Limbaugh also called out the media for their Smollett coverage.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh weighed in on the Jussie Smollett controversy Thursday saying the "Empire" actor was just another example of the left trying to portray America as a country filled with hate.
“He’s a typical left-wing Democrat today! By the way, he paid these guys with a check. The guy’s an idiot in addition to everything else,” Limbaugh said on his radio program. “The left is nothing but phony hate crimes, phony alleged hate crimes, phony charges, made-up stories.”
Smollett was charged in Chicago police for planning a fake attack, accusing two white strangers of calling him racist and homophobic names, putting a noose around his neck, pouring bleach on him and using a pro-Trump slogan.
SMOLLETT'S CELEBRITY SUPPORTERS GRAPPLE WITH ARREST NEWS
“They know these things probably aren’t true, but they want them to be, and that’s why they report them as true," Limbaugh said. “So in the mind of the American left, these crimes are happening everywhere. Even if the Smollett case isn’t real, it’s real elsewhere, and we must ‘raise consciousness.’”
Limbaugh also called out the media for their Smollett coverage and took presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ., to task for their initial reaction saying Sen. Harris “couldn’t wait to believe this.”
“So he stages a couple of hoaxes here trying to get paid and trying to get noticed, and he plays the media like a Stradivarius. He plays the American left like a Stradivarius,” Limbaugh said. “The media is signing on to it. The celebrities are signing on to it. Presidential candidates are signing on to it and tweeting what a rotten place America is because of it.”
'THE VIEW' HOSTS DON'T UNDERSTAND SMOLLETT'S PAY-RAISE MOTIVE
“It’s just outrageous what the left is doing to this country and the picture of this country that they’re painting each and every day, the false narratives that they are establishing, many of which they know to be untrue,” Limbaugh said.
The only person that generated any praise from Limbaugh was Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson who blasted Smollet in a press conference this morning.
“This guy called out presidential candidates for piling on here without any evidence whatsoever. He called out a bunch of people being punked and fooled by an actor. He called out the actor himself as an African-American. How dare this man sully the civil rights legacy of this country by taking advantage of it for his own desire to get more money,” Limbaugh said. “This is an adult. This police superintendent in Chicago is an adult.”
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