![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/650-122217-Trump-002.jpg\")
RUSH: You\u2019re right to include me in that. If they could, they would.<\/p>\nRUSH: We\u2019re doing Open Line Friday today, folks, because it is Open Line Friday. It\u2019s the last day that I\u2019ll be here live during the busy broadcast year. So I want to start with Robert in Houston. I\u2019m glad you called. You\u2019re up first today. The first caller sets the stage. It\u2019s a very important responsibility you carry, so make it count.<\/p>\n
CALLER: (chuckles) Thanks, Rush. Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Same to you.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I had a theory on the tax bill getting done. Basically, these bills don\u2019t start right away. So they\u2019ve been working on this bill for quite a while, and it really picked up steam in the last month, and I was thinking the Russia probe, they were talking about impeaching Rush… (sic) “Impeaching Rush.” Impeaching Trump over the summer.<\/p>\n
RUSH: They would like to impeach me too. I mean, you\u2019re right about that.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Yeah.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You\u2019re right to include me in that. If they could, they would.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Probably. But now that the Russia problem and the Mueller investigation has turned. All of a sudden, the Republicans are working with Trump, and I think there\u2019s a correlation there, because they didn\u2019t seem to be very warm to him over the summer but they\u2019ve warmed up recently.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You know what? He accomplished it. He came through. This is an excellent point. It was a point that I was gonna make later in the program, which is why I decided to take his call first, because this is definitely relevant. What is it? He\u2019s noticed. How many of you have noticed that in the last — maybe it\u2019s a month — two or three weeks, the Republican Party, elected officials in Washington seem much more willing, eager, and cooperative to work with Trump? Have you noticed it?<\/p>\n
How many of you saw the party up at the White House earlier this week after the bill had passed in the House and Senate? Trump sent some buses down there to Capitol Hill. Members of the House and Senate got on the buses and went up to the White House, and they had a love fest. How many of you saw senators and members of the House heaping praise on Donald Trump that you never thought you would see? In fact, when watching it, some of you might have wondered, “Did they really mean this or are they just sidling up for the photo-op?”<\/p>\n
The things they were saying were genuine. Lisa Murkowski! They were all talking about this happening because of Trump\u2019s leadership. They all gave him credit for it. They all thanked him. Look, the Republican Party… This has been a crazy thing. You and I have scratched our heads trying to understand it. The Republican Party has been acting like they\u2019re in the wilderness. They won! The Republicans won the Senate. They won the House. They kept the House. They\u2019ve got the White House, and all year they\u2019ve been acting like they\u2019re in the wilderness.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been acting like they didn\u2019t win anything. They\u2019ve been acting afraid of the media, embarrassed of Trump. It seemed that they were more aligned with the Democrats on some things than with the Republicans. We chalked it up to the fact that they were all insiders and they were banding together to get rid of Trump and deny Trump success (and I don\u2019t doubt that there\u2019s an element there). But here\u2019s the thing that Robert is dead-on right about. Well, he\u2019s 85% right. The reason why the Republicans in the House and Senate — and this may stun you.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/TrumpTaxWH1-300x200.jpg\")
The reason why the Republicans in the House and Senate have warmed up to Donald Trump, the reason they now appear to be happily and eagerly on his team is because they now think that the Trump-Russia collusion charge is bogus. Robert thinks it\u2019s because the Democrats are becoming vulnerable to this. That\u2019s a factor. But the truth is, folks — and I can\u2019t tell you how frustrating this is to me — many Republicans and all kinds of conservative media types have believed this Russian allegation charge!<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve thought there\u2019s something to it, and you know why? Because they can\u2019t believe that the FBI could possibly be corrupted and turned into a political weapon for the Democrat Party. They just can\u2019t believe that would happen. They can\u2019t believe, ditto, the CIA. So all this talk of the Trump dossier and all this talk of collusion with Manafort and Michael Flynn and Donald Trump Jr.? Many Republicans were scared to death that there was something there all year long. Frankly, I\u2019m naive about a lot of things.<\/p>\n
