After praising the Trump campaign’s unhinged press conference last week, Rush Limbaugh now says it was a failure

Limbaugh said on Thursday that Sidney Powell had an “impeccable reputation.” Now he says: “They promised blockbuster stuff, and then nothing happened. … It's not good.”

Written by John Whitehouse

Research contributions from Eric Kleefeld

Published

From the November 23, 2020, edition of Premiere Networks’ The Rush Limbaugh Show

RUSH LIMBAUGH (HOST): I don't know any more than you do about the Sidney Powell circumstance. I know a lot of people have been curious to know whether there's something beyond that which has been publicly reported. If there is, I'm unaware of it. I've made inquiries, I have not come up with anything more than what you know. We'll just deal with it as it unfolds and manifests itself.

There's a bunch of different theories going around that she really is not going to stop working, she's just disassembling herself from the Trump team. I mean, it's a tough thing to deny that she was ever a part of it, because they introduced her as part of it. I mean, she was at that press conference last week.

The problem with that press conference last week, folks, goes way beyond Sidney Powell. I mean, you're going to announce — Mr. Snerdley, you tell me if you agree with me. I may be a little bit wrong on this, I don't know. You announce a — why are you smiling? Well, why, because you think whenever I allude to a possibility of my being wrong, it's never the case that I'm wrong, is that what you mean? You call a gigantic press conference like that, one that lasts an hour. And you announce massive bombshells, then you better have some bombshells, there better be something at that press conference other than what we got. Such as a hacker who can tell us, “Yep, everything these guys have said is true, I've looked into, I've run the software, I've hacked this, I've hacked that.” Even put him behind a screen, if you want to protect his identity.

But you don't — you can't — I talked to so many people who were blown away by it, by the very nature of the press conference. They promised blockbuster stuff, and then nothing happened. And that's just, that's not — well, it's not good. If you're going to promise blockbuster stuff like that, then there has — now, I understand. Look, I’m the one that's been telling everybody, this stuff doesn't happen at warp speed, light speed, the way cases are made for presentation in court. But if you're going to do a press conference like that, with the promise of blockbusters, then — then there has to be something more than what that press conference delivered.

Now, Sidney Powell is supposedly out — jumped the shark, got out over the skis. But apparently, she's still going to be working, along with Lin Wood, trying to make the case that she says is there to be made all along. Time, of course is of the essence now, as it is speedily vanishing. So they're going to have to act fast.

Rush Limbaugh spent much of his show on Thursday, November 19, airing the press conference that featured Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. He made a point to praise Powell in particular, saying that she “just dropped bombs all over the place.” At length, Limbaugh echoed debunked conspiracy theories about Dominion and Smartric.

On Friday, Limbaugh doubled down, saying that “Sidney Powell has a point here” and blaming “the deep state” for her feud with Fox host Tucker Carlson.

Powell was disavowed by the Trump legal team after a bizarre appearance Saturday evening on Newsmax. As The New York Times reported:

Ms. Powell was described as a member of the legal team’s “elite strike force” at the news conference on Thursday as she laid out an elaborate conspiracy theory about efforts by the former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who died in 2013, to essentially rig elections in the United States by using voting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems. While Mr. Trump has become obsessed with the idea of a global conspiracy, cybersecurity officials from his own government have said there is no evidence that machines were compromised.

Appearing on the conservative network Newsmax on Saturday night, Ms. Powell further pushed the conspiracy theory, saying that two top Republicans in Georgia — Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — were taking payoffs as part of the scheme, and that Representative Doug Collins of Georgia had in fact won his race for Senate against Senator Kelly Loeffler. (He did not; Ms. Loeffler’s race is heading to a runoff without Mr. Collins.) Ms. Powell said she planned to file a “biblical” suit in the state.

Two runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5 are set to determine which party controls the Senate, and Republicans have grown anxious that the Trump campaign’s legal efforts there could affect those races, which are likely to have lower turnout than this month’s general election.

Ms. Powell’s claims were widely derided, including by some Trump allies.