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RUSH: We’ll go to Donna in Goshen, Indiana. I’m glad you waited. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. How are you, Rush?

RUSH: I’m fine. I’m really glad that you called.

CALLER: Well, thank you for taking my call. And I really want to tell you that I appreciate and am so glad for all you do. Now that you are talking about meddling in this election, it just reminded me of how the Obama administration, you know, sent people over to Israel to influence their election, and nobody said anything about Obama doing that.

RUSH: The hell they didn’t! They did say it. They promoted it and they thought it was a great thing! Because it was proper to hate Israel when Obama was in the White House.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: They didn’t keep that a secret.

CALLER: My original question was I was watching Slay the Nation yesterday.

RUSH: Uh-huh.

CALLER: And your own senator, Marco Rubio, said that there was no spying on the Trump campaign and there was no evidence. Does he have an ax to grind with Trump, or is he that clueless, or what are your thoughts?

RUSH: Well, before I answer that, let me help you answer it yourself.

CALLER: (laughing).

RUSH: Why are you laughing? Aside from the fact that I’m a naturally funny guy, why are you laughing?

CALLER: Because I don’t think he wants to acknowledge the truth.

RUSH: Well, let me try to steer you into an answer. I love it when people are able to answer their own questions. You remember the answer longer than if somebody just tells you, okay? So do you remember — there’s two things here. Let me give you the name Trey Gowdy.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: Does Trey Gowdy ring a bell?

CALLER: Sure does.

RUSH: Okay.

CALLER: I’m upset at him.

RUSH: Well, one day Trey Gowdy will say that he’s seen some of the documents that the FBI will not reveal to the Senate and that he asks us to trust him and say that the FBI, the things they’ve done, if the average American new about it, be proud as they could be. He has seen nothing wrong. Then a few days later he’ll be on TV and he’ll be saying the exact opposite about the FBI, about how they are withholding information and some of the things that they have engaged in out there is absolutely unparalleled and uncalled for.

And you’ll say “wait a minute. One day he says that the FBI’s beyond reproach and that if the average American had seen what he’d seen, we’d think they’re doing the greatest job in the world. And the next day, a few days later, it’s exact opposite.” How would you explain that?

CALLER: Well, I —

RUSH: I’ll tell you what. Let me take a break. I’ve put you on the spot. You expected me to answer your question, and here I am forcing you to answer it. Admittedly unfair. I’m gonna take a break. You think about it. We’ll come back and rejoin you when we get back. Don’t hang up.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Okay. We’re back with Donna in Goshen, Indiana. So how would you answer my question? One day Trey Gowdy says, “Man, if you saw what I saw in the FBI you’d be praising them. You’d be so proud of your FBI.” Then the next time he talks about ’em they’ve been doing things that are less than aboveboard; less than honest; very, very questionable. How would you explain that?

CALLER: Well, maybe because he has higher aspirations, and he wants to have it both ways so that nobody can… You know, I mean, he wants to make friends on both sides.

RUSH: Okay. Very good! In your own words, that’s very, very perceptive and shrewd of you. That’s exactly how people inside the Beltway do it. Inside-the-Beltway people get away with saying a lot; don’t have to do very much.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: You notice how many Republicans are really, really thought to be great because of what they say but they never really do anything?

CALLER: Mmm-hmm.

RUSH: Now, as to Marco Rubio. Do you remember what Trump’s nickname for him was during the presidential primaries?

CALLER: (giggling) Of course I do.

RUSH: What was that name?

CALLER: (giggling) You mean like little Rubio or —

RUSH: Little Marco! Little Marco.

CALLER: Yeah, Little Marco.

RUSH: Do you think Senator Rubio has forgotten that?

CALLER: No. Way.

RUSH: Okay. Well, I think there you have your answer to, “Why would Senator Rubio say that the Russians have not spied?” These people take their shots and they make their statements at what they consider to be the most politically opportune times for the least damage or the most help that they can get. Obviously, Senator Rubio’s making a judgment here that he can be critical of the president at this time without much fallout. Whether he’s right about that is another thing. I tell you, you’ve given me an idea.

