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<\/p>\nRUSH: So what is the big news right now on the cable networks? It\u2019s not just Fox, but CNN. A school shooting in Southern California, Santa Clarita. Six victims in the Southern California high school shooting. It\u2019s a terrible thing. We\u2019re very sad about it, very sorry about it. But, folks, if there were any bombshell revelations — if the ball had been moved even one yard yesterday — this school shooting would be in a little picture-in-picture graphic inside a discussion of how Trump\u2019s presidency is over.<\/p>\n
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If they had that story, if they had the story that yesterday\u2019s impeachment hearing was the beginning of the nail in the president\u2019s coffin, that\u2019s all they would be talking about today. They don\u2019t have anything. Pelosi rolled the dice and trusted that Schiff could bring this home. Remember, the hearings were given today off so the media could package and program all the bombshells from yesterday — and they don\u2019t have any because there weren\u2019t any.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Here\u2019s Joe Lockhart this morning on CNN\u2019s New Day. He\u2019s the former Clinton spokesman, the former spokesman for the National Football League. Alisyn Camerota said, “Most working people can\u2019t be glued to their TV.” That\u2019s another telltale sign, by the way, that the Drive-Bys know they\u2019ve got nothing.<\/p>\n
Believe you me, everybody stopped what they were doing to watch the Watergate hearings. People took off work. TV sets were turned on at work. The Watergate hearings captivated the United States.<\/p>\n
Nobody made any extraordinary effort to watch any of this yesterday, and I\u2019m here to tell you that if people did tune in, the first hour of this thing was as much as they dared watch. It was boring. It was eventless. It had no drama whatsoever. It had no bombshell revelations. It didn\u2019t come close to meeting the expectations that the Democrats had built up.<\/p>\n
And Alisyn Camerota\u2019s question here acknowledges that nobody watched. She says to Joe Lockhart, “Well, you know, most working people can\u2019t be glued to their TV.\u201d A tacit admission that they know nobody watched. \u201cWell, you know, Joe, most working people \u2013” well, then why are you on the air during that period of time anyway? Most working people couldn\u2019t watch yesterday, they can\u2019t watch any day, right? Why are you even on the air? Why doesn\u2019t CNN sign off from say 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. if most working people can\u2019t watch it?<\/p>\n
\u201cMost working people can\u2019t be glued to their TVs, Joe. Do you think that there is any way in our tribal universe that this moves the needle for some \u2013” stop and think of this question. She knows. They all know nothing happened yesterday to move anybody anywhere. Nothing happened. In fact, the Democrats hurt themselves yesterday. The media hurt themselves. They spent three years building people up for yesterday.<\/p>\n
They have spent three years. I cannot overemphasize this, three years of Trump colluding with Russia, Trump stealing the election, Trump a traitor, Trump a foreign agent. Rudy Giuliani a foreign agent. Then the Kavanaugh hearings and all the rest of it. Then the Mueller report. All the stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, three years of this, and nobody watched yesterday. And the people who did had to be asking themselves, \u201cWhat is this?\u201d<\/p>\n
Folks, you cannot watch this, you can\u2019t judge it in a vacuum. You have to put it in context. And they have built this country up, expectations that this was gonna be the beginning of the end. Finally we\u2019re there. We got Donald Trump now. We got him on a phone call with the president of Ukraine. And the question essentially, \u201cJoe, nobody watched yesterday \u2019cause there was nothing in there. You think there\u2019s any way in our so partisan universe, is there any way that what we did yesterday can somehow still work even though we know that it didn\u2019t?\u201d<\/p>\n
LOCKHART: Republicans did what they needed to do, which was they just need to give their base something to hold on to. And I think their best argument was the simplest argument, which is the aid went through, and there were no investigations. Now, it\u2019s an argument that falls apart with one more piece of information, but they\u2019re not gonna get that from Fox News. They\u2019re not gonna get that from Rush Limbaugh. So I think there\u2019s nothing there that moves the hard-core MAGA base.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: There was nothing there that moved the hard-core MAGA base away from Trump, exactly. But there was nothing there that moved the great unwashed, the independents, the moderates. There was nothing there to move them to your sideshow, and his answer is a tantamount admission. Well, the Republicans, you know what? Their best argument was the simplest argument. The aid went through. There were no investigations. Yep, this baby is over, folks. The aid went through and there were no investigations. Doesn\u2019t matter whether Trump likes investigations more than he likes Ukraine, Ukraine got the money, and there were no investigations.<\/p>\n
