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<\/p>\nRUSH: Now, you know I have always believed that the Democrats have known that Trump was not gonna be convicted in an impeachment trial in the Senate.<\/p>\n
So why do this? What\u2019s the purpose? The worst thing that could happen is for Trump to be acquitted. I mean, here they\u2019ve got this three-year investment into Trump being a traitor and a Russian spy, a Russian agent, whatever else they have said he is. With all of it, they don\u2019t have an impeachable offense. They\u2019ve got these two really pathetic articles of impeachment — and in order to keep the base of the Democrat Party energized and engaged, Pelosi had to go ahead and present the articles.<\/p>\n
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She totally bombed. She was waiting to present those articles for some bombshell event, some bombshell bit of evidence to come up that would force the Republicans to have to investigate in the Senate. But nothing happened, so she has to present them knowing there\u2019s gonna be an acquittal. Why do this? The worst thing can happen is have all this horrible stuff said about Trump for all these years and then at the moment of truth — a trial on all of these outrages — Trump is found not guilty or acquitted. I think — and they\u2019ll never admit this.<\/p>\n
I think the Democrats have given up on beating Trump in November. Now, you might disagree, and you might think it\u2019s too soon, and you might think, “No, they\u2019ll never concede those kinds of things, Rush. You know them well enough to know that that\u2019s not true.” I think… We\u2019ve heard enough of them say, “If we don\u2019t impeach Trump, he\u2019s gonna be reelected.” Look, folks, they have their own internal polls. They know that things out there in America are rosier and better than they have been in many people\u2019s lifetimes, that there is no reason under the sun to change horses here.<\/p>\n
They know this. I believe they never thought they would actually be able to remove Trump from office via impeachment, either. I think as I\u2019ve watched these things happen in the past, well, weeks and days, I think they obviously want to dirty Trump up. They want to put an asterisk next to his name. There\u2019s some Clinton payback here as well. This is all about the 2020 campaign, but not for the presidency. They\u2019re not gonna give up on it — I don\u2019t want to be totally misunderstood — but they know that their odds there are very long.<\/p>\n
But what if…? What if they could find a bunch of Jeff Flakes in the Senate to go against Trump and then lose their reelection? The Democrats could take the Senate, hold the House, and then totally thwart whatever Trump agenda, whatever Trump judicial nominees there are? I think this, my friends, is the key. I think they hope to use this Senate trial to win control of the Senate in November and effectively neuter Trump\u2019s second term.<\/p>\n
Now, Democrats hope to accomplish this by forcing… There are four so-called vulnerable Republicans: Martha McSally, Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, and Cory Gardner. Those four so-called vulnerable Republican senators, the Democrats are gonna try to force them into defending Trump, thereby harming their reelection efforts. They\u2019re looking for a bunch of Jeff Flakes. But what happened to Jeff Flake? (chuckling) He\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n
The Democrats are seriously putting the country through all of this — not to mention establishing this precedent that impeachment now is just a traditional political operation that can be used constantly against a president of the opposing party, all of this — in order to try to defeat four Republican senators and win control of the Senate, which is the epitome of abuse of power for personal political gain. Can you think of anything else? You talk about abuse of power, this phony impeachment scenario for personal political gain?<\/p>\n
The Democrat Party, that\u2019s what they\u2019re accusing Trump of. They are actually engaging in it. But you know what else, folks? When you\u2019re out a whole broadcast week like I was, and when you\u2019re not… It\u2019s a different mind-set when you\u2019re just consuming, but you\u2019re not consuming for the purposes of commenting, discussing, whatever. There\u2019s a difference in it, and it is infuriating that we even have to talk about this impeachment.<\/p>\n
The whole thing just infuriates me, that this has not been dismissed, that the Republicans cannot come up with a way to just dismiss it, that they\u2019re afraid of what the media will say or what the Democrats will say. “Well, there are some witnesses that need to be…” The Republicans, many of them, are still stuck in this belief that the Democrats set the agenda, the media sets the narrative — and it, thus, must be responded to rather than just quashed. It just is infuriating to hear Republicans debating whether to call additional witnesses.<\/p>\n
(chuckling) The Republicans weren\u2019t allowed to call a single witness when the Democrats and Schiff were running the little shade show in the basement room in the Capitol. Why should the Democrats be able to introduce new testimony from ludicrous, ludicrous characters who are facing prison for election meddling, hiding a million dollars from the Russians? Why in the world should the Democrats be able to introduce testimony from people like this, when the Republicans aren\u2019t even allowed to call the so-called whistleblower who started this whole charade in the first place — or even Joe and Hunter Biden?<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: I think people have forgotten what this original Ukraine mess was about as it relates to the Bidens. And of course this original Ukraine mess, the thing to remember is that Ukraine got its aid and, in fact, it got more than it asked for. All the stuff that happened prior to that doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
The Democrats, the whistleblower, nobody forced anybody, Trump or anybody else, to come through with the aid. It all happened. There\u2019s nothing here. It\u2019s ridiculous to have to keep talking about this. But what was the original thing that Trump asked when he\u2019s talking to Zelensky? He said, among other things, that we want to find out what role Ukraine played in the 2016 election in the United States.<\/p>\n
