RUSH: Time to get started here on the phones. And, again, I really appreciate all of you waiting. This is Mike in Brooklyn. Great to have you, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: Rush?

RUSH: Hey.

CALLER: How are you, Rush? It’s an honor to speak to you.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.

CALLER: I’m a longtime listener, first-time caller. I’ve tried reaching you hundreds of times, but I’m glad I finally got through. I’m just wondering about, you know, all this talk about impeaching President Trump. You know, back when Obama was in office and he was doing all the criminal acts and stepping all over our Constitution (unintelligible) and the Republicans saying that, you know, we can’t do nothing. They have the House or we don’t have enough votes or blah, blah, blah. Well, now we have the House, we have the Senate, we have everything.

RUSH: This is such an excellent question. This is why this program has the most intelligent listeners — and that’s because of me — in the country. His question is why are we even talking about impeachment? The Republicans own the House of Representatives. If the Republicans hang together, is his point, there’s no way that Trump could be impeached! Well, impeachment is the bringing of charges. He can be impeached, but they have to convict him. That would happen in the Senate.

But before that, the House has to come up with articles of impeachment, they have to pass the House. Then the House assigns people that are called managers to take the case to the Senate where the trial would take place, and his question is how the hell can any of this be seriously discussed. Back during Obama, discussions of impeachment, you couldn’t hear them because there was no way that the Democrats, especially the first term. Democrats ran the Senate. There was not gonna be any chance of a conviction.

By the way, Andy McCarthy makes a great point about impeachment. He’s even written a book about it. Impeachment really is not a criminal proceeding. The American people have been conditioned to believe that, you know, high crimes and misdemeanors means what? Impeachment is a purely political process. And it can only succeed if there is the political will for it out there in the country. You can have all the misdemeanors and high crimes you want, but if the president’s popular, you’re not gonna succeed.

Republicans tried it with Slick Willie. Slick Willie’s approval numbers were 55-plus. I really believe that Lindsey Graham, who was a member of the House during the Clinton impeachment, was so embarrassed by it that that’s when he began to wander off the conservative reservation. But now that Republicans have this vast majority in the House, how are we even talking about this? And that brings up — this is why old Mike here has had a brilliant question — this brings up a fundamental point about what is happening.

And, Mike, I thank you again for providing for me the transition into this, which, when it’s all over, it’s gonna result in the host looking really good, which is the purpose of calls. Not to be complimentary, of course. Hang on. We’ll get to this and I’ll tell you what I’m talking about right after this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, back to our caller. This is such, such an important point here. With the Democrats and the media out there howling like wolves over investigation, why isn’t it automatically considered impossible because Trump is a Republican, and the Republicans own the House, and there’s no way we would think that the Republicans are ever gonna vote out articles of impeachment against one of their own? Especially with no evidence of anything yet. There’s no crime. Nobody has a crime. Folks, if there had been a crime, you would know it.

That would be all they’re talking about. They’re trying to make you think crimes occurred. They’re trying to make you think obstruction has taken place here. I made the observation the other day: Where are the Republicans? They’re making no effort to defend the president. The president, as I’ve been maintaining, all he’s got is you. You people that voted for him. And don’t think for a moment that McCain is not behind a lot of this that’s going on.

You know, McCain’s had his nose out of joint (and it’s understandable) ever since Trump said he didn’t respect people that got caught. He didn’t like generals and military… He didn’t respect them… If you don’t get caught by the enemy, Trump likes you more. I think McCain has been seething since day two of the Trump campaign. Don’t forget, it was McCain that was intimately, directly involved in that fake Trump dossier, the golden showers dossier, remember that? Where Trump supposedly grabbed Melania.

They went to the Moscow hotel room that President Obama and Moochelle had used and that they hired prostitutes to come in there and urinate on the bed, and that report was written by a guy for a British independent contractor security agency. It was then presented to Trump as all lies, as an example of the kind of crap that’s out there. “Mr. President, we want you to know what we’re defending you against. We want you to know the kind of stuff that’s out there.” McCain and others tried to pass this off as real. The media’s been trying to pass it off as real.

This is the thing that BuzzFeed published in toto, and there’s no evidence for any of it. So where are the Republicans? The Republicans are part of the establishment that Trump took on. Mitch McConnell’s been out there saying that he wants less drama so that Congress can get its work done. Meaning, Trump’s gotta go, Trump’s gotta shape up, Trump’s gotta stop causing all this drama. But the drama’s being produced by the media, and it’s an onslaught. It’s unhinged journalistic rage that will not end. It will not stop for five seconds.

Make book: At 5:30 every day there’s now a new bombshell. It’s at 5:30, just in time for the evening news, but too late for the Trump team to mount any kind of defense before the evening news. There’s gonna be one today at 5:30. No idea what it is. But that’s the formula now: A Trump bombshell, a Trump blockbuster, Trump breaking news at five to 5:30… (interruption) Yep, Brian’s already figured it out. He’s sitting there nodding his head in agreement. Do you not think it’s kind of a little bit ironic for any Republican in Congress to talk about getting work done when they have been doing nothing for seven, eight years?

Now, I know they didn’t have the numbers to do a lot, but seriously: Where is the Trump agenda in legislative form? Where is it? My point is, he doesn’t have a lot of help here. I know why. They don’t like him much more than the Democrats do. Problem is, they wouldn’t be in power without him. They wouldn’t have their majorities without him. Well, the House might, but it wouldn’t be nearly as big. The Senate clearly wouldn’t. The Democrats wouldn’t be as weak politically, electorally as they are without Donald Trump.

Some gratitude, you would think? And then got McCain out there.

He’s along with all those Never Trumpers. I could name names, but I don’t want to give ’em any more recognition than they already have. They’re all so-called conservatives. They’re not conservative, but they think they define it, and they think they’re the leaders of the conservative movement. But their balls are so tiny, they don’t even need to wear jockstraps when they run out to jog. They still refuse to give Trump even a smidgen of support for the cause that they believe in because they think Trump’s subverting conservatism. Trump didn’t subvert conservatism. Trump just came in and filled a void.

He happened to be overwhelmingly popular, which rubbed these people’s nose out of joint. You think that doesn’t bother McCain, either, Trump’s popularity? So you got all these whiners who find Trump to be problematic. All these whiners who say Trump’s short here and he’s not smart enough there and he’s causing us too much embarrassment over there and Trump’s making us look like fools and Trump’s just such a pig.

It’s because of Trump we don’t have Hillary Clinton. It’s not because of McConnell. It’s not because of McCain that we don’t have Hillary. It’s because of Trump that we’ve got a great replacement for Scalia on the Supreme Court. McConnell does get some credit there for stonewalling Merrick Garland. I’m not trying to shortchange anybody here.

It’s a great question. This idea of impeachment ought to not even appear on the page. It ought to be so impossible because the Republicans ought not want to get anywhere near it, but all they’ve gotta do is say Nixon and Watergate. That was as profoundly embarrassing for the Republicans as Goldwater’s defeat in 1960 was.

Related Links
RushLimbaugh.com: In His Inaugural Address Donald Trump Declared War on the Establishment — And This Is What It Looks Like - 05.17.17
National Review: Under the Obama Precedent, No Trump Obstruction of Justice - Andrew C. McCarthy
Bloomberg: Hill GOP Reels From Trump Chaos, Struggles to Chart Course
Breitbart: John McCain: Comey Leaks ‘of Watergate Size and Scale’

        

                                

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