RUSH: There also was a telethon. A bunch of leftist celebrities got together for a telethon to raise money for the hurricane relief effort, and it quickly turned into the Wellstone Memorial Jr. It became nothing more than a leftist rant. Like, Stevie Wonder led it off. You know, I’ve always told you climate change, to the people that believe it, it’s a religion. As Stevie Wonder was talking about climate change, they had a church choir and an organ with people decked out in robes chanting things behind him while he was singing, eulogizing or talking about climate change.

I mean, literally illustrating to these people that it’s religious. Matt Lauer was interviewing somebody and was asking… Oh, he was part of the telethon, and he was lying about the fact that… He said (summarized), “This is the strongest hurricane! This is the most powerful hurricane on record that has ever hit Florida, the United States.” It’s number 7. It’s not even close. It’s not even close to the biggest and dangerous, most damaging hurricane. They are just out there lying through their teeth about this, and anybody that challenges them is “a terrible person, but we knew that already.”

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RUSH: I want to start here with this telethon, the hurricane telethon. Have you noticed…? I mentioned this yesterday. You had these people doing this telethon, but none of them are actually on the front lines helping out. They’re asking other people to send money, and while they’re asking other people to send money, they are berating Donald Trump and everybody that voted for him. I mean, they are engaged in deeply personal insults to Trump and people who voted for him while asking other people…

You don’t see these people out there. You don’t see Black Lives Matter. You don’t see the Antifa people. You don’t see any of them helping on site. You don’t see the… (thump) Wow. Has that been happening all week as I hit that table? (thump) Folks, I am sorry. I just now heard… (thump) If that… (thump) (thump) I’m gonna have to try to break this habit of pounding the desk. I had no idea that it was that… (thump) (thump) (thump) I’m hearing all kinds of noise. So I’ll do my best not to use my hands as I gesticulate wildly here, as I speak emphatically.

You don’t see these people out there passing things out you don’t see them helping people. They’re not on site. Instead, they’re here doing a telethon. And there have been remarkably few stories about the smoothness, about the efficiency and the timeliness and the competence of the relief efforts. And why haven’t you seen those stories? You haven’t seen those stories because those stories to be written would have to credit the government, and who is seen as running the government today?

The Trumpster. And they don’t want to give Trump credit, and they don’t want to give Republicans credit. So it’s a story pretty much ignored until this telethon comes along, and then the media focuses right on it. In fact, the media’s participating in it. Matt Lauer is lying to people watching this thing, all to make the case for climate change. Why do they have to lie? If climate change is as real as they believe, why do they have to lie? Why they have to tell people that Hurricane Irma is the strongest and the most dangerous and the most damaging hurricane that’s ever hit, when it’s number seven?

And that’s among the hurricanes we know. Hurricanes have been hitting various landmasses for billions and billions and billions of years. We only have known about them, been able to record them for the last, what, 150, 200 years max? So we don’t even know that what we know now is right. It’s only correct within a current sphere of timeline. It doesn’t matter. They’re out there lying through their teeth. “Most dangerous storm, the most costly storm, the most deadly storm ever to hit.” I don’t know if he said Florida or the United States, but either one, he’s wrong. And he’s a journalist!

He’s on the Today show. He’s on NBC. He is presented to people as an authoritative, credible source. He’s lying through his teeth. The thing I don’t know is does he know that he’s wrong? And that’s the question about people like Lauer, ’cause they’re part of the groupthink. They’re part of the consensus, and they just line up — and whatever is to be said, they say it. And since these people are not curious about what they believe and they’re not eager to confirm what they believe — they don’t think they have to — you don’t know whether he believes it or not.

You don’t know whether he knows what’s true or not, and yet NBC puts him out there as one of their highest-ranking source authorities. But I think there’s a reason. You know, one of the possible reasons that the Trump team is performing so well on these hurricane-disaster issues, is besides competence (which this team has in abundance) and besides compassion (which they have in abundance), you know what Donald Trump isn’t doing that Obama would be doing or any other Democrat?

Trump is not out there blaming anybody. He’s not trying to push a political advantage here. Well, I take that back. He actually is, but he’s doing it very strategically and very smartly. He is, of course, adding to his political reputation by doing a good job. But my point is, he’s not out there blaming local officials. He’s not blaming Obama. He’s not blaming the Democrats. He’s not blaming anybody. He’s not taking the occasion of this disaster to make himself look better at the expense of others. He’s not trying to score points on phony, politicized science.

He is coordinating rescues and cleanup. He is not messaging for future fundraising. He is performing for future fundraising. There’s a big difference. Actually doing, taking action, accomplishing things, versus simply PR packaging words, messaging, what have you. In other words, the sole focus of the Trump administration seems to be the job at hand. And the Drive-Bys are unable to write serious stories about the administration or the Trump administration’s efforts not succeeding, ’cause if they were, you know the stories would be out there.

Most of the stories that I’ve seen really are about how we dodged a bullet. Most of the stories are, “You know, it wasn’t as bad as was forecast.” Now, in those stories they never mention “and Rush Limbaugh advised you that might be the case.” No, you only hear “Rush Limbaugh is a terrible person.” But over here they’re telling you what I told you would be the case before it happened. But I’m a terrible person, and they’re telling you, “It’s not as bad. Why isn’t it as bad?” They’re trying to figure out why.