And Lockhart says, the argument falls apart with one more piece of information. But he doesn\u2019t provide it. He then goes into “and the American people are never gonna know what it is because of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.” Aw, poor people, they can\u2019t overcome us, folks. No matter how hard they try. The New York Times, the Washington Post, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, you name it, the American people aren\u2019t gonna know the truth because of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s so unfair. We had Trump, we had him right there, we had him right there, Trump was gone! And they got nothing. And look what they put the country through in the process of this.<\/p>\n
Remember Harold Ford. Don\u2019t forget Harold Ford earlier this week talking to Bret Baier on the Fox News Channel. He said (paraphrasing) \u201cI won\u2019t be surprised if after this thing gets to Friday Pelosi sees there\u2019s no chance of a bipartisan vote on this that she just decides to pull it.\u201d Don\u2019t forget Harold Ford said that.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s Jeffrey Toobin, one more sound bite, CNN as well. This was yesterday afternoon in yet another telltale sign of how deflating, disappointing, depressing all of yesterday was.<\/p>\n
TOOBIN: The one criticism of these two witnesses, which I think is very much legitimate — it\u2019s not really a criticism, it\u2019s just a factual statement — is that neither of them had direct contact with the president.<\/p>\n
TAPPER: Ever!<\/p>\n
TOOBIN: Ever. And, yeah, that\u2019s a problem if you\u2019re gonna impeach the president.<\/p>\n
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RUSH: You think? You think? Neither of these two witnesses ever had any personal contact with the president. They cannot testify to anything Trump did or said. All they can do is what they did. (impression) \u201cWell, somebody told me that had told them three months ago, it got passed on to them. By the time I heard it was fourth or fifth hand, but what I heard was that the president likes investigations more than he likes Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not exaggerating. That was the news yesterday. That was it. That\u2019s the bombshell. Let\u2019s see. What\u2019s on cable news? Still talking about the school shooting in California, folks, still not a word on this massive first step toward getting rid of Donald Trump yesterday in the House of Representatives.Now, back to audio sound bites on the so-called impeachment hearings that happened yesterday. Here\u2019s Jonathan Turley. Now, yesterday I shared with you that Turley had a column at TheHill.com in which he wrote, asking if the Democrats were actually doing a collapsible impeachment.<\/p>\n
And I saw that right as the program began. I only saw the headline and I didn\u2019t have a chance to read it until the first commercial break and I wasn\u2019t able to digest the whole thing. The headline made it sound like I was interpreting correctly, but I wasn\u2019t sure. Turns out I was.<\/p>\n
He was talking about how the foundation of this impeachment is so flimsy that it\u2019s probably gonna collapse on itself. Here he is saying so yesterday afternoon on CBS special coverage of day one of the impeachment hearings.<\/p>\n
TURLEY: You certainly don\u2019t need a crime for impeachment, but you do need clarity. And they\u2019re proceeding on the narrowest basis for impeachment in the history of this country. We\u2019ve never gone up with an impeachment just on abuse of power linked to a single controversy like this. That is a very slender basis. And I\u2019m not too sure they gained a lot of ground on impeachment. The question is, is this really an impeachable offense and how do you distinguish what the president did here with what presidents do in conversations with heads of states.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, of course this is exactly right. It just demonstrates yet again that they\u2019re on to Plan B, that the real objective here was to have the whistleblower be able to say whatever he wanted to say was on that phone call, make it sound as bad as possible with nobody ever able to contradict him because the president wouldn\u2019t release transcripts. They can accuse the president then of collusion, obstruction, cover-up, replay the Nixon impeachment.<\/p>\n
That blew up in their face when the president released the transcripts. Turley\u2019s exactly right. They got nothing. They\u2019re not even trying to revive Russia meddling, Russia collusion. If you\u2019re gonna impeach the president, why not go there? Why not throw everything in this bucket? Well, because everything has bombed out. Everything they\u2019ve tried up to now has bombed out.<\/p>\n
Here is CBS This Morning, the cohost Tony Dokoupil asking CBS correspondent John Dickerson about the impact of the hearings yesterday.<\/p>\n
DOKOUPIL: Any evidence yet that any of this has penetrated the public?<\/p>\n