To me, there\u2019s never been anything there. To me, this is the whole thing is a hoax. From day one, in my mind — intelligence guided by experience, common sense, critical thinking, whatever you want to call it — this whole thing to me has been a political opposition research project. And I have never doubted that from the first day I ever heard about this. And then the Trump dossier hits, and it\u2019s so obviously made up. It\u2019s so obviously bogus, and I thought most everybody with half a brain could see that.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/TrumpTaxWHWideShot-300x200.jpg\")
They didn\u2019t trust that. The Republicans in Washington, the Republicans on Capitol Hill, were tiptoeing around this because they thought there could be something to it, because they just couldn\u2019t believe that all of these people could be so complicit in a totally made-up lie. CIA directors, FBI directors, deputy attorney generals, deputy FBI directors, they just… I gotta tell you: When I found out I was livid and I\u2019m still livid about it and more than a little bit amazed. Most of this year they have thought there was something to it.<\/p>\n
Most of this year they have thought that Trump\u2019s gonna be impeached because of it. Most of this year. And then you turn to anywhere in conservative media that\u2019s inside-the-Beltway, blogosphere websites, and you\u2019ll find 75\/80% of them believe it still! And there\u2019s nothing to it and there never has been anything to it. I think the tipping point here is the Republicans in the House and Senate now finally have arrived at the belief that this whole thing is much ado about nothing and may, in fact, be a greater threat to the Democrats if the truth of this is ever known.<\/p>\n
I think that\u2019s why they\u2019ve warmed up to Trump. I think they\u2019ve warmed up to Trump because they\u2019re more confident they\u2019re not gonna be able to get him. They\u2019ve warmed up to Trump because… It\u2019s taken a year, but I think a number of them are finally getting it that all of this is bogus. Remember, they\u2019re all part of the establishment. They\u2019re all in the club, and they think the loftiest things of the club. I mean, the club wouldn\u2019t corrupt this, wouldn\u2019t corrupt that. Don\u2019t laugh at me, folks. If you think I\u2019m whistling Dixie here, I\u2019m not.<\/p>\n
I think many of them have had come-to-Jesus moments, if you will, staggered over the course of the last month. The tax cuts have always been worth supporting. Why didn\u2019t they out of the box? The Obamacare repeal has always been worth doing. Why didn\u2019t they do it? Why didn\u2019t they seem eager to do it? Why didn\u2019t they try to advance any of the Trump agenda for the first nine months? It all made sense, and it was all things that if it were any other president, they would have done. They didn\u2019t do it because they thought Trump was going down, because they thought there might have been something to all these allegations.<\/p>\n
After all of these years, but specifically this year — after this year of hammering Trump — he finally got a dose over one-and-a-half days of what Trump gets all day, every day for a year. And he had an epiphany. These people believe, more often than not, what\u2019s in the media. They believe Trump colluded with Russia, or they think there\u2019s no reason for all this talking if there wasn\u2019t something to it, in their minds.<\/p>\n Very frustrating to me. Because to me this is so obvious a conspiracy between the Democrats and the deep state and the media — which is all basically the same thing. But they have just now come to the reality, the realization that maybe — maybe — Trump didn\u2019t do this, and so it\u2019s now making it easier for them to warm up to him. And that is what has happened.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: Let me put it a simpler way. Republicans in Washington didn\u2019t know if Trump was gonna end up being Nixon or Reagan. And they feared he was gonna end up being Nixon \u2019cause they feared that he was guilty of all this stuff, because they can\u2019t believe the deep state and the media and the FBI and the CIA would make anything up, which should tell you what they didn\u2019t suspect and didn\u2019t realize about the Obama administration. It\u2019s one of the reasons why we\u2019re so frustrated.<\/p>\n Anyway, they have finally arrived at the conclusion that most of this is bogus and that it is okay, that it is safe to join Donald Trump. That, basically, is what happened.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n RUSH: So the Trumpster lands at Palm Beach International Airport, which is actually in West Palm Beach, and he got mobbed out there. There was a mob of supporters. This is a first. There\u2019s always been supporters when Trump\u2019s arrived at PBI, but this appears to be a first. This is a massive, massive crowd of supporters. I mentioned that Mitch McConnell just… NBC News is reporting that Mitch McConnell just said he\u2019s beginning to like Trump\u2019s tweets, that he\u2019s been nervous about \u2019em most of the year.