RUSH: Now, I want to lead off by explaining, informing you what happened at our home last night. It was actually late yesterday afternoon. I was, as usual, minding my own business. I was actually working on today’s program, and I got a flash from the chief of the security team. We X-ray every bit of mail. Every UPS, every FedEx, gets X-rayed in its own separate building away from the house when it comes in. Before it’s opened, before anybody sees it, it gets X-rayed. It’s a giant X-ray machine much like you would say at an airport. It’s huge. It’s a professional thing. And the security team is diligent on this. And the e-mail I got contained a picture of the scan of this device. I looked at it.
They wanted to call the cops and have them come out and take a look. I said, “By all means, call the police.” You woulda done the same thing if you would have seen the X-ray scan of this package and, if you would have seen the outside and how it was addressed, you would have done the same thing. And I really want to thank the Palm Beach Police Department and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office ’cause they were right there. The bomb squad came out and they took their time with it. They did their own X-ray, and they were working diligently with our security team. They looked at footage from the video cameras.
They did a complete thorough sweep of everything, including the package, and finally determined that it was safe. They even donned their bomb uniforms, the bomb suits, and they took it to a… Well, it was still on the property, but they took it to a location that would have been safe if it had been an explosive. It turned out it wasn’t, but looking at it on the X-ray, it was this really crude-looking electronic device. I’ll tell you what I originally thought it was: I thought it was from a fan. Because I’d been talking about my hearing loss a lot lately, I thought some fan had put together some crude attempt to help my hearing, because I know how much the audience loves me.
It turns out that’s not what it was. What it was, in itself, is a little disturbing, but I’ll not share all that with you. But this is why we take the steps we do and go to the lengths we do for security and safety around the property. The dogs were ready to… In fact, we had a little fun, or tried to last night during the 11 o’clock news. The local news was there with their giant cranes, with cameras looking into the property all night. So at about 10 to 11 last night, getting ready for the live shots, we said, “Let’s let the dogs out right as these guys are doing their live-shots. The dogs will run to where these lights and cameras are and start barking left and right.” (laughing)
The first time we did it, Abbey, the lead guard dog, thought she was being let out to go tinkle and did that, then wanted to come back in. So, we sent her back out the second time she started barking up a storm, but I don’t think she got close enough to be heard. We thought about taking ’em some tea, the news crews, to thank them for their hard work: Hanging out from 4:30 in the afternoon ’til 11:30 with cameras probing into the property. But we decided not to do that. But, really, the Police and the Sheriff’s Department were fantastic. They did a magnificent job, and security team, too. The mail, the amount of stuff that comes to the property is voluminous, and it takes quite a while each day to examine it all, which is why when I first heard about this at 4:30…
I think the mail came in around three o’clock. It was 4 or 4:30 when I saw the note and the picture of the X-ray and the outside of the outside of the box. I want to thank all of you. We were inundated with e-mails from people all over: “Are you safe? Are you okay?” And we were safe. We were protected. Had it been some sort of an explosive device, I don’t think we were in any danger in that regard had it actually been an explosive device because of the great work of the Sheriff’s Office and the security team working together that we have there that goes into action when this kind of thing happens. So that’s what happened. It’s what it was. (interruption)
No, I’m not gonna describe the thing, folks. It would send chills up your spine if I were to tell you what the package actually contained. So no point in doing that. The thing is, all of the systems in place worked flawlessly. And, again, thanks for the Palm Beach Police Department and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.