Let me go to the audio sound bite chain that I want to play. I was gonna do this earlier, but your call has provided the transition. First, grab sound bite No. 14. Thank you very much, Donna. You answered your own question. Now you’ll remember it. Now it’ll always stay with you ’cause you came up with it on your own. Another value-added benefit of being a regular listener to the EIB Network: You get smarter, and you retain the smartness.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, here’s Trey Gowdy. He’s on Fox News Channel Sunday, Bret Baier filling in for Chris Wallace who is still on his way back from Helsinki. “Are you adamant that the president has not colluded with Russia?”

GOWDY: I have not seen one scintilla of evidence that this president colluded, conspired, confederated with Russia — and neither has anyone else, or you may rest assured Adam Schiff would have leaked it. So that’s why they’ve moved off of collusion on to obstruction of justice, which is now their current preoccupation.

RUSH: Right. If there was any evidence of collusion, Adam Schiff would have leaked it. This is becoming the mantra now. “We must accept that Russia interfered. We have to all accept this! They interfered to help Trump and Mueller’s gonna fix it.” Here’s Gowdy. Now, he just said he hadn’t seen one scintilla of evidence that Trump colluded or conspired. But listen to this next bite…

GOWDY: What I would encourage the president… Those are all people from yesterday. You have your own people in place now, and it is possible to conclude that Russia interfered with us and it still does not delegitimize your presidency. And that’s where I would encourage the president to go. Russia is not our friend. We need to be very careful dealing with them but that does not take away from the fact —

RUSH: Stop the tape, stop the because we’re running out of time here. But you see, this is becoming a mantra — and I’m sorry, it’s becoming groupthink and conventional wisdom. “You must admit that Russia colluded and meddled in our election!” Okay, but I’m not going to admit that they’re the only ones that have ever done it and that was the first time, and that’s what’s implied in this. Russia interferes every day, they’ve been trying to for years since the Soviet Union. It’s the name of the game. It’s called world power.

It’s the name of the game and it’s how big nations deal with one another. They’re constantly trying to undermine. But we certainly have to accept it — and the president’s being told, “You can admit! You can admit the Russians do help you, but they failed. You can admit that the Russians were colluding to hurt Hillary. You can admit that, and it will not affect your legitimacy.” They can’t wait for him to say it because they can’t wait for the headline: “Trump Acknowledges Russia Aided His Election!” They can’t wait for this. So they Gowdy here is on both sides of things again.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Grab sound bite No. 16 again. This is Trey Gowdy — and look, he’s not the only guy saying that by any stretch. There are friends of mine who are in Washington and involved in all this who are telling me same thing. “Rush, you gotta get to Trump. You gotta tell Trump that he can acknowledge that the Russians meddled without threatening the legitimacy of his legacy.” I say, “Why is it so important that he do that?” “Well, because, Rush! Because they did. The Russians meddled and they’re always meddling!”

“Yeah, but that’s not what these people are after. There’s a context here, and the context — the implied context — is that this time the Russians succeeded, or this was the worst event, the worst example of the Russians meddling.” However you slice it, the people pushing this are insisting that there is something unique and special about this meddling, and when there seems to be such an onrush of conventional wisdom that’s when my antennae go up and I object. I resist reflexively. So I probe further.

“Well, why is it so important that Trump acknowledge this?” “Because, Rush, he’s really not helping himself here. He’s making it look like that that Putin didn’t do any wrong and can’t be critical of Putin, and that’s not true! It’s not true. He’s gotta do it. He’s gotta do it because…” I don’t understand why Trump has to acknowledge it, but it has become a mantra. Now, as I say, Gowdy is not the only guy suggesting this. All kinds of people are. We’re just gonna use Gowdy’s sound bite, again — No. 16 here — because this is a good illustration of the mantra.