<\/p>\n The reason Trump is getting all the credit for this tax cut victory is because it\u2019s justified. I don\u2019t want to be misunderstood here. This is not a gratuitous hit on Republicans in Washington, House and Senate, elected Republicans. But if you look at things from their perspective, if you go back to the campaign, they never thought Trump was gonna win, and honestly most of them probably really didn\u2019t wish he would anyway. He wasn\u2019t any of their first choice.<\/p>\n There were 16 and Jeb was probably the choice of the establishment Republicans, and so when Trump wins, I mean, it just turns everybody\u2019s world in Washington upside down. And the Republicans especially were expecting to lose. They really thought Hillary was gonna win and that they were going to be nothing more than an opposition party, that they would have a majority in the House, and that\u2019s where they would have to try and stop her. But they were set up for a purely defensive posture.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how they campaigned, that\u2019s what they forecast for themselves. In nobody\u2019s wildest dreams was Trump gonna win. So that mind-set sets in. Trump wasn\u2019t gonna win. Then Trump wins. Let\u2019s compress this story a bit. Trump wins, and immediately the Hillary camp (which means the Democrats and the media) immediately begin this focused effort to destroy Trump. I think they were trying to actually prevent him from being inaugurated. I think their efforts during the transition were designed to do something that would prevent him being inaugurated.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s been relentless. This entire year has been a relentless, unstoppable effort to destroy Donald Trump, to destroy his political career, to destroy his professional career, to destroy any possible success as a president. It has been focused. It\u2019s been intense. There hasn\u2019t been a moment of letup. And the Republicans in the middle of this for much of this year are also afraid that this collusion story is true. They didn\u2019t think he was gonna win. “How the hell did this happen?” Everybody\u2019s asking themselves, “How did this happen?”<\/p>\n We\u2019re now learning all these Never Trumpers are writing how they\u2019re so mad after this tax cut passed, they want the Republicans to lose next year. Let me read this to you from Max Boot. “I mean, I spent my entire adult life as a Republican. I worked as an adviser on three Republican presidential campaigns, but now I\u2019m actively rooting for Republicans to lose the congressional elections next year, because the Republicans have shown they are unwilling to uphold their oaths of office. They are unwilling to defend the Constitution against the nonstop threats emanating from Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n “And that, to me, trumps, so to speak, anything else, including concerns about tax cuts, or any of these other issues that a lot of Republicans tell themselves are the most important thing in the world.” So here is somebody that three presidents have trusted to hire, to advise, who\u2019s openly seeking the Republicans\u2019 defeat — his own party — after the success of the tax cut bill. He\u2019s not alone in the Never Trumper world, and they have been like this the entire year.<\/p>\n And their upset with Trump has been that if you really boil it down what they\u2019ve really not liked about Trump is he\u2019s been advancing their ideas, and they just can\u2019t stand that some guy that\u2019s as big a pig as that… “This reprobate — this womanizing, narcissist, reprehensible barbarian — thinks like I do? Well, that\u2019s just unacceptable! So what I believe in can\u2019t win if this guy is the standard-bearer.” That\u2019s been their thought process! Now, these people, by virtue of this, are telling us that the enemy to them is not the left — and, as such, they are worthless to us.<\/p>\n If they don\u2019t see the enemy to this country and the American way of life as the Democrat Party and the American left and this worldwide global movement, then they are worthless to us. But I want to get back to this past year and the Republicans — expecting to lose, shocked to win, not believing it, thinking it may have happened with collusion. So the repeal of Obamacare was half-assed at best. They were afraid to do it. “What if Trump does get impeached? Oh, my God, the worst thing could happen!<\/p>\n “Trump gets impeached and we take something away from the American people that they really love?” So they didn\u2019t try to do anything. They slowed it all down. They road-blocked it as much as they could. But Trump kept at it. He got up every day, went to work. He kept strategically slicing and dicing the Democrats and the liberals, and to this day they are unaware — and I better not say this too loud, and I don\u2019t want anybody to repeat me, okay? I don\u2019t want you telling a soul what I\u2019m gonna tell you next. Donald Trump every day is dismantling — brick by brick, doorjamb by doorjamb — the mansion that is American liberalism.