RUSH: Everybody just calm down, just calm down. All of this was predicted to you, every bit of this was predicted to you. I mean the media behavior. To show you just how lame the media is and how little they’ve got, they’re already asking what did Trump know and when did he know it, and that’s not the question. The question is, what did Barack Obama know and when did he know it and what has he engineered here?

This all happened with Flynn back in December. Trump had not even been inaugurated yet. And it’s still mysterious to me what really happened. Even if, even if Flynn, as the incoming national security director, had called the Russian ambassador to talk, so what? That’s not hard to imagine. That’s not a big deal. It really isn’t a big deal.

Now, if he lied to Mike Pence and said, “No, no, no, I didn’t talk to the guy. I didn’t talk to the guy about sanctions. I didn’t talk about maybe lifting the sanctions. No, no, no, I didn’t.” And, if he did do that, if he lied to Pence, then, okay, there’s a reason for Flynn to be in trouble and maybe to resign, get out of the way. But for the media to say what did Trump know and when did he know it? Get a grip here, folks.

I realize that a lot of people do not pay a whole lot of attention to this, which is good, but for those of you who are, I can imagine the impact on you, and you’re asking, “Well, when’s he gonna stop? I mean, how much more of this can anybody take? How much more of this kind of assault and attacking nature can any administration handle. And then the other question, how long can the Republicans in Congress handle it. How long are they gonna stay bucked up and stiff-spined about it, and time will tell on that.

I’m gonna tell you, Trump’s not stopping. There will be more ICE raids this afternoon to make people forget about this. The media’s gonna try as hard as they can not to let go of this, because now they’ve got their scalp. They think they have blood in the water, they’ve got a scalp and they think they can get another and then another and then another and then another until finally they get Trump.

They have become the full-fledged resistance to Trump and they have decided that that’s going to be their modus operandi for the next four years. They’re not gonna do news. They have now mobilized and made it official, they’re even talking about it, some of them are, on cable networks that — I mean, they disguise the words they use, but the impact is clear that they are going to do everything they can to get Trump out of Washington and out of the White House and out of office.

So what we have here, we have a political assassination that’s taken place here, a political assassination, Mike Flynn, who, do you know he worked for Obama four different times? You didn’t know that? Let me find the details. In September 2011, Mike Flynn was promoted to lieutenant general assigned to the office of the Director of National Intelligence by Barack Obama. On April 17th, 2012, President Barack Obama nominated Michael Flynn to be the 18th director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The defense department has its own intel operation and he ran it, as opposed to the Central Intelligence Agency. It’s called the DIA, and it’s big, and it’s relevant, and it’s important, and it does great work, and Flynn ran it after having been promoted to lead it by Obama in 2012. He took command of the DIA in July of 2012. He is a member of the Democrat Party, according to Wikipedia. Michael Flynn is a member of the Democrat Party.

Aside from all of this, he has a reputation as a great man. He’s also a hawk. And that’s something the left just can’t abide. Hawks like Michael Flynn, they may as well be Dr. Strangelove. They want to run around, they want to start nuclear war, they want to destroy the planet, they’re deranged, they’re unhinged, they love blood and guts, and they love the sound of gunfire and napalm in the morning, and they just love it, and this is totally unacceptable.

So we have a resignation over a phone call, a freaking phone call. The Democrats don’t resign when they’re caught red-handed with their hand in the till or in bed with an intern or whatever else transgression the Democrats engage in. There are no resignations and there are no demands for resignations. And if you want to compare the Trump administration to the Obama administration, you just need to ask yourself one question: Why did you vote for Trump?

Eight years of the Obama administration, it may not have appeared to be chaotic and it may not have appeared to be amateur hour and it may not have appeared to be out of control, but it was in terms of its agenda. The Obama administration was trying to dismantle the United States of America. That’s why everybody voted for Trump! And the people that supported Obama and were trying to dismantle the United States of America are still out trying to do it and now doing so via taking aim at Trump and his administration.