And then he wanted Ukraine to announce and perform an investigation into the Bidens for the sleazy deal that put Joe\u2019s kid on the board of an energy company with which he\u2019s got zero experience and was paying him gobs and gobs of money, Trump wanted to get to the bottom of it, wanted to find out what this was about. And the Democrats and the whistleblower said, “Trump was trying to dig up dirt on his potential 2020 opponent.”<\/p>\n
What if that\u2019s not what this is about? What if we have a corrupt country that everybody acknowledged and recognized was corrupt as the day is long until this new president came along, Zelensky. He was a reform candidate, gets elected on the basis of cleaning the country up in a number of ways. What about the very real possibility that Joe Biden, if he was ever elected president, would be subject to profound blackmail threats from this country based on the sleazy, slimy deal that his kid got and that his brother got?<\/p>\n
The Biden family is more corrupt than people know. It makes sense that Trump would want to, for the purpose of — Trump believes in America, Make America Great Again — find out whether or not Biden has done things that make him a blackmail target. Ukraine and Russia, symbiotic relationship. If you look at it from that standpoint, “Come on, Rush, Trump wouldn\u2019t care about that.” Who says Trump wouldn\u2019t care about that? I think Trump would pointedly care about that.<\/p>\n
Anyway, let me get started on the phones. We\u2019ll start with Jill in Spokane, Washington. Great to have you on the program. Hello.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Oh, hi, Rush. It\u2019s so wonderful to talk to you. Mega dittos.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thank you. Thank you very much for calling.<\/p>\n
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CALLER: Welcome back. I\u2019m glad you\u2019re better. My question is about the upcoming trial. What, if any, positive or negative effect do you think Chief Justice Roberts would have?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Look, all this stuff needs to be answered with caveats, reservations. But I don\u2019t think the chief justice\u2026 (laughing) I\u2019m on the verge of saying something here and as I say it I know how ridiculous \u2013 the chief justice doesn\u2019t set the rules of the trial. Mitch McConnell, the Senate sets the rules. He\u2019s just there as a timekeeper. But then, on the other hand, the guy rewrote Obamacare to make it constitutional, not necessarily to screw Republicans, to make sure that he, Roberts, didn\u2019t get screwed by history by proclaiming the first big legislative effort by the first African-American president ever was unconstitutional. Didn\u2019t want that on his resume.<\/p>\n
Roberts is not a concern of mine in the trial. Now, it could be shown to be careless in that concern as the trial gets going, but the top of it here, I understand the concern because of what happened with Obamacare and we\u2019ve heard that the guy hates Trump, like all establishment Washingtonians do. What\u2019s your fear? You obviously have one. What do you think he would do?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, just what you were saying, what he\u2019d done in the past, is if there was an opening to somehow permanently, you know, keep him from serving the rest of the term —<\/p>\n
RUSH: If you go back to the Clinton impeachment trial, sorry, can anybody tell me who the chief justice was? Anybody know who the chief justice was during the Clinton impeachment trial? Anybody know? Anybody? Probably many of you, “I don\u2019t know. Who was?” That\u2019s exactly right. That\u2019s how much of a role he played. Zip, zero, nada.<\/p>\n
His name was William Rehnquist. And he hated it. He didn\u2019t want to be there. He didn\u2019t want any part of it. He tried to stay in the background. He was a timekeeper. I don\u2019t know how much of an activist Roberts is. It\u2019s always a wild card, with Trump you never know. But he\u2019s not at the top of my concerns of the Senate trial.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: This is Scott in northern Colorado. Glad you called. I appreciate your patience in waiting too.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Dittos from “the oil patch,” Cory Gardner country, Rush.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Hey, great to have you, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Thank you. Hey, what happens if they call witnesses or whatever and let\u2019s say Hunter decides to claim the fifth?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, let me ask you what happens in any trial when somebody claims the fifth. What happens before they claim the fifth?<\/p>\n
CALLER: Well, I assume they\u2019re —<\/p>\n
RUSH: “Mr. Biden, did you accept $38 million a year as a board member of an energy company after having zero experience in anything?” “I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m pleading the Fifth Amendment.” “Oh, really? You must be guilty!” The question that is asked that generates the plea of the fifth is relatively… In court, you know, trials are a show. A lot of people resent this, but they are an art form. They\u2019re not just pursuits of justice, and they are not simply an attempt to get to the truth. Jury manipulation, if you want to call it that.<\/p>\n
How many times do you see lawyers asking questions that they know the judge is going to say, “You must disregard everything that stinking lawyer just said!” It\u2019s impossible to disregard what the stinking lawyer just said. “You may not consider that in your deliberations.” So the jury says, “Okay. We can\u2019t make it part of the deliberations, but they can\u2019t tell if we did and we don\u2019t admit it.” (sigh) I know you\u2019re reacting to Senator Graham. Senator Graham said…<\/p>\n
I think it was on Fox News Sunday yesterday. (summarized) He said, “If they\u2019re gonna call witnesses, fine, then we\u2019re gonna call witnesses. We\u2019re gonna \u2019em all. We\u2019re gonna call the Bidens. We\u2019re gonna call this, we\u2019re gonna call…” I\u2019ll believe that when I see it, by the way. It would be great if they did. But pleading the fifth? I don\u2019t know. Look, until we learn what we\u2019re dealing with here in terms of the rules — and McConnell does. He\u2019s got this. He\u2019s not gonna let this get out of control, he says. If they try to turn it into a circus, he\u2019s gonna kill it.<\/p>\n