RUSH: There’s something I have to observe as a setup. I don’t know if you people have seen this or not. I’ve seen it twice now. Two different stories, one of them from a supposedly conservative columnist (who never was and is now demonstrated that she isn’t). That would be Jennifer Rubin. People are beginning to invoke perhaps, they say, the necessity of the 25th Amendment. Do you know what the 25th Amendment is?

The 25th Amendment basically is the cabinet gets together and votes on whether or not the president is competent to serve, and, if not, they vote him out of office and there’s a line of succession that would assume power. This happens. And more and more people — well, it’s two that I’ve seen and maybe more than that — are now saying we’re on the verge of needing this because Trump is losing his mind. Trump is wandering around aimlessly in the White House with no friends. He’s muttering to the photos on the wall. He’s lost it and is on the verge of losing it completely.

They evidence they cite is the president demanding to increase our nuclear arsenal by tenfold, despite everybody involved in this denying it. This, of course, is the springboard to Trump supposedly being called a moron by Secretary of State Tillerson, which then led to Trump suggesting an online IQ contest between him and Tillerson in which he would win.

Well, the left, not finding any evidence whatsoever and now scraping the bottom of the barrel with the Trump dossier, can’t find any evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians, is now grasping at every straw. If anybody’s losing their minds out there, it is the left, and this Harvey Weinstein story out there on top of everything else is speeding the process of them going crazy. We are witnessing the left break down and go nuts right before our very eyes. But there are these two references I’ve seen. And the Drive-Bys, all it takes is one Drive-By to pick it up, it will be amplified.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

So I don’t know that Trump’s losing his mind. They have never thought he had one. But the reason I mentioned all this is because Trump was on with Hannity last night. Did any of you in there watch Trump with Hannity last night? Well, I saw a little bit of it, and I didn’t see anybody out of it. I saw somebody completely relaxed and confident, certainly not sitting on the edge of his seat worried. I didn’t see Humphrey Bogart juggling the marbles. I didn’t see anything of the sort.

And then at the ceremony at the White House this morning where Trump takes a huge slice out of Obamacare. I saw a relaxed guy laughing and having fun, as he was last night on the Hannity show. We don’t have any behavioral evidence that would indicate Trump’s losing his mind. It’s all found in the Drive-By Media. And it’s reported in the Drive-By Media by anonymous sources inside the White House, sources close to Secretary Mattis, sources close to Secretary Tillerson, sources close that do not wish to go on the record because of the sensitivity and the nature of the allegations being leveled and so forth. You just don’t see any evidence of it, but it’s out there now.

Jennifer Rubin’s piece today — she writes where now? She used to be at the Wall Street Journal. That’s right, she went to the Washington Post, a so-called conservative blogger. “When Do We Reach 25th Amendment Territory?” And there’s one other reference. I think there’s a story on Drudge that’s not headlined, but it mentions it in the story.

If you watch Trump this morning, you saw Trump last night, you see Trump at any time, he doesn’t appear to be anybody under a dark cloud to me. It seems to me that all of Trump’s opponents are the ones cracking up. I mean, the suicide watch is out on leftists, not us. Certainly not on Trump.

The Harvey Weinstein story, gee. I mean, in Hollywood they’re even shocked that somebody could fall this fast. Well, I know that Don Lemon is losing his mind. They’re all losing their minds over there. They’re losing their minds everywhere that all of this is happening to them. Look at what is rearing its head. These people have thought they occupied the moral high ground, the sexual harassers and abusers of women were exclusively all on the right.

Well, those stories are few and far between, but on the left you’ve got Teddy Kennedy, you’ve got Bill Clinton, you’ve gotten Weinstein, you’ve got Anthony Weiner, Carlos Danger and any number of other actors on the left and so many theories that I have developed to, in my mind, explaining all of this are now presenting themselves in front of everybody’s eyes.

I mean, they think they have the moral purity, the proper respect for women. And you look on the left and the serial abusers and rapists and the perverts are all found on their side, at least a significant number of them are. While these people have told themselves that they are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. And they’re reaching I think their wits’ end at their inability to get rid of Trump. I mean, they thought they’d get this done inside of a month or two. I really do. They believed this stuff. They believed their own BS.

I’m sure they believe that Trump colluded with the Russians. I’m sure they believe that Putin stole the election. I’m sure they believe it. They’ve gotten themselves so immersed in it, they believe it. That’s not mentally healthy. And as they believe a succession of these crazy things and then they don’t come to pass, then they get even crazier and nuttier.

