RUSH: Now, there’s a continuing controversy surrounding New Jersey governor Chris Christie. I mean, it’s all over the place. First, we have learned that Jimmy Fallon called Governor Christie. He gave him a heads-up that he and Springsteen were gonna make fun of him. I don’t know what Christie said to Fallon, don’t know that Fallon got through, don’t know that Fallon actually talked to Christie. We just know that Fallon called Christie’s office or Christie and said, “Hey, Springsteen’s coming on, and we’re gonna make fun of you.”
Which I guess is supposed to make it okay, then, once you give the object of your ridicule a heads-up. (interruption) Yeah, like Madonna and her son. Don’t even… (interruption) Yeah. Now, there. If you want to talk about cultural decay and deterioration, that’s what you talk about, and that’s what going on for a long, long time. Now, here it is in a nutshell. This is the latest with Governor Christie.
Dawn Zimmer is the mayor of Hoboken. (Somebody has to be, folks.) Dawn Zimmer is the mayor of Hoboken, and she is claiming that back in May the New Jersey lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, pulled her aside after touring a ShopRite that had been rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy and told her that Hoboken would not get any Hurricane Sandy relief aid if she didn’t help push a real estate development project that Governor Christie wanted.
So the story is that Dawn Zimmer, the mayor of Hoboken, was pulled aside by the New Jersey lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, also female, and it was babe to babe. And the lieutenant governor babe said to the mayor babe, “If you don’t get on board with us, you’re not getting any Sandy money.” Dawn Zimmer is the mayor. The lieutenant governor’s denying it, says it never happened.
The mayor of Hoboken, Dawn Zimmer, is saying it did happen. She is not conceding anything, and she has provided MSNBC with an entry from her personal diary in which she recounted the incident. Oh, speaking of which, the New York Times actually has a soap opera-type story today about how Christie has fallen out of favor with the hosts of MSNBC, that they loved Christie.
They had a lot of hope invested in him as a Republican who could screw other Republicans and now there’s been a falling out because of the scandal. It’s actually written as though it’s a breakup of a soap opera-type relationship. We will explain that in due course as the program unfolds. Now, the lieutenant governor, according to the mayor of Hoboken, said, “It’s very important to Governor Christie…”
This is the diary entry that describes Lieutenant Governor Guadagno saying of the development project, “It is very important to the governor. The word is that you are against it and you need to move forward or we are not going to be able to help you. I know it’s not right — these things should not be connected — but they are, she says, and if you tell anyone, I will deny it.”
So she’s out telling the world that this happened, and the lieutenant governor is denying it. “Zimmer said she was given the same message four days later by Richard Constable, ChristieÂ’s community affairs commissioner. As the two prepared to appear on a television program about Sandy recovery, she said Constable told her she needed to support the project for her city to receive aid.”
Now Guadagno and Constable are both denying what the mayor of Hoboken is saying. So what are we to do with this? Who are we supposed to believe here? Now, I guess one of the trains of thought is the governor wouldn’t be this stupid, wouldn’t make himself this big a target. He wouldn’t tell the lieutenant governor go out there and deny aid if the mayor didn’t come forth and help with the redevelopment project or supported it.
Nobody would do that. So the tendency, I guess, is to not believe the mayor of Hoboken on the basis that Christie wouldn’t do it.
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RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, we were all told for a long time that having women in politics was gonna put an end to political corruption because there wouldn’t be any testosterone. Having women in politics would end war, for example, and barbarism. With women in leadership, there wouldn’t be any predatory-type behavior because women don’t do that and don’t have a dominance of testosterone and they’re not made that way.
They’re nurturers and peacemakers. They are focused on relationships and making things work. So I’m sitting here a little confused reading of the contretemps between the female lieutenant governor alleging that it is the mayor of Hoboken is lying and then vice-versa. So I’m gonna have to think. It’ll take me some time to work through this, ’cause I believed all of that. Now my world is upside down. I don’t quite know how to process this.
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RUSH: I don’t know. This is tough trying to figure which one of these women is lying. One of ’em has to be. (interruption) So the lieutenant governor is blonde, and the mayor is brunette. Is that relevant in determining which one of ’em’s telling the truth? I don’t know. Just asking. The lieutenant governor seems a little bit more at home with makeup than the mayor. Is there anything to learn from that? I’m just asking.
(interruption) Well, just in determining who’s telling the truth. I mean, one goes au natural, and we may be able to conclude, as an environmentalist there, the lieutenant governor is a bit more conventional. I don’t know. I’m just… We gotta figure out who’s telling the truth here. There’s a huge lie somebody’s telling here. This is big. I mean, you got a mayor asserting that a governor told her she’s not gonna get any hurricane relief aid unless she joins the governor’s redevelopment project.
And the lieutenant governor says, “No, no, no! I never said that to her.” Well, how do we determine who’s being truthful here? Okay, you ask that: Who benefits the most from a lie? Or is it: Who benefits most from getting away with the lie? You gotta get away with it, and I don’t know the answer to that yet. I guess we’re just gonna have to watch this play out, but it’s gonna be really tough because we’ve all been told that women in positions of power would not do this kind of stuff, that this is an exclusively province of men in politics.