<\/p>\n If they\u2019re liberal Democrats in his mind, I don\u2019t know. Doesn\u2019t matter to me. He\u2019s out to make America great. I think his ideological education is expanding. All during this year the Republicans (sobbing), “Oh, these tweets! Oh, my God! He\u2019s embarrassing us! Why all…? My God, he\u2019s so embarrassing — and he grabbed her what? Oh, no! I can\u2019t believe it! We\u2019re gonna vote for him? Awwww no!” They\u2019re going through all this. But through it all, Trump triumphs. Through it all, at the end of every day, Donald Trump is still the focus of virtual everybody in the world of politics and most of the people in the country. Every day.<\/p>\n And through it all, Donald Trump doesn\u2019t crumble. And through it all Donald Trump doesn\u2019t cower in fear, and through it all, Donald Trump is never afraid of the media. Through it all, Donald Trump is calling them “fake news.” Through it all, Donald Trump has taken them off their game. The Republicans are watching all this, and at first, it\u2019s making \u2019em nervous as they can be. (impression) “Oh, my God, I can\u2019t believe it! They\u2019re gonna really hate us now. There goes my Washington Post profile. Oh, my God! Oh no!”<\/p>\n But now and even before the tax cut bill passed, there has been a change, and the Republican Party is happily on Donald Trump\u2019s team. And it\u2019s genuine (ringing) and it is real. And it\u2019s based on substantive things. (ringing) And one of those substantive things is… (ringing) Hang on. A wrong number keeps calling me here. Everybody who calls me is a wrong number \u2019cause anybody I know would never call me. Through it all, what they\u2019re realizing is that Donald Trump will win, and they want to be part of a winner.<\/p>\n People either want to follow you or they don\u2019t. But there are some things leaders have in common. Trump has many of them. Fearlessness, conviction, confidence, and full knowledge of who his enemies and opponents are and how to deal with \u2019em. The Republican Party probably has now been talked out of the silly notion of joining the Democrats on amnesty, hasn\u2019t it? It wasn\u2019t so long ago that that was something the Republicans wanted everybody to know, that they were for amnesty, because they didn\u2019t hate Hispanics, and they were for civil rights.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think they\u2019re still occupying that position. But even before the tax cut bill passed… Certainly after it, but even beforehand, it was clear that Donald Trump is gonna be who he is. He\u2019s happily who he is, and it dawned on these people that Donald Trump is actually focused on their political enemies. Look at so many awakenings that we\u2019ve been made aware of this week. Bob Corker apologizing, essentially, to Trump,. Henow understands what Trump deals with every day with the media since it happened to him. Mitch McConnell says he\u2019s starting to like these tweets.<\/p>\n The tweets are effective. “Yeah, Rush, but I don\u2019t think he needs to do these personal assault piece. I don\u2019t like it.” Maybe not, but the tweets where he gets his side of the story out, the tweets where he tells the truth about the Democrats that the media doesn\u2019t? Invaluable, folks. Nobody… Not nobody, but very few would know if Trump didn\u2019t do this. This is a long way of saying — and, of course, there are gonna be interruptions in this. But it\u2019s a long way of saying that something is happening.<\/p>\n Something is happening that\u2019s good, that is causing unity in the opposition to the American left. Unity in opposing the Democrats. Unity in the striving to restore the great institutions and traditions that have defined our country\u2019s greatness. There is a unity in Making America Great Again. There is a unity in putting America first in the sense that it makes the world a better place at the same time. Right in there are the Republicans, who we yesterday saw and Wednesday saw in genuine support and admiration for Donald Trump, \u2019cause he\u2019s the guy who did this, and they all said so.<\/p>\n They had to do their jobs. McConnell and Ryan had to do their jobs. But Trump had their backs, and Trump knew when to stand out of the way and let them use their expertise, as opposed to the during Obamacare, when he was still getting his feet wet on how the legislative process works. In this instance, when he was needed, he was right there. Guidance, advice, energy. When he wasn\u2019t needed, he backed out; let McConnell and Ryan do their thing. Everybody had a hand in the victory. Lisa Murkowski gets ANWR drilling. We all get ANWR drilling!<\/p>\n We all get this silly climate change, Paris accord blown to smithereens. We all benefit from net neutrality being ripped to shreds. And the American people are starting… The non-Trump voters… Despite what you\u2019re gonna hear in the media, despite any polling data, I\u2019m telling you that the American voter who\u2019s maybe voted for Trump but ambivalent and people that didn\u2019t vote for Trump like our last caller who apologized, that\u2019s bubbling up out there too. There\u2019s something happening, and it\u2019s good.