Video (4:21): Real (3.19) and Windows (2.66 MB), or MP3 audio (1.98).
In response, Rush is now auctioning the letter on E-Bay to raise money for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, which provides scholarships for children of Marines and federal law enforcement officials killed in the line of duty. Rush noted he will match the final bid to go to the same charity. He asked Reid and the other 40 Democrats to do the same. As of this morning, he has "not heard from them."
Limbaugh also discussed the hard left organization that perpetrated this smear, Media Matters. Limbaugh asserted that this and similar organizations exist "to try to discredit those of us in the quote/unquote ‘new media’ from having any credibility beyond our existing audiences because they cannot come in the arena of ideas and debate us and win."
Hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade cited a recent poll which showed Rush Limbaugh’s approval ratings in Nevada are higher than Harry Reid’s.
The entire transcript is below.
STEVE DOOCY: Actually Rush Limbaugh, right this second, is in one of those buildings behind the Wiggles by about a block. Why? To talk to us. Here's the story: Senate Democrats wrote Rush a letter to get him thrown off the air. They wrote it to his boss at Clear Channel. Well, now Rush Limbaugh is auctioning off that very letter to raise money for our troops. Joining us now on the phone, talk radio legend Rush Limbaugh. Good morning to you sir.
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Hey, hey Steve. How are you? It's such an honor to follow the Wiggles or whatever they are.
DOOCY: The Wiggles that's right. Okay, so you're, right now you're auctioning it off on E-Bay. The bid is $50,300 with three days to go. What is the historical significance, Rush Limbaugh, of this letter that Harry Reid and company wrote you?
LIMBAUGH: Well, there's two things. First, it's, it's an abuse of power. I mean, here you have Harry Reid on the floor of the Senate denouncing me for 10 minutes, reading this letter, then asking his Democrat buddies to sign it of which 40 did. You know, that's a failure. He didn't even get them all to sign. No Republicans did. But they did this during work hours. And this is the smear of a, of a private citizen by this greatest deliberative body in the world based on a total lie that they have to know is a lie. So for that reason it's historic. My parents would not believe this. I wish they could know what all is happening to their son and what their son is causing. You know, the thing about this is most people, I think, cower in this kind of situation. And I'm trying to laugh at it and make fun of them and fight back which is probably putting a bigger target on my back as far as these people are concerned. But this is, this is just something that you can't ignore. Most of the time you ignore these kinds of things but you can't this because this is unique. I don't think in modern American history there's ever been something like this happen where the Senate has gone after a private citizen and asked his partner in broadcasting to shut him up, censor him, apologize him, spank him or what have you.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Sure. What Democrats are saying, and you know this better than anybody, they're saying, "well, that's what you get, Republicans, for going after Moveon.org."
LIMBAUGH: Well, you know, here's the -- this is the thing that everybody's missing about this. The Democrats are saying this is tit for tat, look you guys did this to Move On. You made this censor move, so we're going to make Limbaugh get censored. The problem is I didn't do anything here. I was minding my own business, I said what I said on the radio. The same group of people, Media Matters, Moveon.org, it's the same George Soros/Hillary Clinton organization did both things. They did the Moveon.org ad and they did the smear of me. I am the record. They twisted what I said, on purpose, out of context, in order, I think to deflect the Petraeus ad because it totally backfired on him. The country ended up loving Petraeus, the surge is workig, Move On had to pay the full bill with "The New York Times," it totally backfired. They had to deflect that, and so they came at me. But they created both of these. There can't be any tit for tat because they are responsible for both of these episodes.
DOOCY: Sure, now Rush we're looking at some video from, I believe, Philadelphia over the last couple of days where you were on stage, and you're exhibiting this letter that Harry Reid and the other Senators signed and sent to your boss at Clear Channel. Now, as I understand it, whatever is raised on E-Bay you're going to match it right? And the money all goes to the Marines.
LIMBAUGH: It goes to a- the charity is the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation started by a bunch of Marines and FBI agents here in New York in the mid 1990's. And it funds college scholarships for the children of Marines and federal law enforcement officers who were killed in action, such as during the Oklahoma City bombing. There were a lot of customs people in there, Secret Service people that were killed, and, you know, not just military. Sometimes in massive cases they also provides such scholarships for other service branches beyond the Marines so, yeah, the money is being raised will go through Friday at 1:00. I think the big money is holding back here until Friday, so as not to bid this. I think it's going to get huge as we get toward the 1:00 Friday deadline. I'm going to match it. And I have asked Senator Reid and the other 40 Democrats that signed their letter to show their support for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation and ask them to match it as well.
DOOCY: Yeah, good luck on that, Rush.
LIMBAUGH: I have not heard from them.
DOOCY: Rush, speaking of Harry Reid, how do you- what kind of pleasure do you take in the fact that a local paper out in Nevada has done a public opinion poll and your approval ratings are actually higher than Harry Reid in his own home state?
[Laughing]
LIMBAUGH: I love it because I'm not even a politician. He's been an elected official from Nevada for 30 years. Can you say Tom Daschle? You know, he's, he's not up until 2010, but his negatives are higher than mine. I've got a, got a higher approval rank, two points higher than he is. I think -- where I saw that somewhere. It was a Las Vegas newspaper. The last line was the thing about liberal, "he's trying to be polarizing," which I'm not, but that's what they think. "Harry Reid is just doing it anyway, which is not good." Hillary Clinton, if you look at that poll, too, you'll see in Nevada her negatives are 50. You know, everybody thinks there's a sense of inevitability about her. But I don't, I can't recall anytime in this country electing somebody as polarizing with such high negatives. So this is going to be, and this is all part of the 2008 race. Right now the Democrats are running against me because I have a connection with a large percentage of the American people who think and are open-minded. And the Republicans haven't chosen a nominee yet. So, right now, they're coming after me. It's like a badge of honor.
