Rush Flashback: What I Heard About Harry Reid

RUSH LIMBAUGH, APRIL 15, 2015: Dingy Harry is back at it. The last we heard from Dingy Harry he was explaining that some sort of elastic band on an exercise machine in his bathroom malfunctioned and left him blind in his right eye and otherwise severely injured.

Prior to that, Dingy Harry was out there suggesting that Mitt Romney had not paid his taxes for ten years. He was on the floor of the Senate claiming a friend of his told him that. The media said (paraphrasing), “Who’s your friend?” Dingy Harry said, “Doesn’t matter.” The media said, “Where’s your evidence?” Dingy Harry said, “I don’t need any. What you need to do is go ask Romney why he hasn’t paid his taxes in ten years.” The media said, “But you don’t have any evidence?” “No. That doesn’t matter. The onus is on Romney to prove that he’s paid his taxes and we gotta see his taxes.”

The media dutifully went over and assumed the charge that Romney had not paid his taxes was true and began treating him as such. Dingy Harry has now called the Republican presidential field a bunch of losers and compared Senator McConnell to a lump of coal. This was an interview today.

What is it with all this? What is it with this juvenile high school-like name-calling that we get from Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz and Dingy Harry. Called Rubio a prune in tinsel, that’s what Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz called him. Mika Brzezinski called Rubio a boy. They call Rand Paul a woman hater. Is this all they’ve got?

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RUSH: Dingy Harry, who was interviewing him, what does it say here? Well, it’s in TheHill.com. I guess they did the interview. No, it was CNBC. He was asked about the Republican contenders. He said (paraphrasing), “I don’t really care. I think they’re all losers.” He said “McConnell’s a lump of coal. He thinks coal is the salvation of the world.” Childish schoolyard names and so forth. And then, of course, ladies and gentlemen, my name came up, as it tends to do now and then with Dingy Harry. CNBC Squawk Box, they played a clip of the chief Washington correspondent John Harwood’s interview with Senator Reid in which they had this exchange.

HARWOOD: The last few days a bunch of people are saying, “Reid, he didn’t have an exercise accident. He got beat up by the mob.”

REID: It shows the credibility of Rush Limbaugh. He’s the guy that got all this started. Why in the world would I come up with a story that I got hurt in my own bathroom with my wife standing there? How could anyone say anything like that? I think a lot of people, as I read, they kind of don’t like me as a person and I think that’s unfortunate.

RUSH: Okay. Okay, so I’m the guy responsible for the story that Dingy Harry got beat up by the mob in his bathroom. Now, I did offer here that I don’t think the nature of his injuries was such that this wasn’t a run-in with an exercise machine or the elastic band, whatever the story was. I did raise the specter that it did appear to me that Dingy Harry got beat up. I don’t know by who, although I might now. Bottom line is, I might now know who did it. And I wasn’t even gonna bring this up.

But here’s Dingy Harry, who seems free and clear to go lie about Mitt Romney and his taxes, and then when asked about it after the fact, said, “Well, he didn’t win, did he?” Meaning, “Hey, my lie worked. Romney didn’t win.” So here’s a guy who thinks that he can lie with impunity. And let’s not forget Dingy Harry’s role in this whole sordid phony soldier tale in which he attempted to have my syndication partner censor me, apologize for me, and basically impugn me and my character.

He sent a letter — you know the story now — that we auctioned off on eBay that raised a total of $4.2 million, half of which was matched by me for the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation. And after that, Dingy Harry tried to take credit for it! The man is a reprobate. He’s actually shameless.

Let me tell you a little story. It’s a couple of weeks ago now, I got an e-mail from John Hinderaker at Power Line, and he said that he had been in contact with somebody in Las Vegas who claimed to know what happened to Harry Reid, and that this man wanted to tell the story to both Hinderaker and me, on the phone. I was asked if I would join a phone call and listen to the story, and I said, “Sure, but I’m not committing to using any of it. I’m making no commitments about anything.” Everybody understood that.