And it isn’t Trump. Trump is not the one that appears with a dark cloud over him no matter how the Drive-Bys want to spin things. What I see makes me refute everything the Drive-Bys are reporting about Trump’s state of mind. He seems to me to be with it, involved, knowledgeable, happy — that’s the key — Trump’s supposed to be miserable, you know, nobody’s supposed to be able to withstand this kind of withering assault day after day after day after day for over a year.

Everybody should have crumbled by now. But certainly nobody should be thriving at the end it, nobody should be happy, upbeat, determined, but Trump doesn’t let go. I think probably Trump’s supporters get more depressed than he does over day-to-day events.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: And we go back to the phones. This is Shelly in Ocala, Florida. Welcome. I’m glad you waited. I appreciate your patience.

CALLER: (chuckles) Glad to talk to you, Rush. I have a comment about these people floating that 25th Amendment trying to get rid of Trump

RUSH: Yes, ma’am?

CALLER: I wonder if they have thought about how they’re going to deal with the fallout if they are actually successful, because the Trump supporters are not just gonna walk away, shrug their shoulders, and leave. They are gonna rip this country apart.

RUSH: They don’t care. They don’t care what you’re doing now. They don’t care! They don’t care. They literally don’t care. This is not about you. It’s never been about you and Trump’s voters, except to the extent that they could distance Trump voters from Trump, and if to do that they have to get rid of Trump… That’s what they’ve been trying to do since election night.

CALLER: Yeah, I know that. But, I mean, I’m really worried about what’s gonna happen if they succeed. The violence that’s gonna happen afterwards?

RUSH: If they succeed, it will mean one thing. It will mean that the establishment — the elites, whatever you want to call the inside-the-Beltway people that we call the establishment. It will mean that they have the ability to overturn a duly constituted and fair election based simply on the fact they don’t like the outcome. If they can do that, then every other election from here on out is rendered meaningless, and that’s what people will think. And you’re right: There would be hell to pay for it, but they think they’re protected and insulated Inside the Beltway; nobody can get to ’em.

But, believe me, this is all about… It’s not even… Trump’s personality, I think, eggs them on. But even if Trump were a nice guy and were not tweeting and were not… If he wasn’t saying all these things but if his agenda was the same, they would still be trying to get rid of him because he’s an outsider. They simply cannot afford for what has happened here — for the results of this election — to equal success. They can’t permit it. It’s the one thing that would render them and their uniqueness irrelevant.

Imagine if an outsider can come in and fix what the American people want fixed and think is wrong. And if an outsider can come in and, inside of four years, reverse the trends of this country and get it back on the right track, what does it say about those inside the Beltway who’ve been telling us for 30 years they’re trying, they’re working real hard but they’ve always had excuses. What will it say? They will be immediately exposed as frauds. So that’s what this has always been about.

CALLER: I know, but if they succeed, there’s gonna be no putting this back together.

RUSH: I agree with you that it would be very bad. (sigh) It’s hard to imagine what actually would happen in terms of what people would do, but I know it would not be pretty. You know, I’ve had other people say to me, “Do they know what they’re doing? What’s the matter? They’re still gonna get Pence.” It doesn’t matter to them. Pence is not an outsider.

In their world, in their view, Pence is one of them. He’s a governor. He’s been a member of Congress. He knows the swamp, knows how it works. He’s not Donald Trump, nobody else is, and it doesn’t matter if they ended up with the person they hate most inside the establishment. Get rid of Trump because he’s not part of the club is the key. What do you think would happen? Be specific. Tell us what you think would happen.

CALLER: I’m afraid to even think of it —

RUSH: Well, you obviously have things in mind or you wouldn’t call.

CALLER: Total anarchy is one. I mean, they just think that we’re gonna shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh, okay, you win”?

RUSH: No. They don’t think that. They don’t care. They don’t think you have the power to do anything to really harm them anyway. They think you’ll get over it, maybe. But honestly, if they were worried about that, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing on they wouldn’t even be trying. They’re not worried about that. These people are never worried about public opinion. That’s the point! Public opinion doesn’t determine what the swamp does. It never has. The swamp decides what it wants to do: The moneyed people, the donors, people on K Street, the people that write the legislation.