GOWDY: What I would encourage the president… Those are all people from yesterday. You have your own people in place now, and it is possible to conclude that Russia interfered with us and it still does not delegitimize your presidency. And that’s where I would encourage the president to go. Russia is not our friend. We need to be very careful dealing with them but that does not take away from the fact that he won the 2016 election much to the chagrin of Brennan, Comey, and all the rest.

RUSH: Okay, “it’s possible to conclude that Russia interfered with us…” Am I the only one that remembers this, that on the day these indictments were announced…? These indictments are the basis on which everybody’s now saying, “You’ve gotta admit the Russians meddled! You’ve gotta admit it. We got the indictments. We got the evidence! Mueller’s got the evidence, and Trump should have used that evidence at that Helsinki summit he should have he should have used that indictment to really come down on Putin but he didn’t.”

Am I the only guy…? Outside of you in this audience. Don’t misunderstand. I know you all remember. Am I the only guy who remembers Rod Rosenstein at his press conference saying — and I practically quote here — nothing in these indictments indicates that one vote was changed or the outcome of a single election was affected? To me, that is bombshell. To me, that’s all that matters. To me, that’s bingo, that whatever happened, it did not affect anything.

They can’t even trace a single vote being changed because of this. Remember, the Russians are running supposedly a lot of Facebook advertising. They were running a lot of Twitter advertising. Most of it after the election, do you know that? Most of Russia’s advertising came after the election! Russia’s like everybody else in this country who was idiotic. They thought Hillary was gonna win in October, when the New York Times has this story on how Trump would not concede the election in October. (laughing)

Trump would not admit in October that if he lost, he would concede the election. They were having conniptions over that. “That’s a direct violation of the sanctity of the democratic process! How dare he? How dare he?” Yet, who is it that won’t admit what happened? So the Russians meddled. “You must admit it! You must — and he can. He can admit that he meddled without challenging the legitimacy of his presidency.” Not one vote was changed. The outcome of not one election was affected.

So why is it so crucial to say the Russians meddling? I mean, any more so than they always meddle. Remember, we’re acknowledging here the Russians meddle. We’re acknowledging that there are people in America that helped the Russians meddle! Many of them are college professors, have been doing it for 30 to 40 years. I mean, there were communists. Remember the old blacklists in Hollywood? There are communists in Hollywood all over the place. The Russian, Soviets, communism has been active in the United States as a subversive thing for longer than you and I have been alive.

So what’s special about the Russians meddling in 2016? Answer: Trump won. That’s what’s special about it. And the fact that you can’t find in any news story about this Rosenstein saying not one vote was changed, the outcome of not one election was affected. That, to me, is the headline. That’s the end of the story. Why can’t you find that anywhere? Am I making too big a deal out of that? Am I missing the boat, folks? Am I wrong here? Should Trump go ahead and do what the swamp wants and acknowledge that the Russians meddled?

And then should he start cursing Putin — and then maybe, you know, in tweets get a little pop gun and pretend to be shooting the guy? What? What’s he supposed to do? Slingshot! Let’s do slingshot, David-Goliath. Should he slingshot Putin? (Aim low. He’s a short little shrimp of a guy.) No, no, no. There’s something. My antennae are up. There’s something about this. “Trump must admit it! He can admit.” I guess there’s this fear that Trump may be a Russian spy, that Trump has to show that he’s not. But all I know is that when the left starts demanding that you do something and then you do it, then they start the gotcha.

They don’t start thanking you with and they don’t start praising and they don’t (sigh), “Ah, we can relax now. Trump is actually admitting it.” That’s not what’s gonna happen if Trump does what they want him to do here. Let’s move on to Pencil Neck, because you heard Gowdy say that if there was one scintilla of evidence of collusion, never mind that Rosenstein said there isn’t! Rosenstein said not one vote was changed; the outcome of not one election was affected. These indictments have nothing to do with it. None of that happened. Okay. Still, Gowdy says that if there were collusion, that Schiff would have leaked it long ago.

Here’s Pencil Neck on This Week with Stephanopoulos. Question: “How do you read the 400 pages released on Carter Page?”

