Monday on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh argued that although leaders in the Democratic Party were not directly responsible for the shooting last week at a congressional GOP baseball practice in Alexandria, VA, they did write the “script” for the action.
That shooting resulted in House Majority Whip Steve Scalise in a hospital in critical condition,
Limbaugh pointed now-deceased shooter James Hodgkinson social media posts and letters to the editor espousing his liberal views and named House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) specifically as being responsible for the “script.”
Partial transcript as follows (courtesy of RushLimbaugh.com):
So we got all these investigations, even though we hadn’t found any proof in over a year, and even though there isn’t any proof because it didn’t happen. But try telling them that. So as nothing happens, as they are told that Trump stole the election, that Trump profited from the election, that Trump has secret bank accounts all over the world in the Cayman’s and the Cook Islands. He’s got a bunch of shell corporations that he’s getting rich off of being president, so’s Ivanka, so is Jared, so’s all of his kids.
If you’re told this every day and then you’re told that they’ve got the goods. “We’re gonna get Trump. He’s gonna be impeached. We got the independent counsel now, it’s only a matter of time.” But nothing changes, nothing happens. The only thing that happens is more criticism.
Meanwhile, Trump’s there every day, and he’s having meetings, and he’s traveling around going to the Saudi Arabia summit, meeting with NATO, and he just canceled climate change. I mean, the cumulative psychological effective on these people like Hodgkinson, don’t tell me the Democrats are not responsible for it. They have created the mind-set. They’ve created these monsters out there. And all for what purpose? Because the Democrats refuse to get in the arena of ideas and debate those.
They refuse because they can’t win. And to see how lacking those ideas are, just listen to the insane ramblings of Hodgkinson. Just look at the things that he talks about. Just look at the class warfare, the class envy, the things that he believes. It’s fringe crazy. But he believed it because that’s what he’s been told. The Democrats, therefore, can’t take that stuff in the arena of ideas. They’d be snookered.
So what they have to do is destroy the credibility, the integrity, the honesty, the reputations of every one of their opponents, and that’s what they do. That is what they’re doing now to Trump. They’re trying to destroy Trump and anybody around him as having no decency. He’s got no honor. .He’s got no integrity. He’s a thief, he stole the election. The idea that we have a heated political atmosphere and a growing divide.
And, if you want to assume the Republicans are equally as bad. No, they’re not. The Republicans are a bunch of pansies. They’re always talking about crossing the aisle and working with these people. The Republicans run around when they campaign, “I’m the guy that can cross the aisle. I’m the guy that can reach compromise. I’m the guy that can work with the Democrats. I’m the guy that can show cooperation. I’m the guy that can demonstrate Washington can work.”
The Republicans don’t do what the Democrats do. They don’t even get close to doing what the Democrats do and the media. ‘Cause the media’s actually leading it. But Bernie Sanders, if you go look at what Bernie Sanders says, if you go read what he’s written — I hate to say it this way, I could have the evidence for you here. I had it last week but I threw all that stuff away and didn’t have time to reconstruct it. This guy Hodgkinson was an echo chamber.
Whatever Bernie Sanders said was this guy’s letter to the editor. This guy went on a rant. He went into a sports bar and just started ranting and maybe everybody nervous as hell in there. He made the female bartender nervous. He came across like a sexual predator, and he was angry and deranged, just started on a rant. He wasn’t even teed up. He walked in with this giant chip on his shoulder.
The AP reports that Hodgkinson “took his car to a mechanic one day before the shooting. He wanted the mechanic to verify that his tires would make the trip back to his home in Illinois. But while he was there, he started venting his rage about President Trump.” Crist Dauberman, the mechanic, said, “This man was just so passionate and hateful toward (President Donald) Trump.”
“Among other things, Hodgkinson said Trump had screwed up the country ‘more than anyone in the history of this country.’” He said, “It was more than the average person who had maybe voted for Hillary. This was different. It was deeply rooted to where his whole tone and composure changed. His voice got loud and deep. There was so much anger in it.”
Now, listen to what Bernie Sanders was saying just a few days before Hodgkinson’s outburst at the garage, this mechanic’s place. “Today in the White House we have perhaps the worst and most dangerous president in the history of our country, and we also have not to be forgotten extreme right-wing leadership in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.”
Sanders makes that speech on June the 10th. It was reported on in many Drive-By elements on June the 11th and June 12th, one day before Mr. Hodgkinson shot Scalise. The New York Times even noted that particular quote in the opening paragraph of a story immediately after the shooting. So Bernie says, “Today in the White House we have perhaps the worst and most dangerous president in the history of our country.”
The day before shooting, Hodgkinson is in a mechanic’s place, and he said Trump has screwed up the country more than anyone in the history of this country, using Bernie Sanders’ exact words. So you can say all you want that Bernie Sanders is not responsible, and I understand people wanting to do that, but this guy Hodgkinson? Bernie Sanders was his writer.
And so was Elizabeth Warren, and so was Pelosi and all of these other media types and Democrats. They were writing the script for this guy. You can see it in his letters to the editor and so forth. He went to that baseball game, the practice, with a list of names, Republican lawmakers’ names. These were potential victims.
Now, the FBI and the media are saying, “We don’t really know why he had a list of names with him. We really are kind of in the dark about that. We’re not really sure.” A person told the AP on Saturday, “Investigators aren’t sure of the significance of the names. They don’t know if it was a list of people he was targeting.” Really? He shoots up a baseball practice, including Scalise, a couple of Capitol Hill cops and some other people. They find a list of other Republican names on him and they don’t know what it means?
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor