RUSH: Have you seen the reaction that everybody’s had to Trump’s appearance at the Boy Scouts yesterday? My God, it’s worse than if they figured out Putin has ties to Russia. These people have gone literally bonkers here! And the left doesn’t particularly like the Boy Scouts, in my recollection. President Trump went out there, said, who wants to hear about Washington, right?

Trump proceeded to give them 40 minutes on Washington and ripped Washington to shreds and the Boy Scouts were loving it, “USA, USA, we love Trump.” And the left and the media and everybody once again blew every gasket that they have on this. This is hilarious to watch. It’s all so predictable.

Anyway, welcome. Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh once again executing broadcast excellence here behind the Golden EIB Microphone as America’s real and true anchorman. The telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us.

Okay. So they’re gonna have a procedural vote in the Senate this afternoon on the pathway here to perhaps repealing and replacing Obamacare. John McCain is returning with doctor’s permission from Arizona to participate in the vote today, and the president tweeted about that. He congratulated Senator McCain, called him brave and courageous.

I don’t have the tweet in front of me, so I’m paraphrasing, but there was nothing in this tweet about happy you were captured. “It’s great to have you back, and you’re a great hero,” and so forth. John McCain all the great effort to come back and vote on the health care bill.

Jeff Sessions, watching this is unprecedented. You’ve got Scaramucci on TV, “Yeah, I think the president wants Sessions gone.” You got other people in the administration, “Yeah, I’m not particularly sure that Trump’s still fond of Sessions.” Meanwhile, Sessions isn’t going anywhere. And it’s amazing, the left is no longer calling Sessions “Beauregard.” All of a sudden now they love Jeff Sessions. They love Jeff Sessions because he apparently has become a target of President Trump’s.

But, if you ask me, if the Democrats would be consistent, they should be joining President Trump and demanding that Sessions be fired. Didn’t they think Sessions should not have been confirmed in the first place? Weren’t they saying that Sessions was this over-the-top racist and over-the-top bigot and that he shouldn’t be anywhere near the attorney general’s office? I remember that clear as a bell, how the left did everything they could to tarnish the reputation and good name of Jeff Sessions. I mean, if they were consistent, they would be applauding Trump’s apparent efforts to force a resignation here.

You know, this hypocrisy is too easy. It’s low-hanging fruit, and it is present in practically every story. Here’s the Washington Post: “Trump Leaves Sessions Twisting in the Wind While Berating Him Publicly.” And we touched on some of this yesterday. “President Trump and his advisers are privately discussing the possibility of replacing Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and some confidants are floating prospects who could take his place were he to resign or be fired, according to people familiar with the talks.

“Members of Trump’s circle, including White House officials, have increasingly raised the question among themselves in recent days as the president has continued to vent his frustration with the attorney general.”

Has anybody kept track how many times the Washington Post has falsely claimed somebody is gonna be fired based on anonymous sources? But they just don’t seem to be able to stop themselves. One of the names that’s been bandied about was Ted Cruz as a replacement for Sessions, should he be fired or resign. Cruz is denying that he’s being considered for the spot, U.S. attorney general.

About Sessions, let’s see. We got some audio sound bites. Let’s start with number two. This morning on CNN’s show called Early Start the cohost Dave Briggs speaking with the Washington Examiner senior political correspondent David Drucker about the possibility that Trump might fire Sessions. And this is part of that conversation.

BRIGGS: A guy named Rush Limbaugh said it’s a little bit discomforting, unseemly for Trump to go after such a loyal supporter this way. I could go on and on with conservatives standing up for Jeff Sessions. What would it mean if the president fired him and what’s his future?

DRUCKER: I think that if the president fired Jeff Sessions or if Jeff Sessions resigned after this beleaguered sort of treatment, that you’d have Republicans on the Hill, number one, that would be petrified that Mueller was next, that what the president was really do is trying to find a way to get to Robert Mueller, the special counsel.

RUSH: That’s the scuttlebutt inside the Beltway. That’s the scuttlebutt among the ruling class. The scuttlebutt is that all of this Sessions stuff is being done as a prelude, part of the recipe necessary to fire the special counsel, Robert Mueller. And who knows. The conventional wisdom is that Mueller’s gonna get fired; it’s just a question of when and how it’s done.

I had this piece from yesterday that I’m gonna get into today. It’s an advisory piece for Trump on if he’s gonna fire Mueller, how to do it, when to do it, what to do before he does it.

Which takes us to John Brennan, John Brennan, the former CIA director for Obama. There’s this thing in Aspen, they do it now and then called the Aspen Ideas conference. This is the outfit run by Walter Isaacson, who used to run TIME Magazine, used to run CNN. He wrote the big biography of Steve Jobs. Runs the Aspen Institute where they do the Aspen Ideas summit or seminar or what have you.

They get anchors from the various cable news networks to come out there and moderate these discussions. It was Wolf Blitzer nominating a discussion that included Brennan, the former CIA director for Obama. And he practically called for a coup if Trump decides to fire Mueller. And I guess Brennan means a second coup because there’s already a coup underway.

There is already a silent coup, and it’s been underway for quite a while to get rid of Donald Trump. And it features a lot of buddies of Brennan, Obama administration holdovers and embeds in the deep state at the Pentagon, State Department, various intelligence agencies. There is this silent coup that’s been going on for a while.

So I guess Brennan is actually calling for a second one here. The first one with Clapper, Brennan, Comey decided to use this phony Russian dossier to try to take down Trump or blackmail him, whatever they were trying to do with it, this totally phony golden showers dossier. That’s when the original coup, the silent coup, began.

Now, specifically, Brennan said — in fact, let’s go audio sound bite number 6. We have this handy. It’s from the Aspen Security Forum. The Ideas Summit takes place at a different time of year. Wolf Blitzer moderating this thing with Brennan, and he said to the former CIA director, “Do you have confidence in the special counsel, Mr. Mueller?”

BRENNAN: If he’s fired by Mr. Trump or attempted to be fired by Mr. Trump, I hope, I really hope that our members of Congress, our elected representatives, are gonna stand up and say enough is enough and stop making apologies and excuses for things that are happening that really flout, I think, our system of laws and government here. It’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out some of these orders that, again, are inconsistent with what this country is all about.

RUSH: So there you have it. I mean, no matter where you go with people writing about this, they are referencing it as essentially a call for a coup if Trump decides to fire Mueller. Now, Brennan appeared alongside James Clapper, who was the Director of National Intelligence for Obama. Clapper told Wolf Blitzer that they have total confidence in Mueller. “Absolutely. He was an inspired choice. They don’t come any better,” Brennan said.

Now, when you have a CIA director for Obama praising a special counsel, then you know that this idea that Mueller is this straight arrow down the middle moderate, goes both way, is not specifically partisan. You know that’s bunk. I mean, if these people are gonna be praising the guy. Brennan also said that if Mueller is fired, I hope our elected reps will stand up and say enough is enough.

This burning hatred for Trump — and, by the way, he’s feeding it. There’s no desire, he’s feeding it with all of the tweets and all of the things he’s saying, going to the Boy Scouts. He is just in their face on this stuff every day. A lot of people are scratching their heads over what it all means and what’s going on. And none of it, none of the reaction, no polling data, none of it seems to deter Trump from what he is attempting to do here. But I mean this is pretty serious stuff when the former CIA director calls for a coup while there already is one underway, basically asking people to refuse to execute the order.

I mean, how would this silent coup…? Well, no. This wouldn’t be silent. How would this requested coup manifest itself? I mean, a coup is a takeover. It’s not just obstruction. It’s not just stopping somebody. I mean, Brennan said here, “I hope that if that order is given that whoever gets it refuses to do it.” Well, that’s not a coup, refusing to do it. A coup is moving in there and ridding the government of the guy. A coup is moving in there and taking the guy out. That’s why many coups actually occur with the military.