DOOCY: Well, Rush, you're not alone. They came after O'Reilly. They took some of his comments out of context. And, and look at Media Matters, what they did to Imus.
LIMBAUGH: Well, that's a little -- don't want me in with that. O'Reilly and I have something in common that we were lied about. Imus said what he said.
DOOCY: He did, but Media Matters -- nobody really heard what Imus said until Media Matters brought the tape out and started sending it to different journalists.
LIMBAUGH: That is very key. The people that heard Imus say it didn't care. There was no brouhaha for two days, like my comment with Donovan McNabb. I made it on Sunday. It wasn't until Tuesday the world blew up on it, but that was the local Philadelphia media. What you have to understand, at least from my perspective, is that 1988 when my radio show started and gave birth to all of this new media, back then they had a monopoly, ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. That was it in broadcast. You had the two newspapers, the news magazines and they controlled what was reported, what wasn't reported and what was commented upon. They've lost that monopoly. Liberalism can only flourish when they have a media monopoly. So the Matter Matters organization-- when we say Media Matters, say Hillary Clinton and George Soros. She's even admitted to coming up with the idea and help start it. And it is to, it is to try to discredit those of us in the quote/unquote "new media" from having any credibility beyond our existing audiences because they cannot come in the arena of ideas and debate us and win. They have to shut us up. They have to discredit us. This has been happening to me for 12, 14 years now. I know exactly what's going on and when you do, and you guys have a good beat on it, too. You know what Media Matters is all about. It's a fascinating thing, too you made a good point. I want to elaborate on this talking about Imus. I've got a radio show and I've got a website. And people can come to it. You know, you don't need a secret decoder and a super secret radio to listen. You just turn on the radio and tune to the station I'm on. You come to my website. You can hear what I say, read what I said, but the drive-by media doesn't do that. They take their lead from Media Matters so whatever Media Matters says I said is what they think happened. You know, during this whole thing, Steve, nobody from the drive-bys called me to ask me did you release statements? They just ran with it because they're all on the same playing field, all on the same side of the aisle, the media, Media Matters, you name it. We know this. We know how to combat it. Our connection with the audience is what sustains us during these controversies.
DOOCY: Sure. Now Rush, speaking of the mainstream media, you know, General Sanchez, a couple of days ago, was quoted as saying that it was a nightmare in Iraq. And that little soundbite was played everywhere. But what the mainstream media did not report and I know you did and so did we, was the fact that he went on to a larger lambasting of the mainstream media in general that their coverage, essentially, was dishonest.
LIMBAUGH: It was devastating. It was a devastating and accurate indictment. But here's- what they do, Steve, is not a secret. They are who they are. Things are what they are. They do what they do. The thing people need to understand is why. The Democrat party, the drive-by media are willing accomplices with one another. The media itself has now gotten more partisan and more obvious about it than ever before because they've lost their monopoly. So the Democrat party's invested in defeat in Iraq. They cannot afford a political or military victory in Iraq because they have no way they can share in it. They have no way they can say we help. They have been deriding the troops. They have been calling them murderers. Harry Reid says the surge didn't work. He waived the white flag of surrender back in May. The worst thing that can happen is for us to be showing success, which is happening in large numbers over there, and even Thomas Rich at "The Washington Post" now has to admit it. "The Washington Post" in the editorial in Sunday had to admit it. So this, this when Sanchez came out and did his usual beat up the troops and beat up the effort and so forth, that's all they want to hear because that's the narrative. The narrative on the table is we're losing, we can't win, Bush has screwed it up, so ignore everything else which means you never get the truth or you very rarely do in the drive-by media anymore.
DOOCY: Sure, and you mentioned Media Matters, which is an outfit run by this fellow by the name of David Brock who was once upon a time worked on the right then went over to the left side. And in fact, this David Brock character has admitted that he published a bunch of stuff, that he simply had made up. But his organization which is supposed to be a watchdog of conservative misinformation, Media Matters only takes shots at guys like you, at Fox News. They never, ever touch anybody on MSNBC. They never mentioned anybody on CNN.
LIMBAUGH: Well, they do, though, sometimes just for cover. They will rip a Democrat or liberal media person if they attack Hillary. That organization exists for one reason and that's to get Hillary Clinton elected. Make no mistake about this.
DOOCY: Why do you say that Rush?
LIMBAUGH: Because she started it. What do you think MoveOn.org means? MoveOn.org was formed in the 90's. It meant can we move on from the Clinton scandals? You've got George Soros money with all of these organizations in an indirect way. Brock is a flunky. You know, he's been all over the ideological map. Some of the stuff he wrote earlier about Anita Hill, the troopers in Arkansas, he didn't deny the facts. He just said later he wished that he hadn't written them and published them and so forth. But who appointed them an official watch dog and who watches them?
KILMEADE: That's a good point.
LIMBAUGH: Nobody challenges on the left anything they have to say. Media Matters may as well be the executive producers and the line producers for MSNBC's primetime. If Media Matters went out of business, MSNBC primetime would have to go dark.
DOOCY: Good point. Rush, before you leave, you got 30 seconds. In addition to the historic letter that people are bidding on, on E-Bay right now that Harry Reid sent you, what else do they get? The atache case and what else?
LIMBAUGH: Yeah, the Halliburton atache case, by the way. They get that. They get a letter from me thanking them. A couple of other surprises. I'm still thinking how we're going to mount this. I think I want too mount this in an official archival document as though it would be posted in the Smithsonian.
DOOCY: Alright, well, once again, the bidding ceases in three hours, or rather, three days, four hours, 16 minutes and 25 seconds. The bid right now on E-Bay is at $50,300. Rush Limbaugh, we thank you very much for joining us today.
