RUSH: Yeah, so everybody went to bed last night and got up today thinking that the Senate committee was gonna vote at 9:30, vote the nomination out to the full Senate. Then we heard that Senator Flake decided to vote for Kavanaugh. That made it a done deal, 11-10, and then we find out the vote’s not gonna be ’til 1:30, and it’s clear that everybody wanted the biggest audience possible for it; so they waited to do it during my show.

JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny south Florida, it’s Open Line Friday!

RUSH. And we are more than happy to accommodate them here, folks. If they want to conduct the the vote after four hours of speechifying Democrats, “Wah! Wah! Wah! We still want to complain about FBI more! Wah! Wah! Wah! Kavanaugh is a sloppy, fall-down drunk and I want to show pictures of his calendar, and I want to… Wah! Wah!” So Grassley said, “Well, okay.” So the vote’s gonna be at 1:30, after a bunch of speechifying here. Greetings and welcome. Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.

The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us. And it is Open Line Friday; so if you’re tired of all of this and want to talk about something else, you can. That’s what Open Line Friday’s about. (interruption) Snerdley is shaking his head in there. Are you protesting to have…? (interruption) You…? (interruption) Let me tell you something. (interruption) Let me tell you something. There’s a lot of stories out there that have nothing to do with this.

Do you know that the iPhone is now a misogynist device? The iPhone, the iPhone XS Max is said to be anti-woman because it’s too big. I’m not making this up. There are feminist groups disguised as Apple customers complaining that the big iPhone… Even though there’s all kinds of different sizes, the big iPhone is too big. It’s discriminatory because it doesn’t fit women’s hands. (interruption) Yeah, of course you can find it in your purse easier and you can see it better.

(interruption) I’ve never heard of women complaining about something that they hold in their hand being too big, but they’re doing it about this. That’s my whole point. That news is out there. I’ve been holding that news. Anyway, I’m just saying if all of this has you frustrated and bored and you want to bring something else up, you can. That’s what Open Line Friday is all about. I don’t expect much of that. But if you want to, you can.

In getting started, I want to go back to the very end of the program yesterday and I want to replay something I said. Rather than just tell you I said it, I want to go back to the program archives from yesterday and I want to play it. I got an email note from a journalist friend of mine. Actually, more than one. But at the time, I got this one. It frosted me. The email, very quickly, said, “Well, tell me what you think privately?

“I think he’s toast. I think… I think he’s toast. I just do.” Internally, I just exploded. That kind of fatalism and defeatism is what I hate about politics. Kavanaugh had not testified yet. All we had had was Blasey Ford and her testimony and the Democrats’ reaction to it, and there are already people willing to give up. “I think he’s toast,” and I’d heard it throughout the day. Even before Blasey Ford’s testimony, I heard, “Kavanaugh’s toast,” and it just made me livid.

Really. I can’t… I… It’s not that I can’t relate to it. Everybody can relate to fatalism, defeatism and that kind of thing if you get depressed about certain circumstances and how they’re unfolding. But this, to me, was no time to give up, and it’s certainly no time to lose faith in Kavanaugh. So this is pretty much how the program ended; therefore, many of you may not have heard it. So I want to replay it.

BEGIN ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH: I just got an email from a guy, a journalist friend. He said, “I think Kavanaugh’s toast, don’t you?” I wrote back, “No, I do not think Kavanaugh’s toast. We didn’t learn anything new! We still don’t know what, when, where, why.” The people involved that she named all deny it in a sworn affidavit!

Brett Kavanaugh can deny all this with far more certitude than she can assert it! You know, not knowing where or when supposedly makes it tough for Kavanaugh to deny it because how do you say you were never at a place that she isn’t even able to name? You watch. If this were me under all these allegations, I’d be livid at this. I’d be livid that anybody believed it, given this many holes and given this lack of corroboration, this lack of evidence.

“I don’t know where it happened. I don’t know how I got home. I don’t know when it was. I don’t know what I told people afterwards. I’ve got a bunch of Democrat lawyers offering their services to me for free.” We’ve got the Democrat Party running this operation! It’s a shame that the Republican prosecutor didn’t pull that off. That’s what she was trying to do. It didn’t work. So now it’s up to Kavanaugh, and it’s up to what two or three Republican senators think.

I definitely believe he can beat this back. I don’t have any doubt that he can. Whether he will, you know, that’s a pressure-packed moment. But I think he can. Against this? Some say, “Well, Rush, it’d be a lot easier if she had named a place ’cause he could prove…” He could already prove he wasn’t in the general neighborhood with his calendars! “Well, that doesn’t prove it, Rush.” She doesn’t have any either is the whole point.

