RUSH: The health care debate’s raging, and we’re gonna have Mike Pence on here in an hour. Vice President Mike Pence will be here, we’ll talk to him a little bit about the status of health care. Folks, this is another thing, trying to wade through this and figure out how it’s going and what is gonna end up happening.

If you had to pin me down on it in a couple of sentences, it looks to me like nobody wants to vote for this thing, but they think they might have to — again, for political reasons. Well, because the Republicans promised that they were gonna repeal and replace Obamacare, and whatever they do will be called that. You know, just claim victory and claim they did it and then wait for people to figure out whether or not any substantive changes actually occur. Other people are holding out for real, real replacement and real, real repeal.

It’ll depend on who you talk to. The votes are not there in the House right now, and they’re certainly not there in the Senate. And, again, depending on who you talk to, if the Senate… I take that back. If members of the House figure out — or not figure out. If members of the House think that the bill is gonna get killed in the Senate, then why go down the tubes with it? If it’s gonna die in the Senate, let’s just kill it in the House. And then there’s another school of thought that says, “No, we have to pass it in the House. It’s gotta be passed now. We have a definite Republican majority here. If it doesn’t pass the House, that’s just politically… That’s suicide.

“We’ve got to pass it here and we’ve gotta send it to the Senate.” But the number of Republicans in the Senate who have come out and said they’re voting against it? Mitch McConnell’s gonna need some Democrats for it to pass there. And I’ll tell you something else that’s happened here. Grab audio sound bite 15. I’m gonna get back to what I intended to bring up here, setting the table for the health care discussion to come. Yesterday in Washington, Paul Ryan had a press conference to talk about the president’s trip up to Capitol Hill to rally support for the Obamacare repeal-and-replacement bill, and this is what the Speaker of the House said…

RYAN: The president just came here and knocked the ball out of the park. He knocked the cover off the ball and explained to our members how it’s important to unify, how it’s important to work together, how we are advancing our principles and we are doing what we told the American people we would do. This is our chance, and this is our moment. It’s a big moment, and I think our members are beginning to appreciate just what kind of a rendezvous with destiny we have right here.

RUSH: All right. Now, there are a lot of cynics out there. But you heard what Ryan did. Did you hear what Ryan did there? Do you think, “Oh, yeah, Rush! He really praised Trump. That’s cool.” Do you think that’s what really happened there? (interruption) What do you think happened? (interruption) What do you think happened? (interruption) I know you’re not a big fan of the speaker. What do you think happened? (interruption) Well, I’ll tell you what the cynics say happened is that Paul Ryan just turned this thing over to Trump, and it’s got his name on it now, not Trump’s — and that if it goes down, it’s Trump’s.

If it succeeds and nobody likes it, it’s Trump’s. They say that Ryan has outmaneuvered Trump. That’s what the cynics are saying. That it’s a bad bill, that it doesn’t do a lot of things Trump promised, but somehow Trump’s up there pushing for it. He got behind it, he got behind Ryan’s bill for whatever reason, and now Ryan’s done a flip-flop on this and turned a bad bill over to Trump, and now Trump owns it. That’s the cynical view of what’s going on. So, in other words: Republican infighting. The one thing that appears to be true — and again, that’s just from this far-distant vantage point observing. (chuckles)

Where is the happiness (chuckles) associated with blowing up Obamacare? Remember, now, ever since Obamacare became law, standard operating procedure for any elected Republican has been to promise — first, second, and third in any statement — to get rid of it. “We’re gonna repeal and replace it. We’re gonna replace it. We’re gonna fix Obamacare. We’re gonna fix the American health care system.” Okay. So there was an election. Trump wins the presidency; the Republicans increase their control in the House of Representatives.

The Senate is controlled by Republicans by (depending on how you count) two or four votes. Now they’re gonna repeal and replace Obamacare, and I’ll be damned if I can find anybody happy about it. (chuckling) That’s one… Now, Trump is selling it. He’s even tweeting about it, even now. (paraphrased) “We’re doing great work on health care. It’s gonna be the greatest health care; it’s gonna be the best health care. You’re not gonna believe how great it is. Win, win, win!” Trump’s excited about it. Trump’s out there selling it. I guess Ryan –in his own way, when he has his press conference — was talking about what’s in it and the effort here.

But when you get past those two and into the rank-and-file, have you detected any glow of happiness over this, Mr. Snerdley? (interruption) Seriously. I mean, I could be wrong. I’m not watching everything. I mean, getting rid of this… This is like defeating socialism! Getting this thing… There ought to be parades. There ought to be bands. We ought to be playing the Star-Spangled Banner, God Save the Queen, God Bless America, Battle Hymn of the Republic. You know, take copies of the lyrics and shove ’em down Chuck Schumer’s throat. Where is all that?

Where is the celebration of getting rid of one of the greatest attempted socialist takeovers in this country? Am I missing something? Are we adults and we don’t celebrate like that? (interruption) That’s not it? (sigh) Okay. Well, look, I have all the stories here. I could go through the minutia. I could get into the weeds with the best of them, folks. I could slither around in there like your average iguana or like a snake, whatever it takes to find you the numbers and to tell you who’s voting “no” and who’s voting “yes” and how many we’re short in the House.

How many we might be short in the House depending on what the Freedom Caucus does. I can go back and forth on what the Freedom Caucus might do. The conservatives may stand tight and vote it down; they may vote with it. It depends on what they think the Republicans in the Senate are gonna do. And we have people also speculating here that the bill’s gonna go down anyway so we gotta figure out a way to blame it on the Democrats. The Republicans are saying, “No, if the bill is gonna go down, we need to find a way to blame it on Trump, because some of us don’t like Trump.”