Flynn I guess didn’t want to be a distraction, especially given how worked up the Drive-Bys are. ‘Cause the Drive-Bys are seeing a Russian under every bed. The Drive-Bys are seeing a Russian at every computer keyboard. You know, they walk in their own offices, see a keyboard, they see a computer, and they think the Russians are there.

Now, the media is saying that Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador back in December could have left him open to blackmail. Are we serious about this? Flynn was open to blackmail? Who was it that the Drive-Bys wanted to see as president in? That would be Hillary Rodham Clinton, who could have been blackmailed six ways from Sunday by the Russians and who the heck else we know.

We don’t know who has those 34,000 emails that she deleted. We don’t know who has Tom Brady’s jersey. (laughing) We’re trying to find both. We don’t know what top national security secrets were revealed in those 34,000 emails. This is a woman whose home brew server was hacked by world powers, the ChiComs, the Russians. This is a woman who, with her famous Russian reset, embarrassed the United States of America.

Blackmail?

Here’s Hillary Clinton who had collected campaign contributions supposed in advance that were nothing more than advance payments for policy considerations. She was selling access to the Oval Office via the Clinton administration. You want to talk about blackmail? You are vworried about blackmail and Michael Flynn and Donald Trump when you were going to have Hillary Clinton in the White House if you had your way?

But if you watched yesterday’s press conference, if you read about the fallout from it this morning, the Drive-Bys now smell blood, and they’re pig-biting mad they weren’t able to ask Trump the Flynn question yesterday ’cause Trump is calling on conservative media now in these press conferences, and it’s really ripping the Drive-Bys a new one. They just can’t abide it. But, folks, I really… I don’t want to sound like I’m delivering admonitions or warnings. Just a reassuring sense here that all of this was predicted.

It was going to happen, just like the protests that magically and immediately sprang up after Trump announced his executive order. This is who the left is. This is what you voted against. This is what you wanted no more of, this behavior. Not by Trump, not by Flynn. What you voted against — the reason you voted for Trump — is exactly what you’re seeing day to day now from the left and from the Democrat Party and from the media. Now, I’ve had this story laying about. I’ve addressed this story once, and I’ve kept it laying around.

There have been little additions to this story. This a Paul Sperry piece from the New York Post back on late Saturday night, Sunday: “How Obama Is Scheming to Sabotage Trump’s Presidency.” Now, this also should not be news. Two years before Obama’s term of office ended, I made repeated predictions that Obama would set a presidential precedent, that he would be the first president to not go away after he leaves office, and I figured this out when I first heard that Obama was going to stay in Washington.

I predicted, correctly so, that Obama was going to do whatever necessary to make sure that any unraveling of his agenda by Trump would be stopped, that an effort would be made to stop it. Now, one thing I predicted that hasn’t come true: I predicted that Obama would call the network friends of his and go on TV and rip Trump. That has yet to happen. It’s more clandestine than that. There is actually a behind-the-scenes effort to sabotage Trump’s administration. And I can give you a name, one person who’s actively engaged in it, twice now: Sally Yates.

She was the acting attorney general because the Democrats in the Senate delayed confirmation of Trump’s cabinet appointees, including Jeff Sessions to be the attorney general. And it turns out… You know, Sally Yates was the one who refused to defend Trump’s executive order banning travel from those six countries and Syria. She also, it turns out, supposedly advised the Trump administration that Flynn was talking to the Russians on a phone call back in December. Now, the question arises: How did anybody know?

There is a huge problem. You want to be concerned about a problem? I’ll give you a problem to be concerned about, and that’s the leaks that are coming from the Trump administration. Except I don’t think they’re coming from the Trump administration. I think it’s part of Obama scheming to sabotage Trump’s presidency. ‘Cause we’ve discussed this. The bureaucracy is filled with embedded leftists who’ve not been elected. They’ve been appointed. Some of them are in there for their lifetimes. They’re in there as career appointees, not political appointees, which means they say no matter who the president is.

The left has been stocking, so to speak, the bureaucracy with its own people just like they’ve been stocking the judiciary with their own judges. There’s all kinds of leaking going on, and even the details of this phone call between Flynn and the Russian ambassador. Somebody knows about it and somebody leaked it. Sally Yates is out saying (paraphrased), “I tried to warn the Trump people! I tried to warn the Trump people! But the Trump people weren’t listening. Maybe the Trump… I don’t know what the Trump people do but they weren’t listening.”