You need a show of force behind it — and I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t doubt… I’ve seen enough James Bond movies, and I’ve seen enough stuff to know that there are people attempting to convince military people. I think the level of panic about Trump inside the Beltway is beyond what we even think. I think the panic, the outrage, the frustration, the inability to cope… I think it is way, way, way beyond what even we think based on what we see. I think they are bordering on panic, absent any kind of rationality, because this is driven by pure, unadulterated hatred.

It’s personal hatred.

It’s professional hatred.

It’s political hatred.

The opposition to Trump is fueled by this hatred — and it’s causing them, I believe, to lose elements of their sanity. I think it’s causing them to certainly lose elements of their rationality. So I wouldn’t doubt… I have no evidence, by the way. I will openly state I’m just speculating using intelligence guided by experience that these people are so far gone over what’s happened to their precious town — to their precious power base, to their precious control of things. That I wouldn’t doubt if a couple of them are making phone calls retired generals (who still get up and put the uniform on every day even though they’re retired) and soliciting their assistance — should it ever become necessary, of course — to lead a rebellion.

I don’t have any evidence of it. None whatsoever. As I say, intelligence guided by experience. But clearly there’s an uncontrolled rage and an irrationality in the anti-Trump forces — on the left primarily. The Never Trumpers are not as far gone as the leftist groups that hate Trump. So I’m not including the… I don’t think, for example, anybody at one of your favorite conservative blog sites is colluding with retired generals and colluding with Brennan and former Obama intelligence types. But I think that these people are so, so unhinged now that, in their minds, “Whatever it takes! Whatever it takes, Mabel!”

So we’ll just have to wait and see. And the more Trump tweets and the more he behaves in ways they just don’t understand — such as allowing Sessions to twist in the wind and be openly criticized the way Trump is doing — they’re going crazy. They started out crazy, you know, the night of the election, and it has only amplified since then. But the take-away here is that a former CIA director is essentially asking for a coup against the sitting president if the sitting president fires the special counsel — which he is entirely constitutionally entitled to do. If Trump were to fire Mueller, legally, constitutionally, he can do it. The ramifications will be political, not legal.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s one other answer that the former CIA director, John Brennan, gave at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He said, “I think it’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out the order to fire Mueller, if it comes. I would just hope that this is not gonna be a partisan issue.” (chuckles) Oh, really? You hope it’s not gonna be a partisan issue? What does that mean you got Bill Kristol on your team? That makes it bipartisan?

Brennan said that Republicans and Democrats “are going to see that the future of this government is at stake and something needs to be done for the good of the future.” Says a guy voted for the Communist Party candidate for president back in 1980. John Brennan once voted for the Communist Party candidate. It makes perfect sense he’d be a CIA director for Obama. The future of the government’s at stake? How can people ignore what went on the last eight years, when the United States’ standing in the world was specifically pared down, when the United States of America was presented by American officials as a problem in the world and not a solution?

The future of the government is at stake? Note what he’s saying: “The future of this government is at stake,” not the future of the country. And, believe me, that is quite telling. Here is a guy, a quintessential member of the inside-the-Beltway elite establishment, and he hopes that Republicans and Democrats alike are going to see that “the future of this government” is at stake, and something needs to be deny for the good of the future of the government. In that little comment, much was revealed.

Because to these people, it is all about the government and who runs it, who has the reins of power, which is what this is all about. These people have a natural entitlement to power. I mean, look, this is not a partisan thing in this sense: Republican versus Democrat, left versus right. The establishment has members of all parties and ideologies in there, and they are an elite bunch, and it is they, trained in the Ivy League, who believe that there is — some because of their birth, some because of their education or other aspects of their lineage — an entitlement to the reins of power.

So it’s not the future of the country that concerns Mr. Brennan. No, no, no, no, no, no. It is the future of the government. They just can’t stand it! You know, folks, forget whether you think Trump is over the top on some of these things. That’s not what I’m talking about. Just the fact that he’s there is what has these people out of control. Just the fact that he’s there. And then Trump being Trump just adds to the original state of shock and disbelief.