RUSH: Back to the Plugs acceptance speech, and I have to tell you… Let me just review. There are a lot of people, I have come to find out, who want to know if Plugs’ speech was delivered live or was it prerecorded. Now, the assumption I think that everybody had going in was that it was live. Do you think it was live? (interruption) Did you think it was live, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) ‘Cause we didn’t hear anything else. (interruption) The time came for the speech to happen, the lights went down or came up, whichever, and here comes Plugs and starts the speech.
Some people are of the opinion that it had to be taped and that it had to be taped in segments, and the segments had to be edited together because Plugs is not capable of 22 minutes even reading a prompter with no screw ups. This is the prevailing theory. I have heard from some professional video people who say that they have studied it, they’re trying to find out if it was tape or live, based on the premise that there isn’t any evidence that Joe Biden has the ability to go 22 minutes even on a prompter without making a mistake, without some kind of a flub.
There was one mistake. And it was a tiny little, nearly grammatical mistake near the end of the speech. And it’s not something that you would even worry about if you’re Plugs’ team to go back and fix because it’s one of those things that went by so fast that you’re thinking most people wouldn’t notice it. And if any critic did notice it and wrote about it, which some did, that it’s not enough to stir up anything anyway. And it isn’t. I can’t even tell you off the top of my head, I’d have to have it in front of me, the nature of the mistake.
I’m just telling you that there are a lot of people who believe that Joe Biden is not even capable of doing what he did last night. And some have said to me, “Look, Rush. This isn’t complicated. If Biden was able to read that speech with all of that emotion and all of that empathy, if he was able to do that for 22 minutes, then why not go outside and do it on a stage in front of all the people in the cars?” Which you have to admit is a legitimate question.
And the answer might come back, “Well, Rush it’s COVID. Biden just can’t do that. Too risky.” Well, no. Social distancing would have been more than enough out there. Plus, it’s outdoors. Plus, Plugs could have put on a mask. Could have been done any number of ways. But because he did it from inside the building, there are some people asking a legitimate question: Was that thing really live, or was it a series of edited-together segments made to look live on the premise that Biden isn’t capable of 22 minutes, however long it was, of flawless reading with proper emotion and all that of what’s on a teleprompter, without making single mistake? Be hard for him to do.
So I just wanted to put it out there.
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RUSH: I have a 50-second bite of Biden’s speech last night. And Cookie has described it as Biden slurring his way through a tortured deer-in-the-headlights speech. (interruption) Yes, she’s allowed to editorialize here as she sends me bites, of course, that’s not a problem.
I’m just telling you, there’s a number of people who are still suspicious about it even though it drew rave reviews from everybody.
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RUSH: Now, here’s sound bite number 7, and I just want to share with you way Cookie characterized this on the roster, the sound bite roster for me. She said here, “Biden slurs his way through tortured, deer-in-headlights speech.” Now, we are discussing here… There are a lot of people I’ve heard from today who think that thing was too perfect, and they’re wondering how it was done.
The premise is that Biden is not capable of doing 22 minutes straight like that in one take perfectly. Very few people actually are, but particularly Biden because of the evidence that we have seen. Even with the words on the prompter, you still have to stay focused. You have to maintain the cadence with whoever’s running the prompter, you have to keep up with it. You, meaning Biden, the performer.
So whoever’s running the prompter has make sure that they are running it at a proper cadence for Plugs to keep up. They can’t go too fast or it’s gonna be obvious that he’s losing his place. They can’t go too slow because he’s gonna obviously be impatient for what’s coming next and it’s not gonna show on the prompter. The point is, it had to be perfect — and perfect doesn’t happen in the first take — and perfect doesn’t happen live.
So, we’re all wondering, “Was it live?” We don’t know. Or was it recorded? If it was recorded, was it one take? If it was one take, how? Because anybody that produces movies or television shows will tell you that to get, quote-unquote, “perfect” can take 30 takes; it can take 50 or more of just a scene. Then you have to edit the scenes together.