SCHIFF: I think actually if the performance that we had in Helsinki took place before those applications were filed, uh, I think that whole interchange with Putin would have been a center exhibit in the FISA applications.

RUSH: (laughing) (clapping)

SCHIFF: Those applications set out in some detail — a lot of which, unfortunately, is redacted — just why the FBI was so concerned that Carter Page might be acting as an agent of a foreign of power.

RUSH: They weren’t!

SCHIFF: It’s a solid application and renewals signed by four different judges appointed by three different Republican presidents.

RUSH: Okay, let me ask you one more time. Let me remind you of something else. Okay. Let’s say that all this is legit and let’s say that the FBI (that would be James Comey) and let’s say that John Brennan (that would be Barack Obama’s CIA director) and let’s say that James Clapper (that would be Obama’s director of national intelligence)… Let’s say that all of these Obamaites, including over at the FBI, heard that Carter Page was traveling to Moscow and it might mean that Carter Page is a spy for Moscow, and it might mean that Carter Page might be infiltrating the Trump campaign for the Russians.

Why wouldn’t you go to Trump and tell Trump that you are really worried? “We at the CIA, we at the DNI, we at the FBI, we at the DIA, we it NCAA, we at the NFL are terribly worried the Russians are trying to influence and infiltrate your campaign!” Why wouldn’t they tell him? Why did they get a FISA warrant to spy so that they could find it happening? What was their point here? It doesn’t seem to me that anybody involved on the Obama team wanted to stop it! They wanted an opportunity to find evidence that it was happening — and if they couldn’t find any evidence, they wanted to plant some!

And even with all of that we don’t have any evidence. Strzok Smirk, did you hear what this guy said during his testimony? He said (paraphrasing), “Look, if I was really out to get Trump, I would have released all this stuff that you people found over years, over months, I would have released, I would have leaked this if I was really out to get Trump.”

You know, it was a nice feint, but it fell by the wayside as insincere. There’s no question these people were trying to get Trump. They were trying to keep him from being elected, and after he got elected they’re trying to engineer his removal. And in the midst of all this, over here we’ve got a building, “Trump must admit the Russians meddled, the Russians meddled in the election.”

Well, when this got started on Friday, and it’s now part of everything I do, ’cause I’m gonna let everybody know that I know that the Russians meddled. Now let’s see, what else we have. Marco Rubio. He’s next. And this was Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan. “You have said before on the record that you have not seen evidence of the FBI spying on the Trump campaign. Do you still believe that?”

RUBIO: Yeah, I have a different view on this issue than the president and the White House. We have a guy here who’s always in Russia, brags about Russia, and we have reason to believe, and they list those reasons, why this is someone we should be watching and they follow the legal process by which to do so. I think that’s different from spying on a campaign. They were looking into this one individual, but an individual the campaign themselves said was not a big part of their efforts, therefore I wouldn’t consider that spying on a campaign.

RUSH: So Marco Rubio, Senator Rubio is saying that he doesn’t think the FBI and the DOJ and Brennan and Clapper and Obama were spying on the Trump campaign simply because they got a FISA warrant on Carter Page, who was a nobody and didn’t last long in the campaign anyway. He’s got his reasons for saying it.

But look, folks. Human nature. It would be totally, totally understandable for Marco Rubio not having Donald Trump as one of his favorite people. It would make perfect sense. Even though, even though after the election all that stuff is supposed to be forgotten. All those foreign policy think tank thinkers, upset now that Trump won’t hire them after they signed a letter claiming he was the worst thing that ever happened to presidential politics. Now they’re mad that he won’t hire ’em.

And when they are reminded, “Well, you guys did sign a letter saying he’s the biggest dope ever to arrive in Washing.”

“Well, that’s just the campaign, you know, that’s what happened in the campaign. Once the election’s over, you’re supposed to put all that aside, forget it, and move on.”

Oh, really? Well, I don’t think the Trumpster operates that way.

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