So after the program one day a couple of weeks ago I got on the phone with John Hinderaker and this caller from Las Vegas who claimed to know what happened to Dingy Harry Reid. Hinderaker wrote the story up and published it on Power Line. I don’t know what the date was because I didn’t print. But it’s just a couple, three weeks ago. And here’s the upshot of it.

Hinderaker writes: “On Monday I got a phone call from a man named Easton Elliott. We talked briefly on Monday, and have had additional telephone conversations since then. Elliott*,” with an asterisk, “is a businessman who lives in the Las Vegas area, and he thinks he knows what really happened to Harry Reid. This is the story as he related it to me.”

Here you go. Elliott, the caller, who wanted to speak to Hinderaker and me, “Elliott spent a portion of last New YearÂ’s Eve at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Henderson, Nevada,” which, for all intents and purposes, is Vegas. “His AA group has meetings every hour on New YearÂ’s Eve, along with a pot luck supper. There were approximately 20 people present at the meeting during the events,” that you will next hear about.

“Some time between 10:00 and 11:30 p.m., a man entered the meeting. His appearance was striking: there was blood on his clothing, beginning around his midsection. His left hand was swollen. He appeared to be somewhat intoxicated and was visibly agitated,” and he wanted to share, at this AA meeting.

“He introduced himself as ‘Larry.’ In a group discussion that was heard by a number of people, Larry said that he had just had a fight with a family member. Larry said he had been at a family get-together, and he didnÂ’t remember much about the fight because he had blacked out. When he came to, he was rolling on the ground, fighting with a family member, and his clothes were bloody,” and in fact that’s how he showed up at the AA meeting. “Now, he said, he was frightened that the Secret Service would come after him.”

So here you have these people at the AA meeting who don’t know this guy. He walks in for the first time ever and says his name is Larry. He’s drunk. He’s bloody. His left fist, his left hand is swollen, and he says he just had a fight with a family member. He blacked out, came to, wanted to come to the meeting, and is looking for a place to hide out because he fears the Secret Service is gonna be coming after him.

Now, according to the guy talking to John Hinderaker and me, the group did not take the Secret Service reference seriously. They thought that it was just some conspiracy kook that was drunk that wandered in and for some reason needed the comfort of an AA meeting. They all did agree that it was obvious he had indeed been in a fight, but they thought the Secret Service was tinfoil hat type stuff.

So this guy, Larry, “stayed for the rest of the meeting, and for a while afterward. There is a front room where coffee is served, and he remained there for a while. At some point during that time, he asked whether anyone could give him a ride to Searchlight. Larry’s appearance at the AA meeting was memorable, as references to fighting, bloody clothes and so on are extraordinary in that group.” It’s not something that happens at every AA meeting.

And the guy we were talking to, Easton Elliott, he didn’t think much more about this guy, Larry, until several weeks later when “he saw a newspaper story about Larry Reid, Harry Reid’s brother, being arrested for DUI and assaulting a highway patrolman. The story was accompanied by a photograph, and Elliott –” again, the guy talking to John Hinderaker and me “– immediately recognized Larry Reid as the ‘Larry’ who had attended the AA meeting,” weeks previous, who was drunk, who was bloody, who had a swollen left fist, and claimed he had been in a fight with a family member and was worried the Secret Service was gonna follow him.

Then everybody said, “Whoa, wait a minute! The guy who came in here who we thought was a kook is Harry Reid’s brother?” So they started putting two and two together because this story’s accompanied by a photograph. Easton Elliott “immediately recognized Larry Reid as the ‘Larry’ who had attended the AA meeting on New Year’s Eve. Putting that fact together with news stories about Harry Reid being admitted to a hospital on New YearÂ’s Day, and with Larry’s references to the Secret Service, he concluded that the family member with whom Larry fought was Harry Reid. He also knew that Harry Reid’s home is within a short distance of the location of the AA meeting.”