Now, Richard Sherman, very quickly, then we’ll move on to other things. Like…
Did you know smoking increases your chances of your child being gay in adulthood? This is UK Telegraph: “A neuroscientist has claimed a woman’s lifestyle during pregnancy is directly linked to the development of their children, influencing whether they may be gay and having an impact on their IQ,” and the more a woman smokes, the greater the likelihood the child will be gay in a adulthood. Does this mean that we will see various gay political groups moderate their position on smoking? We’ll have to keep a sharp eye. It’s that kind of stuff in the news.
This New York Times headline: “For Christie and MSNBC a Messy Divorce Plays Out in Public View.” It’s like a soap opera, what’s happening between MSNBC and Governor Christie.
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RUSH: The mayor of Hoboken was asked, “Why did you wait eight months?” And she offered up an answer that many women who have suffered alleged abuse at the hands of a predatory man say. She said, “Well, I was afraid nobody would believe me.” Why were you afraid nobody would believe you? ‘Cause you’re a Democrat? (imitating Zimmer) “Well, nothing else going on, everybody loves Christie, he’s the king, he’s crossing the aisle, here I come out and tell the truth, nobody would believe me eight months ago.” So that’s what she’s saying as why she didn’t say anything about it until now.
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RUSH: We start Quincy, Illinois. Hi, Debbie. You’re up first. It’s great to have you here. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing?
RUSH: Very well. Thanks.
CALLER: I called today because all this talk about Christie and the governor of Hoboken — I’m sorry, the mayor. Has anybody looked at the numbers? I mean, they received money in the first round of all that over $300,000, according to an article, and I wondered how that compared to the others?
RUSH: What article?
CALLER: Oh, I don’t know. Something I found on my phone. I just Googled in “mayor of Hoboken,” and then there was an article that they had gotten like $326,000 in the first round.
RUSH: So you’re saying, then, based on your opinion having read the article is, that the mayor of Hoboken is lying?
CALLER: Okay, we can go there. Mmm-hmm. Yeah. That and you’re in a conversation with somebody. Unless they’ve legislated that you can only have one topic and then you have to come back and have the second topic, I can well envision talking about the disbursements and then saying, “You know, by the way, we really need your support on this real estate development thing,” and communication being sending out a message and perceiving it, who knows what she actually heard as opposed to what was actually intended? But you never figure out she said/she said. But if you look at the numbers of that disbursement, was it within…?
RUSH: Well, wait. If we’re gonna take the article you found on your phone at face value and believe it, then there was money from Hurricane Sandy that she’s telling people the governor’s office/lieutenant governor’s office said she wasn’t gonna get, which would then lead you, as you said, to conclude that the mayor of Hoboken is lying, and that’s it. We gotta figure out which one is. You may be on to something. I don’t know yet.
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RUSH: Okay, here’s Dawn Zimmer. I want to get some sound bites in here. This is on State of the Union on CNN Sunday. She is the Hoboken mayor, and Candy Crowley said, “In May of last year when a couple of officials said to you, ‘Listen, Sandy relief aid will in fact, maybe be jeopardized if you don’t go along with this redevelopment plan,’ why are you here now?”
ZIMMER: Back in May when the lieutenant governor came and very directly said to me that these two things are connected, I… You know, I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I really didn’t. I mean, I — I do, looking back, probably should have come forward, but I really didn’t think anyone would believe me. I was really concerned that if I came forward and no one believed me, that we would really be cut out of the Sandy funding. But as I watched the — the coverage with Bridgegate, you do see parallels, and I just felt, you know, I had an obligation to come forward, and as I look at the second tranche of funding that’s coming through, I’m concerned we’re gonna be cut out.
RUSH: Okay. So there was a first tranche of funding, and that’s the now acknowledged as 300-plus thousand dollars. But now the second tranche might not be forthcoming. So she said as I counted three times, maybe four times in there, “Well, I didn’t think anybody would believe me.” I just didn’t think anybody would believe me. But then when Bridgegate hit, now, Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) is very upset. She is very upset about the Democrats. Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) is very upset because she thinks the Democrats are overdoing this in their attack on Chris Christie.
MITCHELL: I think the Democrats are probably overdoing it by following him around and trailing him and looking like they’re piling on. But he’s gotta deal with the investigation and make sure that if everything that he said is correct, he’s home free, but he’s gotta make sure, and there are a lot of e-mails out there.
RUSH: Well, that’s really gonna help Christie with the Tea Party. There’s Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) defending Christie. An accredited member of the NBC News Bureau, which may as well be the Politburo coming out now and defending Christie and getting all over the Democrats. Now, what does she know that we don’t? She’s gotta have some polling data out there, right? But she’s also trying to sustain Christie as a viable candidate.
Why would that be?
We know that she’s never gonna vote for Chris Christie no matter what, so why does she want him on the ballot? (interruption) Well, yeah, he’s weakened, and that’s bad. I mean, Andrea Mitchell (NBC News, Washington) is invested in Hillary Clinton winning, and she doesn’t like what they’re doing to Christie here. I guess she’s afraid maybe there’s gonna be a rebound of sympathy for Christie because they overdo it, and she wants Christie to end up being harmed and get the nomination.
They’re all trying to guarantee smooth sailing for Hillary in this. Now, Christie is the only guy in polling data defeating Hillary, and there are two polls that show that, and they live and die on these polls. So it’s time to take Christie out, and she’s worried they’re overdoing it. She’s also got the caveat, “Well, look, he’s home free if he’s telling the truth. There are a lot of e-mails out there, if he’s not telling the truth.” But it’s too early for her. Taking Christie out now is early enough that there could be somebody else come along and become a genuine threat to Hillary.