She’s trying to say that she tried to save ’em. There really isn’t any precedent for this. No president has ever formed a shadow government to sabotage the next president. Yet that is what Paul Sperry alleges in his piece in the New York Post over the weekend. Obama, according to this piece, has organized 32,000 well-trained “agitators” (i.e., community organizers) and these are the people who are going into Republican town halls, into Republican districts and overwhelming the meetings. Jason Chaffetz finally called it out the other day.

Somebody was asking him (sniveling reporter), “So, Congressman, what about your town halls? It looks like your constituents are just so opposed to what you’re doing,” and he shot back, “These are not my constituents! These are bought and paid for leftist protesters, and they’re being paid to be here.” He’s exactly right. That’s exactly who they are. They are being paid by Democrat donors. At the top of that list is George Soros. Some of the people that donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, some of the people that donated to Barack Obama’s campaigns are paying for all this.

The media is not impartial. The media’s not sitting back, biding its time, twiddling its thumbs and then seeing what’s happening here and reporting the outrage. The media is creating the outrage. The media is the blood in the water. The media is the assassination squad. The media is the Democrat Party. The media is the resistance. And you have to openly admit this and be aware of it if you’re going to partake of what the Drive-By Media broadcasts, prints, and reports each and every day. A pull quote from the Paul Sperry piece:

Obama is “doing it through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action.” That is a new subdivision of Obama’s protest group, if you will, that he formed after he was inaugurated called Organize for America. It was Organizing for America that, I think, gave birth to Occupy Wall Street, sort of a subhead. Now it’s called Organizing for Action. Sperry writes, “Normally you’d expect an organization set up to support a politician and his agenda to close up shop after that candidate leaves office, but not Obama’s [Organizing for Action].

“Rather, it’s gearing up for battle, with a growing war chest and more than 250 offices across the country.” (interruption) Sally Yates. (interruption) What did I say, Sally Quinn? Well, could have been Sally Yates. You know, she’s a Drive-By journalist out of Los Angeles. Sally Yates. It’s a Sally. “Bring Sally up. Bring Sally down.” Moby [Flower]! B-Side: “Bring Sally up. Bring Sally down.” Anyway, 250 Organizing for America offices under the auspices of Barack Hussein O have opened around the country since Obama has left office, and they are gearing up for battle.

They have a growing war chest and more than, as I say, 250 offices around the country. Now, I don’t want to get bogged down. What usually happens here is the left goes out on the attack — they’ve claimed a scalp here — and in the past I have seen it as my duty to spend some time defending against the assault that has taken place. At times, it’s been necessary. But I’m not gonna take the bait, folks. I’m just not gonna accept the premise and defend things on the basis that they’re right and that Trump’s wrong and that Trump’s bad, and that Trump’s incompetent, and his administration shouldn’t be…

I’m not even gonna go there. It’s a waste of time, and it pushes forward a premise of theirs that I do not want to credit or acknowledge or give any credence to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Grab me sound bite 21. We just got this. Marie Harf is guesting on a Fox program right now. It’s the all-babes show with one guy in the middle, and it’s called One Lucky Guy. No, the show is called Outnumbered. They got one guy in there with four women and he’s got act PC. Anyway, they put her in there, and she’s from the Obama State Department, and… (interruption) What? Yes, I know. “Sally Yates.” (interruption) Yes, yes, yes. I just needed a couple of minutes in the last segment which is the only reason I spent any.

We didn’t have time to get any substance or whatever. (interruption) No. No, no. Okay. Here’s what I think. I don’t think Flynn resigned; I think he was cut loose. He probably had no problem going because he doesn’t want to be a distraction, but the guy has a distinguished record; he’s hawk; the Democrats hate people like this. But I don’t think Trump should have caved, if that’s what happened, if Trump asked for his resignation, ’cause I think that’s what happened here. I mean, I know they’re gonna portray it as Flynn resigning.