So these guys at the AA meeting who think a kook came in, weeks later see his picture in the paper after being arrested for DUI, and, lo and behold, it’s Harry Reid’s brother. So now they are starting to think they know what happened to Harry Reid: Family fight and his brother beat him up. Larry Reid is 73, a short, pugnacious guy, and is a well-known brawler, by the way, subsequent research has indicated.

Now, “Subsequent to the news story about Larry Reid’s arrest, Elliott discussed with several others who had been present on New YearÂ’s Eve his belief that ‘Larry’ had been Larry Reid. They, too, recognized Larry from the newspaper photograph. One of those who had been present at the AA meeting called Las Vegas’s Channel 8 to tell them about Larry Reid’s account of fighting with a family member, but that person said that whoever he spoke with at the television station told him they were not interested.”

Channel 8 Vegas said they weren’t interested. I mean, some AA member calling, claiming a guy came in all bloodied, swollen hand, family fight, Secret Service after him, he feared. The same guy arrested weeks later, it turns out to be Harry Reid’s brother. Anyway, that’s the account, that’s the story of this man who identified himself as Easton Elliott.

Hinderaker can’t vouch for it. Neither can I. But if what he says about the AA meeting is accurate, then the inferences seem reasonable. I mean, if you’re sitting in the AA meeting and this guy comes wandering in, you’ve never seen him before, he’s bloodied, swollen left hand, says he just had a fight with a family member, woke up, blacked out, woke up, seeking refuge at the AA meeting.

He hangs around even after the meeting for coffee, claims Secret Service is after him, and then weeks later he’s spotted in the newspaper. His picture next to a DUI story, it’s Harry Reid’s brother. They put two and two together, and figured out that Harry Reid was beaten up by his brother. They tried to get a Las Vegas TV station interested in the story, and they wouldn’t take it.

So, bottom line, somebody attacked Harry Reid on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. That much seems clear from pictures and from the nature of his injuries. Nobody’s investigated this. I don’t know who else Easton Elliott called. He claimed he wanted to talk to us because he had previously encountered both of us, Hinderaker and me, speculating that Dingy Harry had had something more happen to him than just an encounter with a rowing machine or a elliptical machine or whatever the excuse was.

As Hinderaker wrote, his investigation “consisted of answering my telephone.” And he posits maybe “those reporters who were so eager to dig through Sarah Palin’s dumpster and track down Mitt Romney’s high school classmates,” or to find out whether Romney had paid his taxes or not, “will now swing into action, carry out an actual investigation, and either confirm or refute the events described by Mr. Elliott,” and the people at the AA meeting.

And, by the way, the man known as Easton Elliott was more than willing to come on the radio. In fact, he wanted to. He was more than willing to tell the story himself. He’s willing to go on TV. He said: “I’m a citizen who believes in God and feels compelled to do the right thing — tell the truth. Harry Reid could learn a lesson from me in being truthful!

He also made a point over and over of saying he’s not a political guy. He’s a small businessman. He’s had several businesses in the Vegas area. Hinderaker called Harry Reid’s spokesman, gave him an opportunity to comment, and they didn’t deny it, but they said they’re not gonna comment, either.

So that’s the extent of our knowledge about what happened. Dingy Harry’s out now blaming me for starting a rumor that he was beaten up by the mob. I didn’t say mob, but it’s clear from the pictures that an exercise machine in a bathroom did not do what happened to Harry Reid. Is it not? So now there’s this story on the table, that it was his brother, Larry Reid, and they got in a family fight.

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RUSH: We’ll start in Portland, Oregon, with Jim. Thank you for waiting, Jim, and welcome to the program. Hi.

CALLER: Hi, sir, how are you today?

RUSH: Very well. Thank you.

CALLER: First I want to say I love your books and so do my grandkids, but, anyway, getting back to Harry Reid this morning.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: Wouldn’t it be interesting that if he had really fallen, as per se he said he did with an accident from a machine, there would have been the lawsuit by now against the company that made that machine?

RUSH: Well, you know, I’ve heard that bandied about. I don’t know for sure that that’s something that you could say with ontological certitude.