So, people are asking, “Was this live to tape,” meaning all in one take and you don’t stop; you just let it go — or was it live to tape and then a mistake was made and you call a halt and you go back? Do you start from the beginning or do you start from where the mistake was and keep shooting until you get it right, then you edit the pieces together?
I’ve even had somebody say, “Look, Rush. Look at his hands. His hands are in the perfect place in every shot. That’s not possible.” We have a lot of people really analyzing this out there, at least that I’m hearing from. A lot of people trying to figure out how this was made to happen because of what they believe Biden’s limitations are.
I’ll tell you what this tells me. This tells me that a lot of people think this was awesome last night. A lot of people are worried about it because it was so damn good. I mean, just based on the feedback I’m getting, like some of these people that want to know, did they do that in one take or was it a series of takes? That was perfection. How did they do that? I mean, it means they’re worried about it.
And they’re worried about it from the standpoint of expectations. The expectations were set so low, nobody thought Biden was gonna be able to do what he did last night, and yet he did it. So, now those people who are concerned and worried he was able to do it, now they want to know how, ’cause they don’t think Biden can do what he did last night. Yet, there it is. He did it. It was either live or it was on tape. We don’t know.
So here’s a segment of just 50 seconds, and we don’t have the video to go with it. This is just the audio. In this little segment, he is staring at the prompter, looking scared. This is Cookie’s interpretation, not mine. Looking scared, slurred his way through. I don’t know. We’ll have to see if there are slurs in here. Every line, she says, seemed labored. He said, “There’s never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together.” That’s the line that he screwed up.
It should have said, “There’s never been anything we haven’t been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together.” But he said, “There has never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together.” It’s a tiny error that most people aren’t gonna catch until they see the transcript. Goes by too fast in real time to catch it. Here’s the bite. See what you think.
BIDEN: For all the young people who’ve known only America being– of r- in rising inequity, and the undeniable uralities and aks, eg, eh, just accelerating threats of climate change. No rhetoric is needed. Taking esh, insurance away from more than 20 million people, including more than 15 million people on Medicaid. Each of us have a purpose of a–in our lives. With an educasissm, and for the elderly to stay in their homes. Social Security is a sacred obligation. And whether it’s the exidential th– existential threat, to restore the promise of America. No one’s been tougher on the big banks and the gum — and the gun lobby. Spewing the sam– same anti-Semitic bile. It was some, with a someone. And there, there’s never been anything we’ve been able to accomplish when we’ve done it together.
RUSH: Now, did you hear all the flub-ups in that? Do you remember hearing them when you watched it last night? No. You don’t, do you? I’m not trying to say anything cosmic here, don’t misunderstand. See, I’m at a disadvantage every day because my hearing is horrible, folks. I rely 90% on closed-captioning. I cannot trust that what I’m hearing is accurate. So I’m watching it last night, but I’ve got the captioning on.
I heard every one of those screw ups, but I didn’t trust that they were screw ups; I don’t know whether to blame my hearing or not. For example, “For all the young people who’ve known only America being of — in rising inequity and the undeniable uralities.” I didn’t hear, but that’s what it said — what is a urality? U-r-a-l-i-t-i-e-s. “For all the young people who have known only America being of — in rising inequity and the undeniable uralities and just accelerating threats of climate change.”
It was disjointed. It was senseless. It didn’t make sense. Now, I can’t trust my hearing enough to know when this stuff’s going by that I’m actually hearing it. So I trust the closed-captioning. Now that I hear, there are countless errors, spoken errors. Now, this is a montage. So, this is not, you know, a set bite from beginning to end. We took various elements of the speech and, you know, edited them together here. This is not one solid segment. “With an edu-ucashion system and for elderly to stay in their homes, Social Security’s sacred obligation whether it’s the exidential — existential.” I didn’t hear any of that. So, I didn’t hear any of that, then I tuned to the post-speech analysis and I’m hearing how great it is. That doesn’t sound so magically great to me.