Rush Limbaugh, Wedding Crasher

Now, I have a funny story to tell you. Kathryn and I went up to Washington for the weekend, the Redskins and Rams yesterday at FedEx Field, and we flew up Saturday afternoon because we were going to have dinner with Kathryn’s brother who lives there and we stayed at the Hay-Adams which is the toe sucker hotel. I mean, that’s where Dick Morris is on the phone getting toe sucked while talking to Clinton while he was getting a Lewinsky at the same time. And through the trees you can sort of see the White House. So I guess it’s about five, 5:30 in the afternoon and I’m looking out the window and there’s church right across the street and the church bells start ringing. The doors to the church open and a bride and groom walk out, the groom is a Marine. The wedding party comes out, and the wedding party then darts into the park across the street, I guess to go get photos taken. We were told when we checked in, ‘By the way, the primary bar and restaurant here are closed because there’s a wedding reception –‘ ‘Well, thanks for telling us that when we checked in,’ ‘– but the downstairs bar called Off the Record is open.’ Okay, so we’ll go there.

So we figured that the wedding we saw, the Marine coming out of the church and his bride was the wedding at the Hay-Adams, the reception. So anyway, the brother shows up, we head down to the Off the Record bar, I guess we get there at 6:30 or seven, and after we’re there about an hour this group of people, all black, five or six of them all decked out in white walk in and sit down in a corner and start eating. After they’ve been there ten minutes I get up, have to go to the bathroom, the leader of the group stands up and says, ‘Are you Rush Limbaugh?’ And I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Oh, biggest day of my life, getting to meet you.’ He’s the band leader playing at the wedding reception. He’s the leader of the band. In fact, I got the name of the band. Let me pull the business card out here. The name of the band was Just Us Band and Show featuring a/k/a King Snake, Robert Jones, so I guess Robert Jones and King Snake is who approached me. It’s hard to hear in there. He gave me his name and I couldn’t hear it, but he said he was a big fan and he invited us up to hear him play. I said, ‘We can’t do that, I mean, it’s a wedding.’ He said, ‘Come up in the second set, everybody will be liquored up, nobody will know you’re there, come up in the second set.’ So we said, ‘Thanks but no thanks, very nice for the offer, but, you know, love the way you guys are fueling up here for your performance,’ ’cause they’re in the Off the Record bar and they’re chowing down.

So we went back up to the hotel suite to have dinner with Kathryn and her brother, and about 10:30 the brother says, ‘I gotta go.’ I said, ‘Fine, Katie, let’s go down to that wedding. Let’s go to that reception, let’s go down there.’ So she said, ‘Okay.’ So we went down and we happened to walk in and the band was taking a break or they were just about to end a break. We walk in and I said, ‘Look, we gotta go say hi to the band, they invited us here,’ and she said, ‘No, no, no, you go ahead, I’ll hang back here in the corner.’ So I walked out there to the dance floor and walked up to the drummer, ‘Hey, man, how are you? Good to see you again, we came down to hear your set, taking your advice.’ The leader came over, ‘Hey, how are you? Great to see you.’ I said, ‘Great to see you, thanks for having us here, we’re looking forward to hearing you.’ So I repair back to the corner, within seconds the guy gets to the microphone, ‘Rush Limbaugh is in the house!’ I said, ‘Oh, ho-ho-ho,’ and I’d already been spotted. I’m standing there in the corner next to the service door to the kitchen that leads into the area here where the reception is taking place.

So the band kicks up and starts playing music and people start strolling by and looking with the most perplexed facial expressions, ‘Who? What the hell is he doing here? Why is the guy on the microphone at the band saying ‘Rush Limbaugh is in the house’?’ So the groom comes over and he has a big smile on his face, ‘Hi, I’m the groom.’ I said, ‘Oh, you’re the Marine.’ ‘No, I’m a Ranger.’ I said, ‘Did you get married in the church across the street?’ He said, ‘No, we got married on the roof.’ I said, ‘Whoa, well, there was another wedding, I thought — ‘No, no, no, I’m a Ranger, I got a brother in Iraq, I got a brother in Afghanistan, and this is great you’re here.’ Then the bride came over and she brought the official wedding photographer with her, and we are posing — now, follow me on this — we’re posing for pictures, you know, being good because we’ve crashed the thing. I mean, we’re wedding crashers. So the bride comes over and she’s smiling but she’s not totally there but she knew enough to bring the photographer, and she’s talking to me and the noise — I cannot hear, so when I can’t hear, I found that the best thing to do is say, ‘Thank you.’ When somebody looks at me and they’re smiling ‘thank you’ always works.

It’s like I was on the sideline at the Redskins game yesterday, and it was loud, the pregame music and I couldn’t hear anything, and a couple came over and introduced their kids and asked me to sign the bills of their caps, and I did, and then they said to me, ‘Okay, well, we’re going to leave and stop bothering you. We’ll leave you alone now.’ I didn’t hear them say that, I just, ‘Oh, okay, thank you.’ Katie tells me all this after the fact. So anyway, the bride comes over, she’s telling me all of this stuff about her, she’s smiling, I think she’s just making small talk, and I say, ‘Thank you, oh, great, well, thank you very much,’ and we pose for the pictures. We then leave, we get upstairs, ‘Did you not hear what she was saying to you?’ ‘No, I had no idea. I couldn’t hear. I could barely hear you.’ ‘Oh, Rush, she’s a Hillary staffer. Half the room worked for Hillary Clinton.’ I said, ‘Oh, no.’ So I’ve got the biggest smile on my face and I’m just thanking her when she’s telling me all this. We were only in there a total of 10 minutes, maybe 12 minutes, went back upstairs and then the next morning checking out the whole wedding party is checking out while we’re leaving to go to FedEx Field and these people are staring, ‘How the hell did he end up in our wedding reception?’ (laughing)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One thing I did hear the bride ask me when she came over with the official photographer, ‘How did you get in here?’ I said, ‘The band invited us. We were downstairs in the bar and the band invited us up here. They said to come in the second set when you’d all be pretty much into the party, we wouldn’t be noticed.’ Of course I blew that by walking out in the middle of the dance floor while the band was getting ready to get into their next set, but it was fun. It’s the first wedding I’ve ever crashed, first reception I’ve ever crashed. She brought the photographer over. (laughing) There had to be mixed emotions. The whole place in there, ‘How the hell did this happen? I mean we’re at a wedding, it’s a reception, we love these two people, in Washington, how the hell did Limbaugh get in here?’ The band leader invited us in.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I just got an e-mail from the groom of the wedding I crashed on Saturday night. The guy is a subscriber at the website, RushLimbaugh.com. ‘Rush, half the room was current and former Hillary staffers, half the room was conservatives with huge ties to the military and the Midwest. It was great to have you crash our wedding! I’m converting as many as I can. Rick Yost.’ So the groom is Rick Yost, he’s an Army Ranger and the bride’s name, Heather King, and she is I guess a former six-year Hillary staffer. Who woulda thought! Most people crash weddings get thrown out of ’em. But I mean you gotta admit the bride had a great sense of humor to go grab the official photographer and show up and not throw a fit. I mean, it’s her wedding, it’s her reception. (laughing) And she works for Hillary and there I am in there with her band leader saying, ‘Rush Limbaugh’s in the house!’