CALLER: Well, I’ve never heard anybody ever getting hurt like that, ever, on a machine like that.

RUSH: Well, that’s the point. When’s last time you heard of a US Senator, member of Congress, suing somebody on a liability claim? They just raise taxes on ’em. They punish ’em some other way. They’d go out and get a campaign donation from ’em or some such thing, they’d threaten them or whatever, but suing them is not something that they generally do.

CALLER: Oh, okay.

RUSH: I wouldn’t take that, the fact he didn’t sue anybody, as evidence that the machine didn’t beat him up. You don’t need any evidence. Machines don’t do what happened to Harry Reid.

CALLER: I know that, but, you know, he lies anyway. But I mean, you know, if it was a machine, you’d think there would be a lawsuit or something or heard about it, but you’re right.

RUSH: Well, let’s say that the machine did screw up. Let’s say the machine beat up Harry Reid. Let’s just take his word verbatim. He’s on an exercise machine and it bloodied his eye and ruined his right eyesight, gave up him a black eye. It broke his hip, whatever happened, the machine did it and it kept doing it until he couldn’t walk anymore for awhile, okay?

What would happen in that case is, whoever manufactured the machine would get a private phone call from somebody representing Dingy Harry saying, “Do you know what your machine did to me?” And just the fact that it’s a United States Senator on the phone would send the chills of fear up the spine of whoever got the call at the manufacturing company.

If proper restitution wasn’t made, if damages weren’t paid in private, then Dingy Harry would threaten all kinds of legislation, either favoring the machine maker’s competitors or legislation punishing the machine. It would all happen behind the scenes and nobody would ever know about it. And then if Harry Reid ever ran for reelection, the manufacturing company of the machine would be among the leading donors for his reelection.

But we don’t need any of that to know that a machine did not do what happened to Harry Reid. (interruption) What? You think… (interruption) One machine, yeah, in his bathroom. You know, something involving an elastic band that was attached to the shower door. It somehow came loose and that elastic band just stretched too tight and the shower door got ripped off its hinges and the shower door rammed right into Harry Reid’s face and gave him a bloody eye. The machine did it, whatever the hell the story is. It’s phantom. If the machine could do that somebody would put the machine out of business. Or it would get hired as an enforcer.

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RUSH: By the way, folks, Harry Reid wasn’t even using a machine. It’s not really an exercise machine. It’s an elastic band. It’s a resistance band. I’ve got the website and I’ve seen this thing. It’s a gigantic resistance band that’s for the upper back and the thoracic area and so forth. The elastic band snapped somehow. Dingy Harry was so strong, he was putting so much stress, so much strength and so much force on this band, strapped in the machine, band’s got him lassoed in there and you work against the pressure of the band. The band snapped. Dingy Harry’s motion, there was nothing to stop him. He’s surging, he’s trying to move forward, the band’s restraining him.

He went barreling into the shower door which somehow then came off its hinges and fell on top of him and some of the handle ended up in his eye. It’s such a convoluted, impossible story. But it’s not even a band.

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RUSH: Ed in Scituate, Massachusetts. Great to have you on the program. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush, nice to talk to you again.

RUSH: You bet, sir. When was the last time we spoke?

CALLER: We spoke, jeez, it’s gotta be four years or so now.

RUSH: Four years. Okay, cool. Thank you.

CALLER: Before that I spoke with you, but Snerdley won’t let me bring that up. The AA meeting that you talked about with Mr. Reid or Mr. Reid’s brother-in-law.

RUSH: No, no, brother. Brother. A guy they think is his brother.

CALLER: Okay. I’ve been to a bunch of those meetings —

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: — over the years, you know, maybe not hundreds, but maybe a thousand or more, and you’re not allowed really in the meeting if you smell of alcohol.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: If you’re intoxicated, you know, they really pull you aside and go and talk to you to see if they can be of any immediate assistance to you.

RUSH: Right.

