RUSH: Donald Sterling is back. You know the old phrase, “Boy, really stepped in it this time”? I was telling Snerdley earlier this morning, it’s like CNN went out there and got two buckets of excrement, and they sat Sterling down in the interview chair and they said, “Here, put both feet in the buckets now because we know what’s gonna happen,” and he did! This guy stepped in it. The NBA has already issued a condemnation of what Sterling said about the revered and untouchable Magic Johnson.
But it’s even better than that. Rick Barry, the former star player for many teams in the NBA, was on TV this morning from Denver. He said (paraphrasing), “Why don’t these Sterling people realize nobody wants them in the NBA? What is this talk about selling the team to his wife? Why don’t they just get rid of it and get out,” like LeBron James said. Man, I tell you, CNN must have used a hashtag, #SaveOurRatings, and Sterling responded to it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Brenda from Yakima, Washington, you’re next, it’s great to have you. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I’m honored to speak with you.
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
CALLER: Well, what I wanted to talk about today was Donald Sterling. I have not heard anybody say this, but what I heard him saying was that she could sleep with anybody that she wanted to, but he didn’t want them brought to his game. So obviously to me, she sleeps with a lot of black guys and she was making this more about race than he was, and he just didn’t want to be humiliated. He’s an 80-year-old man that comes from an era where they didn’t mix races. And so while I don’t quite feel sorry for him, I do think that the media’s just jumped on a private conversation that he is not —
RUSH: You think that we need to step back a little and try to understand why there might be — ahem — explainable reasons for what Sterling has done and said?
CALLER: Well, I’d kind of like to know if he got the Ferrari back from her, but she —
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: It’s two sleaze balls running into each other and I don’t feel sorry for him, but I don’t think that —
RUSH: He never saw that Ferrari, and he is not gonna see it. And the same thing with the house he bought her. He never saw that and he’s not ever gonna see that.
CALLER: Well, I don’t think it’s right that he’s getting jumped on for being racist when black people are the most racist people of anybody. They’re very intolerant of — I’m part Indian, and it’s the same with any minority group. They’re more racist against white people than —
RUSH: Yes but —
CALLER: Than any other — anybody.
RUSH: But, you see, Brenda, at this juncture in American history that’s not only permitted, it’s almost called for. It’s called reciprocity, getting even. It’s the whole point of affirmative action, never-ending affirmative action. But, okay, her point is she thinks that they’re piling on Sterling. He comes from a different generation. He’s lost. He doesn’t understand why he’s in trouble here. He thinks of himself as a good person. Let’s go to the audio sound bites. I mentioned at the top of the program, you’ve heard the phrase “he stepped in it”?
CNN, every network has been trying to get Sterling on. I don’t know what CNN did to get him. Maybe the fact that they don’t have any viewers appealed to Sterling, and if he did step in it nobody would hear it. But he miscalculated because everybody was gonna replay whatever happened on CNN. They’ve just had their lowest prime time ratings in something like a hundred years, 250,000 people total, not the demo, 250,000 people prime time CNN. They still have the lights on. It proves that ratings don’t matter anymore in media. It proves that the ratings don’t matter. The cause supersedes ratings, 250,000 people in the audience. We have that in New York. We have that in Manhattan, in New York.
Anyway, he chose CNN, Anderson Cooper 210. And they may as well have placed in front of the chair that he was gonna sit in two buckets of excrement and said, “Put your feet in there. Just go ahead and step in it now, because we think we’re gonna get you to do it anyway.” And he did. I mean, really stepped in it. I have a summary of some things that he said, but let’s just go to the audio sound bites, just two of them here. Let’s focus on how he really, really launched on Magic. If you go back to the day this all popped and became big-time news, on this program I offered the opinion that there was some bad blood between this guy and Magic over something.
I thought it might be that Magic was trying to maneuver and get his team away from him. I thought might be this V. Stiviano, the delectable babe in this whole sordid affair, as apparently, depending on the day of the week she’s with some athlete from the Lakers, some athlete from the Dodgers. Then she’s with Magic, and that picture of her with Magic is what set him off. It did. That’s when he said (paraphrasing), “Look, I know I can’t stop you from hanging around them, but don’t bring ’em to the games.” That was the end of it. So all the networks have been trying to get him, CNN did, and here’s the Magic sound bites. Anderson Cooper said, “Magic Johnson, you know, he’s made a public comment. Do you have anything you’d like to say to Magic Johnson?”
STERLING: I’m hurt that he called me up and he said, “Don’t do anything. Wait until you hear from me.” Then somebody called me later and said he doesn’t want to be involved. And then he released a tape that I said to him, that I talked to him in confidence. Here is a man, who, I don’t know how to say this. He acts so holy. I mean, he made love to every girl in every city in America, and he had AIDS, and when he had those AIDS, I went to my synagogue and I prayed for him. I hoped he could live and be well.
RUSH: When he had those AIDS. When he had those AIDS, Sterling went to the synagogue and prayed. Anderson Cooper: “He called you when the tape came out and he told you not to say anything? Why did he say ‘don’t say anything’? What’s that about?”
STERLING: He just said, “Wait and be patient. I’ll help you. We’ll — we’ll work it out.” I think he wanted me to just do nothing so he could buy the team. He thought maybe the whole thing would be resolved in two weeks. What has he done? Can you tell me? Biiig Magic Johnson, what has he done?