They’re in the establishment, too, some of these people. Then you throw polling data in the mix, I mean, for people that love to speculate and treat politics like it’s a day at the races and you’re handicapping horses, this is made to order for people like that to whom the outcome is only the equivalent of who wins a horse race. But to those of us who are really concerned about how the hell this is gonna impact us and our country, it’s dead serious. You throw in that Trump’s threatening to campaign against any of the Republicans that don’t vote for them in 2018 — and he means it.

And then there are those who have — tell me if this is you — there are those who just have total trust in Trump and believe that everything in the news about this right now is designed to make people think it’s blowing up, designed to make people think it’s a disaster, designed to make people think that it’s going to fail when at the end of the day it’s gonna be a grand-slam home run and Trump is going to have kept his promise. And if we just let Trump be Trump, let him do what he does, negotiate, do deals and all that, it’s gonna be fine.

You don’t know anybody like that? I do. I know lots of people like that. That’s easier than rolling up the sleeves and getting into the weeds and the minutia of all this and trying to figure it out.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Patricia, Cedarville, Ohio, I’m glad you waited.  I appreciate your patience, and welcome to the program.

CALLER:  Oh, thank you, Rush.  Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH:  Yes, ma’am.

CALLER:  You had mentioned early on that you were very concerned about the left and how insane they are and what they’re gonna do, and I feel like, you know, if our Republican Party up there voted together, I mean, if they had all in one mind, that wouldn’t be a problem.  You mentioned the voters, who they listen to, the voters, Trump or the Koch brothers, and, I tell you what, it’s not the voters, because we have emailed and called, and they don’t like Trump, so it has to be the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce that they’re listening to.  It’s sure not us, the constituents.

RUSH:  What she is referring to, folks — I have it here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers — a Daily Mail story:  “Republicans face Catch 22 on whether to back Trumpcare — face the wrath of Trump or billionaire Koch brothers.”  That means donors.  The Koch brothers donate big bucks.

“President Trump urging GOP lawmakers to back Paul Ryan’s health care bill.” But the Koch brothers, Charles and David, are among conservatives who oppose the health care bill, as does the Freedom Caucus in the House. The Koch brothers “have retaliated against Republicans not hawkish enough” on reducing government spending. So far, it appears that there aren’t enough conservatives in the House voting for Trumpcare or Ryancare, whatever it is, to make it win.

But it’s a new revelation here, Patricia, that the elected Republicans have a trinity, a triune here that they’re afraid of.  Voters — which is you and you think they’re not afraid of you at all — or Trump, or the dreaded Koch brothers.

CALLER:  Well, they think that we are not gonna remember this when it comes 2018 or 2020, and, I tell you what —

RUSH:  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  No, no, no, they know you’re going to remember it.  That’s not how they calculate this.

CALLER:  Okay.

RUSH:  They calculate that they’ll be able to assure you again that they mean it this time on whatever they’re telling you that they’re gonna do.

CALLER:  Right.

RUSH:  And they’ll say, “Look, if you just give us eight more in the Senate, there’s no stopping us.”  So you go out and you give ’em 60 votes in the Senate and then they’ll be afraid of the Koch brothers or something will come along. No, they know.  They’ve had enough of their bigwigs primaried out like Eric Cantor.  They know.

CALLER:  Yeah, I think what fuels the left also is that they see such weakness up there. They see Republicans that don’t want to make a decision, you know, they don’t want to confirm some fabulous guy like Gorsuch, let’s just put this on hold, you know, we can do the nuclear thing, but we don’t want to go there and all this.  They say weakness in us, and we’re the party that won.  It’s just ridiculous to me, Rush.

RUSH:  I know, you’re singing my tune out there.  Roll over, Beethoven.

CALLER:  I’m telling you.

RUSH:  That’s why I said, my way of expressing this I think last week was to ask people, do you see glow of victory on the faces of any Republicans in Washington?  It’s like I say, if this is it, if we’re gonna get rid of Obamacare, this is the thing that half the Republicans got reelected on.  Half of them got elected on, getting rid of Obamacare, the modern embodiment of socialism planted in our country to further a socialist takeover, and we’re gonna get rid of it?

Where’s the parade?  Where are the marching bands?  Where are the cheerleaders?  Where is this great celebration to signal that we’re finally gonna roll this baby back?  I don’t see it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Steve in Bear, Delaware. Welcome, sir, great to have you on EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Rush. Right to the point. “Tort reform.” Have you heard those two words this year yet?

RUSH: No, and I don’t —

CALLER: One way to lower real health care costs in the country very quickly, is tort reform.

RUSH: I don’t expect to hear the words —

CALLER: Well, you’ve got big awards, you got all the extra tests, you got doctors’ insurance, and we’re paying for that. I know Congress is full of lawyers, and I’m afraid our president might be close to the lawyer lobby.

RUSH: You know, that’s not so much the problem. You know, I was gonna get into this. I’m gonna have to save this for Friday. There was a story is in the Washington Post Sunday: “Inside Trump’s White House, New York Moderates Spark Infighting and Suspicion.” There are a couple of Democrats in there from Goldman Sachs — Trump put ’em in there — and I have tracked this story down. Normally the Drive-By Media thinking it’s BS. This story happens to be on the money. This may be more problematic than Democrat opposition on some things, but I have to save this ’til Friday.