CALLER: But to get to the podium and be able to address other AA members and be in any kind of a state of intoxication —

RUSH: Well, I’m not certain he actually shared.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: I’m not sure what he did was a share. He spoke to somebody there. This is a story we got from the source. He came in and —

CALLER: Well, it’s likely that they would pull him aside and say, “Hey, look, what’s going on, can we be of assistance to you?” The gentleman is probably obviously having some difficultly.

RUSH: Doesn’t matter.

CALLER: I took to it that he was actually addressing an AA meeting, which really would make the story that you heard from the gentleman probably not plausible.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: But it is plausible.

RUSH: It probably didn’t happen, but it’s possible. So there you have it, Harry Reid’s machine did beat him up, and thank you, Ed.

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RUSH: Now, the source that John Hinderaker and I spoke to, Easton Elliott, did not say that the guy who came in that they later recognized as Harry Reid’s brother, he didn’t share. He didn’t go to the podium and share. He talked in a group of people in there, and they had meetings every hour. It’s New Year’s Eve. They’re letting anybody come in to try to help ’em on that day.

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RUSH: Scott, Manhattan Beach, California, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Rush, thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: You bet, sir.

CALLER: You were talking about Harry Reid, and I think what you’re seeing here is there’s a small group of alcoholics in Nevada who have done a better job at investigative journalism than all of the media in the United States.

RUSH: Well, it’s true, except the media didn’t even try.

CALLER: They didn’t try.

RUSH: We don’t even know what their investigative abilities in this case would be, because they never cared. They never tried, which I think is proof positive there’s something to find. They didn’t want to find it, and the best way not to find it is not look for it.

CALLER: Exactly. So I’d like to be the first to say I will buy Larry Reid a drink if he gets out to Manhattan Beach.

RUSH: (Laughing) If the story that we were told, that John Hinderaker and I were told is true, then it’s a family squabble, and Harry Reid obviously feels very confident that his brother is not, when sober, going to spill the beans on this. You know, families do close the ranks. I mean, families are like every other group of people. I mean, some of them you love, some you hate, some of them you resent, but when the family’s under assault, everybody closes ranks, and the family hangs together. That’s one of the great things about the family experience. And it looks like it probably would be a factor here.

I wouldn’t look for Larry Reid to confirm any of this. I wouldn’t look for Larry Reid to throw Dingy Harry overboard. Larry will take care of it himself if it’s ever to happen. We don’t know what they were fighting over, if they were. If we take the story at face value, there was some family fight, we don’t know about what. You know, maybe Harry was hitting on Larry’s wife. Who knows? They’re Democrats. But whatever it was, we’ll never know ’cause they will close ranks. But after the event, if it was a fight, Larry was at least able to get out of there and get in a car and drive to an AA meeting and tell the tale. Dingy Harry was in bad, bad shape and was reduced to blaming it on an exercise machine elastic band. (laughing)

The media does not investigate Democrats. That’s the bottom line, they only investigate Republicans. But you’re right, a bunch of, you know, ex-alcoholics at an AA meeting in Henderson, Nevada, put two and two together. Guy shows up, bloody, sort of drunk, bruised and swollen hand, claims he had a fight with a family member and that the Secret Service may be following him. They think they’ve got a kook on their hands. All it took was the guy — bloody and beat up, didn’t tell him his last name, just said his name is Larry, and that the Secret Service may be coming after him. He had to duck into this meeting. And they think it’s Vegas, it’s New Year’s Eve, and we got a kook here.

They gave him some coffee, tried to sober him up, and send him on his way. It was weeks later when the same Larry gets pulled over at a traffic stop and takes a swing, tries to beat up the trooper, that his picture appears in the paper, and they remember, that’s the guy that came in here claiming he had a family fight — and the Secret Service — it was Larry Reid. So the ex-alcoholics put two and two together and it was Harry Reid who got beat up by Larry who came in here shortly after the fight. And one of them happened to call us and wanted to tell us this story. And that’s it, as much as we know.