COOPER: All right.
STERLING: He’s got AIDS. Did he do any business? I’d like… Did he help anybody in South LA?
COOPER: Well, I think he has HIV. He doesn’t actually have full-blown AIDS.
STERLING: All right. Well, what kind of a guy goes to every city, has sex with every girl, then he catches HIV? Is that something we want to respect and — and tell our kids about? I think he should be ashamed of himself. I think he should go into the background. But what does he do for the black people? He doesn’t do anything!
RUSH: Whew! This is why I say CNN put two buckets of excrement in front of him and said, “Here, have a seat,” and he just stepped right in them. This was the worst of it, talking about Magic. But during the interview he was asked about the girl, V. Stiviano, and he said (impression), “Well, you know, Anderson, I guess I just… I thought I understood women, but I guess I don’t.
“You know, she’s so good at getting what she wants without even asking you for it. Let me give you a example, Anderson. We were walking past Neiman Marcus one day.” (laughing) What are you doing walking past Neiman Marcus? Anyway. (impression) “We were walking past Neiman Marcus, and she stopped at one of those big windows they have where they have clothes on display.
“She looked at me, and (panting) she said, ‘Do you think that’s pretty?’ I mean, how could I not buy it for her? That’s how manipulative she is.” I’m watching this in utter, stunned disbelief. So when this thing aired last night, the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver — who banned the guy and sent him to Timbuktu (laughing) — apologized for the league to Magic Johnson and said this is unacceptable, irresponsible.
It’s just mind… (interruption)
Well, he’s early in his eighties and the story is early onset dementia. That’s what his wife says. She was on a different network. She was on with Barbara Walters, I think. (interruption) Well, the wife wants the team. The wife wants the team. About that, Friday, grab sound bite 22. Rick Barry. After all of this, Rick Barry was on CNN this morning from Denver, and he was asked, “It’s even more important than ever the NBA divest itself of Sterling quickly, right? I mean, as soon as the playoffs are over, we’ve gotta get rid of this guy, right, Rick?”
BARRY: As soon as possible. It couldn’t be done quick enough, as far as I’m concerned. The sad part about it is — is that he also… Now you have his wife and her attorney talking about the fact that they want to try to fight this so that they can have ownership as far as she is concerned and possibly other members of her family. And I appealed to her. I said, “Please, listen to what LeBron James said, that he and the rest of the NBA players do not want any member of the Sterling family involved with this team. So why would you fight for something that is never gonna be a positive thing? Never!” It can’t possibly happen. They need to just go away. I mean, Donald Sterling will get a fortune when he sells this basketball team. Go get an island somewhere and isolate yourself and get away from everybody and do us all a favor.
RUSH: I gotta take a break. I’m way long. We’ll be right back.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right, the commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver. I mentioned him moments ago. This is the statement he released last night: “I just read a transcript of Donald Sterling’s interview with Anderson Cooper and while Magic Johnson doesn’t need me to, I feel compelled on behalf of the NBA family to apologize to him that he continues to be dragged into this situation and be degraded by such a malicious and personal attack. The NBA Board of Governors is continuing with its process to remove Mr. Sterling as expeditiously as possible.”
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to the Donald Sterling story, just a couple sound bites. Spike Lee was on Anderson Cooper 360 after they had Donald Sterling on. And Anderson Cooper said, “For the record, Magic Johnson has the Magic Johnson Foundation. His business life invests in inner-city communities. His foundation has given millions on HIV/AIDS education, on overall education on scholarships to people, on, you know, working communities.”
CNN had a graphic, a list of all the great achievements and accomplishments of Magic Johnson after Sterling was on TV earlier and said, “What’s he done? What’s he done? He got the AIDS, and then he had sex with every woman in every city. Is this what we want our kids –” CNN on the case, a list of every achievement of Magic Johnson. Then they got to Spike Lee and they asked him about it.
LEE: This attack on Magic is crazy. He’s messing with the wrong brother. And Magic is loved by everybody around the world. I did a documentary which was nominated for an Academy Award called 4 Little Girls.
COOPER: I remember it well.
LEE: ItÂ’s about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama. And I interviewed George Wallace and this reminds me of George Wallace in that interview. For him to say, you know, how he’s helped minorities and then try to juxtapose that with what MagicÂ’s not doing is ludicrous. And this thing is getting volatile now.
RUSH: Yeah, that’s the point. That’s the key, it’s getting volatile now. So Anderson Cooper said, “Donald Sterling says that he believes his players on his team love him and support him, but that they are intimidated.”
LEE: That sounds like a plantation owner. “My darkies love me.” Yes. Look at him. Hear him talk. And he’s delusional, and he’s not in touch with today’s world. He’s back there with Leave It To Beaver or Ozzie and Harriet.
RUSH: There you go. And you see, that, ladies and gentlemen, is another aspect of this. That America back in its so-called wholesome days, back in its days of morality and decency, ah, that wasn’t that at all. It wasn’t decent, it wasn’t moral, it wasn’t anything good. The Ozzie and Harriet days, Leave It To Beaver, America was just horribly racist and sexist and homophobic and bigoted and so forth. And what’s happening now is the answer to all that racism and sexism and bigotry and homophobia and inequality in the fifties. Now we’re getting to where it should have been all along. And Sterling is just a throwback, just like a plantation owner.
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