It’s not as bad as they wanted. Don’t doubt me on this. “Rush, that’s a horrible thing to say.” Folks, I can see the disappointment. I mean, remember, who was it — Rahm Emanuel — who said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” These kind of things are exactly what the left uses to advance their year-end, and they’re not able to here. So they’re trying to figure out why it wasn’t as strong as it was predicted. “Well, Cuba! You know, Cuba. It ran into Cuba, it weakened a little bit, and the ocean temperature, seawater temperature weren’t quite as high as we said — and it took a little westward track that wasn’t expected. Twenty more miles…”

Somebody actually said, “Twenty more miles, and there would have been another half billion dollars in damage,” as though, “Damn it!” instead of “Whew! Dodged a bullet.” Power is slowly starting to return, and a vision of normalcy is now possible. It’s distant still for a lot of people, but it is possible. Here is the Daily Caller take on the hurricane telethon getting political right at the start. Stevie “Wonder started the show by saying, ‘Anyone who believes that there’s no such thing as global warming must be blind…'”

Ahem. Stevie Wonder said, “Anyone who believes that there’s no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent.” There are others who want to jail people who don’t believe in climate change, and I’m not talking about brain-dead celebrities. There are people in the pundit journalist community advancing — and the professorial, the academic community (in “academe,” as they say), who are pushing this notion that climate denial is so serious that its practitioners should be jailed or severely pushed.

“Celebrities participating in the Hand In Hand fundraiser include [Stevie] Wonder, Justin Timberlake, Oprah Winfrey, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid, Adam Sandler, Terry Crews, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwen Stefani, Ray Romano, Bryan Cranston, Beyonce, and many more.” Combined IQ: 99. ‘Cause they’re wondering: How did it get political? (laughing) Did you hear the names? Stevie “Wonder wasn’t the only participant who got political during the telethon.

“Singer Beyonce contributed a video that started, ‘During a time when it’s impossible to watch the news without seeing violence or racism in this country…'” Well, wait a minute. That’s bad journalism. I don’t know what that… That’s not… I guess they’re quoting her video, but it doesn’t say so there. Anyway, it’s this story that mentions Matt Lauer fundraising and helping get donations talking about the hurricane being the absolute worst that we’ve ever had. And then there’s this from the U.K. Sunday Times: “Too White Red Cross Struggled to Help — The head of the British Red Cross has admitted the charity struggled with the Grenfell disaster because its workforce is too white.”

What would that have to do with anything? The British Red Cross “struggled because its workforce is too white.” Did that mean they didn’t get enough donations? Now, I compared this to the Wellstone memorial. Remember they politicized that. Paul Wellstone, senator from Minnesota, died in a plane crash, and they had a memorial for Wellstone, and then a lot of Republican senators went to it. It was in Minnesota. The Republican senators who were friends of Wellstone got booed when they walked in.

They were forced to leave the memorial because the crowd was bordering on being violent. It was vicious, and they turned the memorial (it was a quasi-funeral service for Paul Wellstone) into a full-fledged political rally that was negative and it was mean-spirited, and they ended up losing seats in the 2002 midterms because of that. And this is what this thing was last night. These people don’t know it, but they are doing incredible damage to the Democrat Party.

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RUSH: Trust me. All of this is backfiring on the Democrats, and they don’t know it yet, just like it did back in 2002 with the Wellstone Memorial. Here is audio. Here is Stevie Wonder last night opening this telethon for hurricane relief…

WONDER: (organ music) We’ve come together today to love on (sic) the people that have been devastated by the hurricanes. When love goes into action, it preferences no color of skin, no ethnicity, no religious beliefs, no sexual preferences —

RUSH: So why mention it?

WONDER: — and no political persuasions.

RUSH: Except…

WONDER: It’s just loves. We should begin to love and value our planet — and anyone who believes that there is no such thing as global warming must be blind or unintelligent. Lord, please save us all.

RUSH: I guess that wasn’t love because “when love goes into action, it preferences no color of skin, no ethnicity, no religious belief, no sexual preferences, no political persuasions,” except “if you don’t believe in climate change, you’re either unintelligent or you must be blind.” Here is Beyonce…

BEYONCE: During the time where it’s impossible to watch the news without seeing violence or racism in this country, just when you think it couldn’t possibly get worse, natural disasters take precious life, do massive damage, and forever change lives. The effects of climbing are playing out around the world every day. Irma alone has left a trail of death and destruction from the Caribbean to Florida to [the] southern United States.

RUSH: And now, ladies and gentlemen, from the last time there was a concert for hurricane relief, 2005, Kanye West.

WEST: We already realized a lot of people that could help are at war right now fighting another way, and they — they — they — they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us. George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

RUSH: That’s the hurricane relief from 2005. Not much change from the one they did last night.

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RUSH: So back in 2002, the Democrats did the Wellstone Memorial, and you could tell that they believed… This was after 9/11, remember, and they had ceased their “unity” with George W. Bush. They were attacking Bush for his lack of timely response in launch in the attack in Afghanistan, and they were convinced that the whole country agreed with them, and the arrogance and the condescension was on display. It was one of the most incredible things that I’ve ever seen in modern American politics.

Since then, the Democrats have repeated it. They’re doing it now with this telethon last night, and they’ve been doing it ever since Trump actually became the Republican nominee and, of course, in essence since he won the election. They’ve just been hysterically unhinged ever since then, and they keep piling on, and they keep trying to outdo themselves, and they’re under the belief that they can talk people out of supporting Trump. And they’re firing everything they’ve got at it — and last night’s hurricane telethon was just the latest stab at it.