Limbaugh accused the president for playing a political game with the health care law. Rush: Obama 'a thug' on SCOTUS

Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday joined the mass of conservative voices criticizing President Barack Obama’s recent comments about the Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, calling the president a “thug” on the air.

“He’s a thug,” Limbaugh said on his radio show. “I’m not trying to be provocative when I say this. I’m just quoting Bill Clinton, folks. Bill Clinton referred to Barack Obama as a Chicago thug during the 2008 presidential campaign. This after Clinton some years earlier had told Juanita Broaddrick, ‘Put some ice on that lip’ after she said he raped her.” (Broaddrick, a woman from Arkansas, publicly alleged in 1999 that the former president had sexually assaulted her in the 1970s. Clinton has denied the allegations.)


Limbaugh’s name-calling followed Obama’s assertion at a news conference Monday that he was “confident” that his health care law will be upheld by the high court.

Arguing that overturning the law – touted by the administration as one of the president’s signature first-term accomplishments – would amount to an “unprecedented, extraordinary step,” Obama said, “The justices should understand that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to insure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care.”

The Supreme Court’s decision on the constitutionality of the health care law is not expected to be announced until this summer. Limbaugh — who has been devoting many hours of his popular radio program to the issue since last week’s oral arguments — said Tuesday that whether Obama is aware of the result of the justices’ vote was a toss-up.

“It’s easier to understand that somebody leaked to him that the preliminary vote went against him and that the mandate fell by whatever the preliminary vote was and that explains his attitude yesterday,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript of his show. “But I can see him saying what he said if the vote went in his favor as well, as a means of further intimidation, making sure they don’t change their minds or whatever.”

Calling parts of Obama’s comments from Monday “chilling,” Limbaugh also accused the president for playing a political game with the health care law.

“There’s nothing judicial going on here. There’s nothing legal,” he said. “This isn’t even really about the Constitution. This is about politics, pure and simple, and Barack Obama’s reelection. It’s all it is.”

Limbaugh added, “It is hilarious to hear Obama arguing, threatening, warning justices of the Supreme Court that the individual mandate is constitutional. It isn’t.”