DICKERSON: No, none, and I don\u2019t think for the moment. But we might not expect it to. We got a long time to go before those minds are changed.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Ah, so, ladies and gentlemen, if you don\u2019t believe me, maybe you\u2019ll believe the Drive-Bys. Any evidence that any of this has penetrated — sounds vaguely obscene, right? Penetrated the public. You envisioning that? Has Adam Schiff\u2019s blah, blah, penetrated the public here yet, Mr. Dickerson? Dickerson says, none, no evidence for the moment. But but but but but we might not expect it to yet.<\/p>\n
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Wrongo, pal. They were expecting bombshell yesterday. They were expecting, hoping the American people clamoring for Trump to be removed last night. That\u2019s the objective. That was the objective. It was a total disaster. Ed Henry last night on The Ingraham Angle on the Fox News Channel.<\/p>\n
HENRY: I\u2019ve been working the phones, talked to three different senior Republicans that all said that after the first hearing in the hallways they\u2019re having private conversations with Democrats who seemed absolutely deflated that they did not get very far at all today. Listen to what the Washington Post has reported. Look at that. Democratic aide telling the Post, quote, \u201cWe\u2019re screwed this week on hearings. No bombshells, no revelations. The onus is on us to wow some people this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
RUSH: All right. Now, I could have played this sound bite the first thing on the program. I wanted to wait \u2019til the third hour \u2019til I made the case, and there it is. Here\u2019s two sound bites in a row, people talked to the Democrats. They know it was a bomb, they are deflated. The Washington Post reporting that a Democrat aide, a staffer. “We\u2019re screwed this week. No bombshells, no revelations. The onus is on us –” You don\u2019t have next week. The first day.<\/p>\n
Remember what they tried — the Mueller report comes out, what\u2019s the answer? No collusion. After that, nobody cares. Whatever you try to say it says, whatever you try to manufacture it says, you know, bring Mueller forward to testify, try to make people claim that Barr\u2019s lying, didn\u2019t matter, no collusion, that\u2019s all people heard. First day of hearings, no bombshells, no nothing, no reason to get rid of Trump.<\/p>\n
So what happens next week is too late. As far as public opinion is concerned, it\u2019s too late, unless — you know, they\u2019re gonna have to come up with some magical bombshell. They\u2019re gonna have to really make up something gigantic that can\u2019t be refuted. And I wouldn\u2019t put it past them to try to. Because that\u2019s all any of this has been, folks. Every bit of this has been manufactured and made up. Not a single allegation has had any truth to it. So don\u2019t doubt me. They know it was a bomb.<\/p>\n
And, by the way, this little aide here, this staffer, \u201cWe\u2019re screwed this week on the hearings, we\u2019re screwed, no bombshells, no revelations, Democrats deflated.\u201d Who do you think they\u2019re deflated by? Who do you think screwed them? Who do you think, \u2019cause remember, behind closed doors there\u2019s a lot of finger pointing going on because a lot of Democrats were told to vote for this thing, a lot of Democrats were assured this would work. A lot of Democrats who didn\u2019t want to vote this way were cajoled into doing it.<\/p>\n
So the anger here, I guarantee you, behind closed doors is directed at two people: Pelosi and Schiff. And Schiff is the face of this. Schiff is the guy who was gonna bring this home. And I hate to tell you, Madam Pelosi, but Schiff is not the guy that\u2019s gonna ever bring any of this home. He is tainted by hate. He is tainted by dishonesty. All of this is the result of a feverish partisanship that is irrational. You\u2019ve got a guy leading your effort who is not all there, Madam Pelosi. And I think you know it. I think Pelosi knows it.<\/p>\n
I once talked to a prosecutor. Guy who ran the office. He was the DA, and he had line prosecutors prosecuting cases. He was a state attorney, the state DA. And he didn\u2019t try the cases. He assigned the cases. He was the elected official and the people that worked for him in his office were the people that got hired. They were the assistant state attorneys, the AUSA or the ASA, whatever, assistant state attorney.<\/p>\n
And one of his assistants had an absolutely horrible losing case. And he let it play out. He told me he let it. I said, \u201cWhy? The guy had no case. Your prosecutor was never gonna get a conviction. Why\u2019d you do it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he\u2019s my guy. I had to stand behind him. If I want the guy to continue to work, I\u2019ve gotta look like I\u2019m standing behind him. I couldn\u2019t yank the case from him.\u201d I guarantee you this is what Pelosi is doing. She doesn\u2019t want to yank it from Schiff, but there\u2019s nobody else to give it to. Maybe pass it off to Nadler, but really? Jerry Nadler becomes the face of this thing?<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Toledo, Ohio, next. This is Tom. Great to have you, sir. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Rush, how are you today? Thank you for taking my call. Reason I\u2019m calling, I did get an opportunity to watch part of the hearing yesterday, and initially I found myself laughing. I thought of it more as a comedy. The Democrats seemed to be spending their time almost exonerating Trump. But then I turned to where I was actually got more mad and sad about how one of the three a branches of our government, how we must look, how pitiful we looked. I mean, at one point the one gentleman was talking about the taxpayer dollars and how concerned they were about that and blah, blah, blah. And I thought, how much taxpayer dollars are we spending on this? It was just pitiful.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Was it a member of Congress who said that or was it one of the witnesses?<\/p>\n