Members of Congress don’t even really write legislation. That stuff all happens from outside. It’s obvious they don’t care. They think that they can deal with whatever you do. And, you know what? I can see where some of them might think there’s an upside. If it’s true anarchy and you blow the place up, that would give them every opportunity to expand the power of government to control you all and to put down whatever, quote, unquote, “uprising” you engage in. It would be, “Goodbye, posse comitatus.” If they have to bring tanks into downtown Chicago to keep everything in order, they’d do it.

For a lot of them they’d like nothing better than to be able to erase a bunch of the Constitution and rewrite something that purposely spells out what they can do instead of what they can’t. I think something else would happen. I still, to this day, don’t think the swamp — the establishment, the elites — “the ruling class,” as Angelo Codevilla refers to them, I don’t think they really understand how many Trumpists there are. I think they still think the election was an Electoral College fluke and that the vast majority of people in the country oppose Trump.

I don’t think they believe that it would be even that significant an uprising. They also think that a number of Trumpists are lazy and will go with the flow anyway and have been conditioned over the course of their lives to accepting that they always lose and that Washington always wins. And so, they’re probably thinking that what will happen with most people is they’ll just tune out and stop participating in elections and campaigns and voting, which would also please them. That’s why this is serious.

The 25th Amendment? All these made-up stories of Trump losing his mind and being mentally unfit and claiming that he wants to expand the nuclear arsenal 10 times. No matter how many times they deny it, they continue to run the story. Still looking for proof of the Trump dossier. These people are desperate as I’ve ever seen a group of people.

That doesn’t get reported, though. They instead are reported as normal, concerned, worried about the mental stability of our president. The Drive-Bys are not properly characterizing who their sources are. I think there’s a high level of panic in the invisible sectors of the swamp that we never see because the cameras are not allowed. I think there’s been panic ever since election night, coupled with the shock of disbelief. And I don’t think it’s abated. And I think they’re frustrated as hell.

They’ve thrown everything they’ve got at Trump. Everything. They’ve thrown a combination of every trick they’ve used to get rid of previous elected officials, presidents, members of Congress, the Senate, so forth, and candidates. They’ve combined every technique and every dirty trick they’ve got, and they’ve used them all on Trump.

And not only is he still there, he is continuing to reverse their agenda as identified as Obama’s agenda, this executive order signing today on taking the chopping block to Obamacare. Anyway, Shelly, I appreciate the call. I really do.

A quick break and back with more after this.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, folks, one thing I want to add here. In any of these stories, if you hear anything about Trump being unstable on MSNBC, you’ve gotta reject it. It’s MSNBC that’s unstable. MSNBC has people that just — and the same thing for Vanity Fair. Folks, if you hear anything, if a source for anything about Trump is in Vanity Fair, automatically reject it. Vanity Fair is populated by people that are just irrational. They’re uninformed. They’re part of the Hollywood media culture, celebrity media culture, and they’re not wired. They are being used as tools. So is MSNBC.

I’m just trying to help you out here. I’ve got no reason to mislead you on any this. Why do you think I never quote them here except to have fun with ’em? But both of those sources, if you’ve got somebody in the White House who really wants you to believe that Trump’s losing his mind and that Trump’s on the verge of having to go in a little yellow bus and the men in the white coats are coming to take me away, ha-ha, and you hear about that in Vanity Fair. And then think back to NBC spiking the story on Harvey Weinstein and forcing their own little reporter, Sinatra’s son, to head down there to the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow.

I mean, there are certain things you just have to automatically reject if you only hear it, or hear it first in some of these obscure, way, way out there, I mean, places that are just — the whole energy is hate. You gotta learn to just be suspicious of it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Christopher in Bay City, Michigan. You’re next, sir. Hi.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. It’s a pleasure. Thanks for taking my call.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: I initially called for this 25th Amendment. If they were to get this done and they just don’t understand that Pence is next in line, what it does say about everyone who the president has appointed as his cabinet? They have one knocked out. It would be complete anarchy. It would be scary what they think that they could accomplish if they were to do that one thing. And there are a lot of people, I see it across my Facebook every day, that are, you know, Trump’s unfit, they just go on and on about it, and it’s growing in numbers. So what do you take? I mean, how do we do about this? Where do we go? What do we do? As people who want a free and just economy and government —

RUSH: Well, remind me. I’m going to make a note to myself. The process, you know, implementing number 25 is not easy. You need two-thirds votes in the House to get there. This is not just a cabinet taking a vote.