RUSH: Now, last night I was at a cigar dinner. Marvin Shanken, Cigar Aficionado, put together a little impromptu cigar dinner up at The Palm Golf Club. He brought in Carlos Fuente, Jr. the Fuente Cigar family in the Dominican Republic. He brought the cigars, did a little presentation. They had a special scotch, three different years of scotch were served, taste testing and mix and match with the cigars. It was on from about seven to ten o’clock. While I was there I started getting texts about Rudy with Megyn Kelly on Fox.
Then I got a couple of e-mails from people who told me that also on the Kelly file, that my name was brought up and that I was compared — and they weren’t sure, the people that sent me the emails, because it went by real fast and they were not paying full attention when they were watching. But they thought, they told me, they thought I had been mentioned as being similar to ISIS terrorists by a guest that Megyn Kelly had on the program.
And lo and behold, right here it is. Kelly File last night, Democrat analyst Mark Hannah was one guest and Marc Thiessen, the American Enterprise Institute, was the other guest. During a discussion about the founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council attending Obama’s violent extremism summit, this guy’s name is Salam Al-Marayati, whatever his name is, he’s renowned as a rabble-rouser and everybody says, “What the heck is this guy doing there? It’s akin to inviting Arafat. What’s this guy doing there?” That’s what this subject was about and Megyn Kelly said, “This guy seems to be rather radical. And it just feeds into a narrative that people have about whether the president is taking the advice of the right people and whether he’s focused on the right things at this summit.”
HANNAH: I think he is. Look, there were groups form this summit, the Christian people mentioning the Bible. IÂ’ve spoken with my friends who were at this summit and they mentioned that there were groups from Northern Ireland there represented. There was, uh, the Anti Defamation League. The sort of Jewish group that rightly calls out and criticizes anti-Semitism. This was a diverse group, but it wasnÂ’t this kind of interfaith gathering. We know that violent extremism is coming mostly from groups that are affiliated of the Muslim faith. And so we absolutely need Muslim groups there. We can take quotations out of context. We can do that to Republicans and make them out to seem like, uh, you know Rush Limbaugh has said all the, you know…
RUSH: So I ended up being compared to this radical extreme terrorist who happened to be invited to the terrorist summit that the White House sponsored. (imitating Hannah) “Well, we can take quotations out of context. We can do that to the Republicans and make them seem like Rush Limbaugh, because Rush Limbaugh is radical. He’s just out of control. And Rush Limbaugh says incendiary things and we can make the mistake of assuming that all Republicans are like Rush Limbaugh.” And Marc Thiessen, God bless him, this does not happen much, but he was not going to let this stand.
THIESSEN: You’re comparing this guy to Rush Limbaugh? A guy who says that Hamas and Hezbollah are the equivalent of the American founding fathers, a guy who said after the Fort Hood shooting after it was absolutely clear that Nadal Hassan was in communication with Al Qaeda, with their leaders in Yemen, said it was just because he had psychological problems. I mean, this guy just dismisses terrorism, justifies terrorism.
RUSH: And you’re comparing this guy to Rush Limbaugh? I wanted to thank Marc Thiessen, because this does not happen, people reacting this way. Mostly they’re afraid to stand up in any way, either to defend me or try to explain. It’s just easier to let it go. But Thiessen said (paraphrasing), “This is ridiculous, you’re comparing this guy, who is an apologist for terrorism, to Rush Limbaugh?”
And, of course, I’m just the easiest name these guys on the left can come up with, because they think they’ve done such a profoundly great job of demonizing me, that all they have to do is mention my name and every leftist understands that we’re talking about the devil. So if you want to portray some guy at the summit as the devil, say, “Yeah, he’s just like Rush Limbaugh.” But Thiessen, God bless him, was not having it.