing Biden’s.

Now, here’s the thing. The Trump town hall is 60 minutes. The Biden town hall on ABC is 90 minutes. And one of the things everybody’s gonna see is will Biden make it through his 90 minutes. It’s gonna be fascinating. Is this gonna hold up? There’s so much excrement being thrown at NBC right now that I know the media, I know how these people think, I know they don’t like criticism, they don’t like this, they don’t like the insinuations. They certainly don’t like the allegation they’re on Trump’s side. Oh. Oh. Humiliation. They’re accusing us of trying to help Trump. Something’s gotta give here. We’ll patiently wait and see.

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RUSH: We got Sue in Tampa. I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thank you so much for still being our word, and we just want to say, my husband and I are longtime listeners of yours, and we’re strong supporters of our president. And I just wanted to give you the shout-out and ask you tonight if the numbers don’t show, your knew, overwhelmingly everybody’s tuned in to NBC to listen to our president, I think that we know what our president is gonna do for us. What I think a lot of us might do is tune in to the other station just so that Biden nails his coffin shut. We’re waiting for, finally, the public to get to see that he doesn’t have —

RUSH: Wait. You want people to watch Biden?

CALLER: Well, what I think is people will watch Biden to watch him finally screw up nationally. That’s what I think.

RUSH: Okay, you don’t want people to watch Trump because you think they know Trump’s gonna do well. I want ’em to watch Biden to watch him group?

CALLER: I think that’s what’s gonna happen.

RUSH: Well, George Stephanopoulos is gonna be protecting this guy like you haven’t seen anybody protected.

CALLER: You know, he can only be protected so long, you know? (chuckles) At some point he’s gonna stumble and be we need to be able to witness this as a country, and I think a lot of people are tuning in to hope that this is finally it, that he’s finally revealed. And I just feel strongly that if the numbers don’t show a lot of people watching Trump tonight, it’s not because we don’t support him. We know what he’s representing. He tells us, and he’s told us, and I think that you’re gonna find people that may tune in to at least part of it. Hopefully this will come to an end tonight.

RUSH: Well, we’ll see. Biden’s event… I’m getting competing information. I’m getting his event is 90 minutes. I just was told that, no, it’s two hours. Trump’s is one hour. So you can actually do both. You can watch Trump’s first hour, then tune over to ABC for the last either half or full hour of Biden because he’s probably more likely to screw up.

CALLER: Well, I just think that if the numbers don’t go the way, you know… I don’t think the numbers are not necessarily going to reveal… You know, if Trump doesn’t get this high viewership, it’s not because he’s not well supported. We know where he is. You know, he has made a point of telling —

RUSH: Wait a minute! I finally figured out what you’re afraid of. I know what you’re… You want people to watch Biden ’cause you’re afraid they’re going to anyway. You’re afraid that Trump’s numbers are not gonna be what they would normally be, and you don’t want anybody saying it’s because Trump is losing interest with people?

CALLER: That’s right. I don’t think Trump is losing interest of people at all. I think he’s done a good job of telling us already what he believes and what he represents. I just think that people are looking for Biden to mess up. I mean, that’s what I’m trying to say. We know what Trump represents.

RUSH: What I’m saying is, you are afraid people aren’t gonna watch Trump, and when the Trump numbers are no good, that they’re gonna say, “Look at this! Trump popularity is fading; Biden is beating him.”

CALLER: Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of. That’s what I’m afraid of, that they’re gonna misread the numbers.

RUSH: And so as a preemptive measure, you want people to go out and watch Biden anyway so they can say, “No, we never weren’t gonna watch Trump. We wanted watch Biden implode”?

CALLER: That’s exactly right.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: That’s exactly right.

RUSH: Okay. I just wanted to make sure that I… Well, let me just tell you something. There is no way… (sigh) I don’t have time to say what I wanted to say.