This is the way these things are done. But I think this is a tactical mistake, folks, giving them a scalp like this. This is only gonna intensify this. Once you let the media and the Democrats know that they can force you to get rid of people you’ve put in your administration, they’re not gonna stop. Who’s the media gonna want next? I’ll give you a name: Kellyanne Conway. They’re not gonna stop until they get rid of Kellyanne Conway. And next it’s gonna be Spicer. When did Saturday Night Live become news, by the way?

Saturday Night Live — a failing comedy show before Trump came along — does their skits on Saturday night, and it’s the lead news item the next day on Sunday and into Monday, just like it was when what’s-her-name, Tina Fey, was impersonating Sarah Palin. I remember one year when Barbara Walters was still working at ABC News. It was the last… I’ve made this list two or three times, the top ten not most famous, but most fascinating people of the year. And I was on that list three times. And the last time I was on that list, you know who else was?
Tina Fey, for her impersonation of Sarah Palin.

Well, if you’re gonna have somebody impersonating Palin as one of the most fascinating people of the year, why don’t you just go for the real thing and put Palin on the list? But everybody’s going around, “Melissa McCarthy? Oh, my God! This is the greatest ever. Did you see the way she makes fun of Sean Spicer and then Alec Baldwin and Trump?” When did what happens on Saturday night become news? They report this as hard news. “Saturday Night Live once again skewered the Trump administration!”

What, are you people in the Drive-Bys unable to do it well enough so now you’ve got a credit a comedy show late-night on Saturday for this? So Kellyanne Conway. That’s who they’re gonna go for next. Anybody disagree with me on this? And then they’re gonna go for Spicer. And who knows where they’re gonna stop? But they’re not gonna stop. That’s the point. I would have just smiled and kept going. Flynn… It’s not even clear, because we’re dealing with leaks here, and Flynn has said that he’s not certain.

He told Pence that he didn’t speak about sanctions to the Russians and then thought that he might have and so forth. It’s not even clear that he lied, but I don’t want to split hairs on that. That’s getting too much in the weeds. This is right out in front of us. There’s obviously somebody or numerous people in the Trump administration who thought they could end this by giving the Drive-Bys Flynn, but it’s not gonna end anything; it never does. It’s just going to intensify — and once they’ve secured a scalp, they’re gonna keep going for more.

And you’re either gonna keep giving them scalps or you’re gonna put your foot down and move on and tell ’em to go pound sand. I mean, this man had worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He was a patriot. He’d worked for both administrations, a pro-life Democrat. His only sin was that he was in the Trump administration. And I’ll tell you what this is. You know what this is really all about? I’ll tell you what this is. This is what the Democrats are so irritated, and this is why I know that Obama’s post-presidential sabotage program is here.

What is this about? This is about Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, calling the Russians to talk about sanctions. Well, what sanctions? Well, it just so happens these are the sanctions that Obama slapped on the Russians for their supposed hacking of our election. I’m sorry, folks, but that’s a bogus premise to begin with. The Russians had nothing to do with whoever won our election. That, they could not have done. Did they try? Who knows? Do they always try? Probably.

Are they alone in trying to screw up the way things work in this country? No. Was it the first time the Russians had tried to hack a party server or network? No. They just happened to succeed this time, and all of the data that they released through WikiLeaks happened to be very damning to John Podesta and the Democrats. So Obama puts sanctions on Russia, and I’ll tell you what I think about this. I think Obama knew this is all just for show, like he knew this is all bogus. He had to do this.

He’s got this rabid base out there that has to be fed its diet of hate every day and every week. Obama’s leaving office, and the Democrats can never lose an election because of their ideas. Whenever the Democrats lose an election, it’s either voter fraud — which, of course, does not exist when Republicans allege it. They either lose because of voter fraud or somebody cheated or somebody lied or something else went wrong. Their messaging was bad. It’s never their ideas. Never! Including in this one.