CALLER: No, it was the ambassador. The ambassador numerous times talked about how concerned they were in the Ukraine with spending taxpayer dollars. And I thought, my gosh, how much taxpayer dollars are we spending on this mess.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, it was stated earlier by Kevin McCarthy in a sound bite that this is exactly something that Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers, if you look at the Federalist Papers and some of the early back and forth writing on elements of the Constitution, if you look at the things written about impeachment, one of the great fears that Alexander Hamilton had was that it would become something fully unintended. That it would become a purely political exercise that would be used by a single party in dominant power in the House, that they would use impeachment as nothing more than a political or campaign tool.<\/p>\n
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They used factions to describe parties back then, but that\u2019s what his fear was. That\u2019s exactly what is happening here. And for those of you who earlier were convinced that you had heard Pelosi say that there wasn\u2019t going to be an impeachment vote, here\u2019s the problem that she has. And I\u2019m gonna be fascinated to see how she deals with this.<\/p>\n
Over here on the left hand, you have the Democrat presidential campaign. You got all those people seeking the Democrat nomination. They\u2019re not talking about impeachment except when asked about it or as an ancillary thing. They are trying to win the nomination on the basis of giving away as much as they can to whoever will take it: Medicare for All, raising taxes on the wealthy and the rich. And there\u2019s no overlap.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s clear that Pelosi, by okaying and authorizing this impeachment business, is actually using it as an element of the Democrats\u2019 2020 campaign, because as far as the Democrats in the House are concerned, they aren\u2019t spending a moment on legislation. They\u2019re not spending any time at all on dealing with things people care about. They\u2019re not talking about health care. They\u2019re not dealing with immigration or foreign trade. They\u2019re not talking about reducing prescription drug prices.<\/p>\n
They are all-in on this as their 2020 campaign issue, which means she can\u2019t shut it down. But there\u2019s no overlap with the actual Democrat candidates. They are not staking, in other words, their campaigns on the outcome of impeachment. They are campaigning for the votes of the American people. Pelosi is running an impeachment that is designed to make voters not want to vote for Trump. But at the same time, none of what she\u2019s doing is designed to get people to vote for anybody or anything.<\/p>\n
So the Democrat Party is not even unified on what its purpose is. But this is not — remember the conventional wisdom is that they don\u2019t have the votes to convict in the Senate. And there\u2019s nothing to change that yet. Now, you\u2019re gonna read about Never Trumpers who think there\u2019s a way they could engineer a private vote among Republicans and if they could get that, then a lot of Republicans would vote to remove Trump because he\u2019s so hated. But the operative theory is that there will not be a conviction. So if that\u2019s the operative theory and that\u2019s what everybody thinks, then why is Pelosi doing this?<\/p>\n
It still comes down to, why do this if the natural end, a trial in the Senate and a conviction of Trump, is not gonna happen, why do this? Because it\u2019s the 2020 campaign issue that Pelosi has decided the Democrats are running. But the Democrat candidates are not running on it. And in that lack of overlap, something\u2019s gonna have to give at some point because none of what they are doing is going to beat Donald Trump, folks, and this is what they know.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re in a \u2013 look, I don\u2019t want to say this too loudly, but I really think they\u2019re in a world of hurt right now compared to where they thought they were gonna be three years ago. I think they\u2019re totally stunned.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, the ratings are in for impeachment yesterday. 13 million viewers on Fox was the most watched network. That\u2019s not Nixon and the Watergate hearings, folks, I\u2019m sorry to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: The hearings were given today off so the media could package and program all the bombshells from yesterday — and they don't have any because there weren't any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":328525,"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