<\/p>\n BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n More and more Republicans are beginning to accept that this is BS. Now, the stunning other side of that is, for much of this year, a lot of Republicans in the House and Senate thought there might be something to it, and that was another reason why they kept Trump at arm\u2019s-length and didn\u2019t work hard to advance his agenda. I mean, some did. But the whole party didn\u2019t, as compared to now where there appears to be all this unity in making America great.<\/p>\n Part of it was they were scared to death Trump is gonna get thrown out. They were scared to death the Democrats had the goods. They were scared to death that Mueller was gonna come up with something to impeach Trump, but something has changed now, and I think many Republicans are beginning to realize not only is there nothing there, but that the real action might be the collusion between the FBI and the DOJ and the Democrats, particularly Hillary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" RUSH: The reason why the Republicans in the House and Senate have warmed up to Donald Trump, the reason they now appear to be happily and eagerly on his team is because they now think that the Trump-Russia collusion charge is bogus. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":259007,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/FB-FB-122117-Bob-Corker.jpg\")
<\/a>Remember, these people believe the media. They don\u2019t look at the media the way you and I do. Look at Bob Corker! Were you not shocked when Bob Corker admitted yesterday what he admitted<\/a>? Bob Corker admitted that after all these years in the Senate, he finally has seen media mendacity for what it is. And what did it take? It took the media lying about him and then impaneling analysts after his appearances on TV to trash him for things that didn\u2019t happen, that he knows didn\u2019t happen, that he knows they know didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/FB-101617-Trump-McConnell.jpg\")
He hasn\u2019t really liked \u2019em, but this past week he\u2019s starting to catch on. He\u2019s starting to like these tweets. Now, some of this is winning. You know, winning is an elixir. It\u2019s a magic elixir. It cures so many things. Whether you\u2019re talking about a sports team in any league at any level, from a bunch of kids in the league up to Major League Baseball or the NFL. Politics is the same thing. Anything in your personal life where you win, it just has this aspect to it that wipes out so many nagging, negative memories, feelings. It actually has a magic elixir to it.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/650-103017-Dossier-File-Trump.jpg\")
<\/a>So the Democrats launch their collusion theory, and I think we have learned enough to know that many Republicans thought there was something to it, or could be. One of the reasons for that is that they trust these institutions. They can\u2019t believe that the FBI would be so corrupt as to literally live outside the law to destroy somebody. And even if it was, it was in the service and the interests of the country. “This guy, this… this… this reprobate. This pig! This yuck! This guy is just not one of us. This is just unacceptable.” That\u2019s been the Republicans\u2019 attitude, too, for much of the year.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/LiberalismRush-Sledge-Bubble-muted.jpg\")
Every day a little bit of that mansion gets chipped away, and it is strategic. It is being done on purpose from deep in the bowels of the White House, behind the scenes where nobody can see it. Everybody\u2019s distracted by Trump and his tweets. But much of Obama\u2019s administration agenda is being erased and reversed. Donald Trump is fighting a strategic, daily, ongoing war and battle against the American left. I don\u2019t care whether he thinks that he\u2019s taking out liberalism or whatever. In his mind, he\u2019s restoring greatness to America, and whoever\u2019s in the way is who\u2019s in the way, and they\u2019re gonna get taken care of.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/650-121217-Trump.jpg\")
And there hasn\u2019t been anybody in the Republican Party elected — Republican Party, RNC, you name it. There hasn\u2019t been anybody who has inspired winning. There hasn\u2019t been anybody charismatic, “Hey, I want to be on that guy\u2019s team! I want to be with him.” That is beginning to happen now. Everybody needs leadership. The number of natural, genuine leaders in any group of people is very, very small. Leadership\u2019s not something can be taught. Leadership, in many cases, is a personality character that you either have or you don\u2019t.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/RIH-Stzrok-Mueller.jpg\")
<\/a>RUSH: By the way, folks, there\u2019s one other factor in the Republican unification behind Trump, not just on the taxes. And this is a key. I mentioned it earlier in the program. It was such a great monologue, and I neglected to include this point in it. So we\u2019ll edit this part into it at RushLimbaugh.com. Fundamental to this unity is the belief by a growing number of congressional Republicans that the Mueller investigation is bogus. Let me better say it: That the idea that Trump colluded with the Russians is caca.<\/a><\/p>\n