RUSH: To Leslie in Seattle. Glad you called. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, bless you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: I wanted to call and say that I just listened to Barbara Walters spiel on and spew on about the president’s motorcade that was outside of her street, on the way to her house. She couldn’t cross the street. The police would not let her cross, and she said to the policeman, ‘Don’t you know who I am?’ and then she said —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait! Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying she told this story?
CALLER: Yes, sir. She did.
RUSH: She admitted that? Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait! Where did she tell this? Give me as short an answer as you can and we’ll get back to your story.
CALLER: She told it on The View this morning.
RUSH: She was on The View this morning and she was upset that the president’s motorcade had her street blocked off and the cops wouldn’t let her cross the street, and she actually said on The View, she went to the cops and said, ‘Do you know who I am?’
CALLER: Yes. She said there were two female policemen monitoring that portion of the motorcade, or the barricade, and then she says — with her eyes rolling at the top of her little head (and I say ‘little’ not by accident), she says — ‘He’s not a king. He’s the president.’
RUSH: Now, look, I can believe that she’d be upset by it. Most people in New York are when this happens. Clinton shut this place down. He was coming up here all the time. Clinton would shut this place down for block after block after block, and these —
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: — people like Barbara Walters never complained. This is just about Bush. I can’t believe she would actually say, though —
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: — on the television that she went up to a couple of female cops, ‘Do you know who I am?’ Are you sure about this?
CALLER: She said it, Rush. I was so mad that I started dialing your number and I couldn’t dial because my finger was shaking. This is the first time I’ve ever called a radio show in my life.
RUSH: Well, we’re honored you chose this one, and we understand why.
CALLER: (Giggles.)
RUSH: But I just can’t believe she would admit that.
CALLER: I know.
RUSH: You know what? I think there’s a lot of hormones flying all over the place over there at The View. That’s got to be, when you think about it, that’s got to be like… (pause) I’ve got a description, but I don’t think I’ll share it with you. No, I just won’t. You walk into that place every day, it’s gotta be every nightmare you have ever had about women or a relationship going bad. To walk into that infestation of liberalism, stupidity and ignorance every day and have to defend it and prop it up, if you’re Barbara Walters the queen bee over there, with Rosie, who knows, complaining about the flavored dog biscuits they put on the floor for her in the dressing room — it’s got to be just an absolute nightmare. That show is… It’s indescribable to me. The amount of genuine
You know, she has at least a great reputation as a journalist and a woman of distinction, refinement and character — and she’s thrown herself in with that lot over there, and she’s been propping up Rosie for so long, I just… Something’s happening. I can’t believe it. Folks, I know Barbara Walters. I’ve been to a couple of her parties. (I should tell you about one, one time. I ended up singing ‘Ain’t Got No Home’ as a Christmas carol, and I haven’t been invited back since.) To come out and admit that you walked up to a cop? That’s generally a kind of comment that a pedestrian would hear and call Page Six with, and it would be on Page Six that Barbara Walters was up strutting her stuff and asking cops, ‘Do you know who I am?’ and then she would be denying it. Here she is admitting it on The View? I’m telling you, something isn’t right over there, and it hasn’t been for the longest time. I am still unsure. I’m going to withhold ’til I actually hear this myself, because I cannot — unless she was trying to be funny, you know, like I do — I’ve gotta hear this myself, but it’s important to know here how the viewer watching this show interpreted this. Anyway, there’s a whole lot of reputations on that show just spiraling down like a corkscrew. I’ll stop with that.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, learn to do what I have learned to do over many, many years, and that is trust me. Trust my instincts. Trust me. I am still amazed after 18-1/2 years here that people still call here to disagree with me about things, but it happens. But you’re going to have to trust me. I knew that Barbara Walters did not say what a viewer to The View thought she said. (This happens a lot, by the way.) We have the sound bite in question here. Barbara Walters telling this story…
WALTERS: I, today, am not crazy about President George Bush. I have very personal reasons. So! I am walking home at the end of the day, it’s like quarter of seven, and I’m — I’m walking from the office — West Side, East Side –with Monica, who is my wonderful assistant. So, we get to the West Side. I can’t cross the street! I mean, here’s — here’s one side; here’s the other. I literally cannot cross the street. There are barricades. There are people saying, two very nice policewomen say, ‘You cannot cross the street.’ I can’t cross the street!
O’DONNELL: Wait. Did they recognize you?
WALTERS: Yes.
O’DONNELL: They said, ‘Barbara Walters, you can’t cross the street?’
WALTERS: Yes! You and the others, stand behind the barricade. That was too much! I said, ‘I will obey you, but I’m not standing be — who’s coming?’ ‘The president.’ ‘Where’s his car?’ ‘He’s coming any minute.’ Fifteen minutes later, as I’m standing there, I can see down the — there’s no car. There’s no nothing. We still cannot cross the street. So finally one person crosses, another person — and then we cross the street. He is a president. He is not a king.
RUSH: All right, everything about the story was true except Barbara did not say she went up there and told the cops, ‘Do you know who I am?’ It was Rosie O’Donnell who said, ‘Did they know who you were? Did they recognize you?’ Now, when you hear this story, frankly, she’s got a point. The motorcade is not there. It’s nowhere near there. They were keeping people from crossing the street for 15 minutes when nothing was headed their way. Now, I know it’s homeland security and 9/11 and all of that, but you gotta trust me. I just knew she wouldn’t say this. You have to trust my instincts on these kinds of things, folks. It would have been bad if she had said that, and if she admitted it.