Do you think Kavanaugh should cry? Noooo. Some people do. Ladies and gentlemen, despite — despite all — he can beat this back. I firmly believe that. I don’t think anything’s over yet. I’m a one of those people, I used to fall prey to my initial reactions of what I thought and felt after seeing something on TV. But I’m older and wiser and far more suspicious, and I live in a current set of beliefs that the American people are wiser than normal over what they see on television. I could be dead wrong about that. But I’ve got faith.

END ARCHIVE CLIP

RUSH: That is why… If I may say so, that is why people listen to this program, ’cause when this program was over yesterday there are a lot of people who thought Kavanaugh was toast. Those intelligent, learned, experienced in following these kind of things thought he was toast. Everywhere in the Drive-By Media, they were pre-celebrating — Kavanaugh is toast — and I didn’t see it at all. I didn’t, and I knew that Kavanaugh could come back from this. So I simply said so. And what did we get when Kavanaugh sat down?

KAVANAUGH: This has destroyed my family and my good name — a good name built up through decades of very hard work and public service at the highest levels of the American government. This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that’s been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus! The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades.

RUSH: He unloaded on them! I don’t know what people thought, that he wasn’t gonna be able to or was not going to think it was the right thing to do, but he unloaded on them, and he happened to nail it right there. He told the world exactly what he was up against and what was going on. You know, the Senate Republicans decided not to vote on Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. They just didn’t vote on him for a year using the Biden Rule that we don’t vote on nominees made by lame-duck presidents in the last year of their presidency.

We didn’t try to destroy Merrick Garland. There was not an effort to ruin his life, his family, his reputation, his career, or his record. They just didn’t vote on the guy! Contrast that to way the Democrat Party has treated Brett Kavanaugh. They decided to ruin a man’s life. They’re still trying to do it today. They’re gonna keep trying until the full Senate vote is over, and they’re not gonna stop then. The stakes are simply too high for them. So I knew that Kavanaugh could come out roaring and this wasn’t over. Here’s one more example of Kavanaugh from yesterday.

KAVANAUGH: I’m not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person, in some place, at some time. But I have never done this to her or to anyone. That’s not who I am and it’s not who I was. I am innocent of this charge. I intend no ill will to Dr. Ford and her family. The other night Ashley and my daughter Liza said their prayers and little Liza — all of 10 years old (voice breaking) — said to Ashley, “We should pray for the woman.” That’s a lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old.

RUSH: Totally strange words for many Democrats on the committee. “Pray? Pray? What’s…? Oh, you mean a Christian thing? That’s another reason we hate the guy!” But that’s who he is and that’s what he said. Go back to the opening words of my comments replayed from yesterday. We still, at the end of the day yesterday… By the way, one of the things that I think was determinant in shifting some votes: Rachel Mitchell, who was the female prosecutor from Arizona hired by the Republicans met with the Republicans.

They caucused — the Senate caucus last night, the Republican caucus — and she told them as a sex-crime prosecutor she didn’t hear a single thing that could even lead to a search warrant. That’s where Lindsey Graham got the line. It’s a great line. There’s not even enough to get a search warrant. There’s not enough to do any kind of examination. She doesn’t remember where or when specifically. How is Kavanaugh — how’s anybody — supposed to prove something where you can’t even be told where he supposedly was, when he supposedly was?

And yet that was the test. I have had so many people ask me in emails since last night and in the run-up to today’s show, “Rush, what is all of this with the Democrats and the FBI?” Look, if you’re frustrated by that, I join you, and I welcome you to the club. The simple fact of the matter is, Dianne Feinstein had this letter from Blasey Ford. It’s either July 9th or July 30th, but sometime in July she the bottom that letter. They sat on that later. I’m not even gonna talk about who leaked it. We’ll get to that in a minute.

She sat on that letter. She interviewed Kavanaugh personally in her office after having received that letter and never asked her anything about it. She told all of her buddies on the committee about the letter but she did not do anything with it. They didn’t call the FBI. They didn’t use Senate investigators. They didn’t pursue anything in Blasey Ford’s letter. Do you wonder why? I’ll tell you why. Because to them, it was too sketchy. To them, it didn’t have enough substance.

It was not enough, by itself, to put in the mix of things they were going to use to try to destroy Kavanaugh in Phase 1 of the destruction. They set it aside. It became the Hail Mary tactic. They kept it in reserve in case everything else failed. They throw it out there, they engineer it being leaked… By the way, they’re talking about the leak as some sinister violation of secrecy and protocol. No, no, no, no! They wanted it leaked! Whoever wanted it leaked!