So this was one the lame excuse for why Hillary lost — even though she has a record of losing elections like this — the Russians. And it goes further. Not just that the Russians sabotaged the Democrats. The Russians love Trump. The Russians are in bed with Trump. And we are supposed to hate the Russians. Well, the Democrats used to be in bed with the Soviet Union. The Democrats loved Soviet leaders. They loved Mikhail Gorbachev. They loved Brezhnev. They loved Yuri Andropov. They loved them all.

They hated Ronald Reagan. They counseled the Soviet Union how to get along and get by with Reagan until they, the Democrats, could get back in power. That was our old buddy Ted Kennedy that did that. So now here come the Democrats, all of a sudden outraged that there might be a relationship between Trump and Russia when the Democrats have lived off of a practical love affair with the Soviet Union for all those years. The hypocrisy here, the stench is so bad I can barely inhale.

So they have to come up with a trumped-up excuse of why they lost that can’t have anything to do with their ideas. So it’s the Russians! The Russians tampered. The Russians hacked the election. The Russians interfered. And they keep browbeating, ’cause Obama had said in months prior to the election — Obama official statements from the government — that Russian hacking had nothing to do with it. Obama claimed it wasn’t successful.

Obama went out numerous times and claimed is that the Russians’ attempts to hack Hillary’s server and all this had never worked because it was in Obama’s best interests to portray a picture where the Russians were incompetent, where they were not invasive, where they didn’t succeed, and he went out and made this point two or three times, despite the fact that their president, Barack Obama himself, was telling everybody the Russian hack didn’t happen, and this is months before the election. And then he did it again when they demanded that he say something about it. He made it clear.

But then after the election Trump wins and they have just discombobulated, can’t figure it out, they went back to it, the Russians are to blame, the Russians did it, and then Trump’s in bed with ’em. All because Trump wouldn’t criticize Putin. All because Trump seemed to be flattered when Putin complimented him. Russians getting scared to death. Trump getting the Democrats to get scared to death. The Democrats, “Oh, my God, this guy’s in bed with the Russians and the Russians killed us, the Russians destroyed our chance at the election.”

So they got Russia on their mind. Next thing that happened, Flynn, the incoming national security director, is talking to the Russian ambassador and it is supposedly a private phone conversation, we don’t know how it leaked, probably from Sally Yates. Sally Yates somehow got access to the details of the phone call, leaks it out. Now we know Flynn’s talking to the Russians. What does this all add up to? I will tell you.

The Democrats and their allies are convinced that Flynn was assuring the Russians that Obama’s little sanctions were gonna be yanked away as soon as Trump got into office. That’s what they think was going on. That is the elephant in the room. Nobody want to speculate on the details of the conversation. Flynn can’t assure anybody he had the conversation, but I’ll tell you, you put a Democrat on TV and I’ll tell you what’s in their mind.

They are offended, they are outraged because they have got themselves believing that Flynn was telling the Russian ambassador in advance, “Don’t worry about Obama’s sanctions. Obama’s history, he’s gone. Our boy Trump is gonna pull ’em out, he’s gonna yank ’em, he’s gonna remove the sanctions not long after he’s inaugurated.” That’s what they think went on. Do you doubt me, Mr. Snerdley?

That is what they think went on, and they think that would be outrageous because Obama was a legitimate president when he slapped those sanctions on and those sanctions should stay on Russia because Russia stole the election from Hillary. And they think Flynn was assuring — maybe others have speculated this, I haven’t heard, but I know this is what everybody’s underwear’s in a wad over when they think about Flynn talking to the Russian ambassador.

Let’s not forget that it was Obama a month before the 2012 elections who told Dmitry Medvedev — a little short guy, about 5’4, he’s one of Putin’s number one aides. It was a hot mic, Obama didn’t know the mic was still on and Obama is telling Medvedev (paraphrasing), “Tell Vlad to relax, that I’ll have a lot more flexibility after I win the election.” He was talking about getting rid of American nuclear weapons. Putin wasn’t satisfied with the speed with which Obama was denuking us, and he wanted Medvedev to tell Putin, “Don’t sweat it. I got it handled. I’ll have much more flexibility, ’cause nobody can do anything to me then. After I win the election, can’t run again, they can’t do anything to me.”

So here come the Democrats and here’s Obama, we actually have evidence of him colluding with Putin. And now these guys are all upset because they are convinced that Flynn was telling the Russians, “Don’t sweat it, we’re gonna yank Obama’s sanctions off and it’s gonna be fine and dandy once Trump gets into office.” That’s what they’re desperately trying to find out. That’s what they want to know. Dollar to a doughnut, I’m just giving you my wild guest assessment here.

This is not gonna end well if this keeps up, if these kinds of Democrats demand Flynn go, people demand Flynn go when this is hardly a fireable or resignable offense, unless the lie to Pence was just provable and blatant. But do you think the Democrats are concerned that Flynn lied to Pence and for that reason Flynn has to go? It has nothing to do with it as far as the Democrats are concerned. They couldn’t care less about that. I got the Harf sound bite here. I’ll play that when we get back.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: So the Democrats have their press conference going: What did President Trump know and when. And they’re all saying it doesn’t end with this. This affair doesn’t — what affair? What really happened here? If you want a little history about the Democrats and Flynn, I’ll tell you. This phone call leak, Flynn and his conversation with the Russian ambassador in December, it’s just the latest excuse for the media to go after Flynn.

Before they heard about that phone call, the Drive-Bys were demanding that Flynn resign because once upon a time he participated in a forum that was sponsored by Russia Today. Russia Today had a forum, he shows up, they wanted him to resign over that. Back in February of 2017, February 1st, a couple of weeks, six House Democrats sent a letter to the secretary of defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis requesting an investigation into Flynn’s connection to Russia Today, which happened back in 2015.

The Democrats claim that Flynn violated the anti-bribery foreign emoluments clause by accepting money from Russia Today to appear in their forum. Are you kidding me? All these same people who had no problem with Bill and Hillary’s paid speeches from whoever, from ChiCom leaders, ChiCom business leaders, anybody around the world were paying the Clintons 350, $275,000 to come make speeches, and she’s running for president, and they not once expressed any concern whatsoever about bribery, blackmail, or any of the other things that they’re now alleging that Flynn was guilty of because of a one-time appearance at something called Russia Today back in 2015. That is it.

Flynn was a patriot, is a patriot, he had Trump’s back, he loved Donald Trump. He was one of the early possibilities for secretary of defense. I remember him at Trump rallies. He even appeared in a debate-like thing. He didn’t do well in this debate, but there was no question he was totally behind Trump because he really believed this country is a great nation at risk in a dangerous world and that our threats are both external and internal, and he wanted to to root ’em out. And the Democrats know all this.

So now they want to portray this guy as some insane general that wants to start wars that’s taking money from Rand is in violation of all kinds of — Then he’s out there with that phone call to the Russian ambassador, and I guarantee you that they think that Flynn was promising the Russians to lift Obama’s sanctions, which would be like canceling the Ten Commandments as far as they’re concerned.

Here’s Marie Harf. She was the State Department spokesman for a time during the Obama administration talking about all this on Fox moments ago.

HARF: Look, Flynn had to go. But broader than that I think is the question of this administration’s relationship with Russia.

RUSH: See?

HARF: The content of that call does matter, I think. Either Flynn made this call going rogue or is part of a strategy that the incoming administration had to be closer with Russia. I think that’s concerning. I think that matters, and so going forward Flynn is out, that was right, but I do think we need to take a hard look at where this administration is going with Russia. Just look at the news today about the ship off the coast of Delaware. This is serious shift.

RUSH: Yeah, yeah, there’s a ship, there’s a Russian trawler off the coast of Delaware, you know why? So that Flynn could have a secret network to speak with the Russian ambassador even though he has resigned. What do they think? The Russians are allies of Trump? These people are the ones that are insane. Marie Harf has just demonstrated that she is irrational and her feet are not on the ground about any of this. These are the dangerous people when it comes to protecting this country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Susan Rice lies five times, five different Sunday morning TV shows, on what happened in Benghazi, the video being behind it. Marie Harf, no care, no problem. This is way out of proportion here, folks, way, way, way gone.