There’s only certain people that saw this thing. DiFi and her staff, Anna Eshoo (Blasey Ford’s congresswoman), and her lawyers. Her lawyers are denying that it leaked. The Intercept, which is the website that first got it, says they did not get it from DiFi or her staff. Somebody wanted it leaked. Somebody wanted it out there. The Democrats didn’t want to put their name to it because they were gonna violate her privacy and secrecy, which she didn’t want.

This was used in ways that supposedly Christine Blasey Ford did not want it used. They could have called the FBI in July. They could have called Blasey Ford. They could have called Kavanaugh in. They could have called all these witnesses — Mark Judge and everybody else. They could have called in Kaiser, who was the best friend of Blasey Ford. They could have done anything they wanted. They had the letter, and they could have gone the committee to investigate. They didn’t.

So now on the last day where Kavanaugh and Ford are testifying, they throw out this FBI thing as though they have been denied a legitimate investigation because Kavanaugh won’t okay it, because Grassley won’t okay it. Despite Grassley and every Republican refuting this whole FBI thing, they keep pounding on it because their audience is Democrat voters who they’re trying to rile up for the midterms. This is a voter get-out-the-vote procedure, and there’s an ancillary hope that it might still derail a vote. There’s Dick Durbin sitting there talking to Kavanaugh, “Will you point…? Just take a look at Don McGahn, Trump’s lawyer in there.

“You tell him you want an FBI investigation.” This was a… It was nothing. Folks, it’s a delay tactic is all it is. The Republicans have correctly identified and called all of these Democrats out on it. They know they’re not gonna get an FBI investigation. In fact, if Kavanaugh had said, “Okay, fine! Let’s get the FBI in here,” they would have been caught short. They don’t expect this. It’s a pipe dream. They know they’ve had the chance to do this and get it. They didn’t believe this woman when they got the letter.

Nobody else is saying this. I don’t think anybody has got the courage to say it because there is a narrative around Dr. Ford, and that narrative is she is unchallengeable. She must be believed. Well, they didn’t believe her when they got the letter. They’ve now thrown and rolled the dice on Christine Ford being the weapon to get rid of Kavanaugh. If that was the case, they would have fired this weapon during regular confirmation hearings and interviews of Kavanaugh.

They would have made him explain all this back then if they really thought this was sufficient to disrupt and delay and stall or maybe end his nomination. But they didn’t have that much faith. Because, look, anybody with half a brain — and some of these people still have half a brain — could look at this letter and say, “She doesn’t know where it happened. She doesn’t know when it happened. She cannot answer enough questions that would literally inspire a legitimate investigation, either by local police or the FBI or anybody else that wanted to look into it.”

There’s nowhere to go with this investigation. She can’t tell ’em where it happened! So how the hell do you investigate this? All the people she claims were there are denying it. Yet they keep pounding this FBI thing and how they’ve been wronged and they’ve been treated cheated, the Democrats. They’ve been short changed. It’s nothing more than an attempt to the delay and make the American people think the Republicans are cheating. Amy Klobuchar, by the way, in her little speech before the vote was taken… This is a half hour ago.

Amy Klobuchar, who was part of the effort yesterday to portray Kavanaugh as a falling-down drunk that can’t remember where he is every day when he gets up because he got drunk the night before. She let the cat out of the bag as to one of the things this is really all about. She essentially said that Kavanaugh’s not legit because of who nominated him: Trump. Trump, a misogynist! Trump, a woman hater! Trump, a woman abuser! Trump this and that. Trump, who believes in expanding federal power out the wazoo, and he says so does Kavanaugh. She said that Kavanaugh’s illegitimate, not qualified simply because of who picked him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I thought it was brilliant of Kavanaugh to call ’em out, to say this was all an operation of political hacks. I’ll never forget Durbin and Cory Booker. “Are you saying…? Are you actually saying that Christine Ford is a Democrat operative and a Democrat hack and this is all part of a…?” “I wish her no ill will, Senator. But you, on the other hand, Senator?” He didn’t say this, but this was the unspoken (yet conveyed) message. “You are running this operation, and you are running her. She didn’t want any of this, and you brought her forward.”

For somebody who didn’t want all of this, she sure seemed eager to do it at the end of the day, right? Do we even believe she didn’t want to do it? Look at what they’re asking us to believe here! But there is no question that this whole thing was a politically hatched idea. Everything from the… In fact, I’m not even sure that letter came in over the transom! I’m not sure that letter from her arrived without anybody’s foreknowledge that it was coming. Nothing they do like this is unscripted! I know these people!