RUSH: Greetings, folks. Great to have you here. Now, you can go anywhere else today and you can listen to or watch the testimony of Michael Cohen before the Elijah Cummings committee, but the only place you can find out what to think about it is right here. And we’re gonna be keeping up to speed on it as it happens, keep you properly informed and properly analyzed.
Telephone number — and I know you want to weigh in too. And we’ll offer ample opportunity for that — 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program. Folks, this is desperation time for the Democrats. I don’t need to remind you how many times I’ve pointed this out. This is the official beginning. I told you yesterday that it was gonna start yesterday. This is the official unveiling of the Democrats’ impeachment process of President Trump. That’s what this is.
I mean, I just have explosions of observations going on in my mind as I watch this. I see Lanny Davis sitting right behind Michael Cohen. I see, for the first time in American history, the House of Representatives, a congressional committee has brought back as the best witness they can find against Donald Trump, somebody going to jail in two months for lying to them! That’s the best they can do! Because that’s all they’ve got!
All they’ve got is a guy who has committed to lying, admitted to it and is going to jail for lying to this very body. I look at Elijah Cummings’ face every time this is pointed out by Republican members of the committee, and he’s frowning. Look, these people know that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel today in trying to get Donald Trump. And there are so many contradictions, and Cohen is still telling so many falsehoods and lies that it’s gonna take a while to unwind all of this.
But I just want to start with one observation. I want everybody to keep this in mind as all of this unfolds. And this is just day one. Tomorrow Pencil Neck Schiff gets his chance with his little committee in the House. And we have just learned that Cohen has been coordinating all of this with Democrats. And why wouldn’t he? This is his ticket out. This is his ticket to a reduced time in jail. Lanny Davis, it may as well be Hillary Clinton sitting behind Michael Cohen.
And all of this is about ongoing retribution for Donald Trump, getting even with Donald Trump for having dared to beat Hillary Clinton. But never forget this, folks. If anybody, including Cohen, had evidence that would send Donald Trump away, I guarantee you he would get a plea deal that does not include jail time. The fact that Michael Cohen is going to jail is proof positive to me that he doesn’t have diddly-squat in terms of legality or illegality on Trump.
You know what the great contradiction of this is today so far? He made a big deal in his opening statement of pointing out how Trump didn’t want to win, didn’t expect to win, thought it was the craziest thing in the world that he might win, really did not want to win. He was just engaging in what he said was a gigantic marketing program but never thought he would win.
And then the other side of his mouth he describes a guy who will do anything to win, including instructing him to pay off porn stars. This is a tremendous contradiction. The guy didn’t want to win. Didn’t expect to win. And yet the description we get is ruthless, do anything at any cost to win.
Like a lot of people, I read the 20-page opening statement from Michael Cohen. And while all of this stuff sounds bad, do you know that he hasn’t alleged anything that’s actually illegal? And, therefore, all of this that’s being discussed today is — this is just sickening. This is such a come-down for the House of Representatives as led by the Democrat Party. It is pure desperation. And the fact that they are continuing on this objective of impeaching Trump is proof positive to me they expect him to win in 2020 if they don’t do something about it.
There are two things going on here: punishment of Trump for having won, smearing him, destroying him, family, anything else they can destroy. But, at the same time, they want to proceed on this impeachment pathway because they must really be worried that Trump could get reelected. I’ve even heard comparisons of Michael Cohen to John Dean. What a laugh.
To show you that there has been cooperation and coordination, moments ago before the program started there was a question from a Republican member of Congress, “Have you met with any Democrats before your appearance?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Congressman.”
“Well, have you met, for example, with the chairman of our committee?”
“Well, I don’t know. My lawyer.”
“Well, who is your lawyer?”
“My lawyer is Lanny Davis.”
“How much are you paying Lanny Davis?”
“I’m paying Lanny Davis nothing.”
“Well, who is paying Lanny Davis?”
“Well, maybe when I start to earn a living in three years when I get out of jail I’ll pay Lanny.”
Who’s paying Lanny Davis? Democrat donors are paying Lanny Davis! Tom Steyer, Hillary Clinton. Who does anybody pay in the Democrat Party? They’re all pooling this together. Cohen’s not paying anything. Cohen is the guy they are using to try to get Trump.
So the evidence that this is the product of a massive coordination between Cohen and the Democrats, Cummings and Pencil Neck Schiff and all the rest of them is the focus on WikiLeaks, I think. This focus on WikiLeaks. The Democrats are still steaming over the fact that their server got hacked and that Podesta’s emails ended up being disseminated to the public. And they’re just hell-bent on trying to prove that Trump colluded with Russia, and so they are going over and over whether or not Trump knew that Julian Assange had those emails and was going to drop them.
So Cohen’s out there breathlessly saying that Trump, oh, yes, he knew. Trump heard — stop and think about this, now — Trump heard about fact WikiLeaks had a bunch of Democrat National Committee emails ahead of time and thought wow, that would be great. Well, I would have thought that too. The fact that Trump heard about the WikiLeaks email doesn’t mean Trump had anything to do with it. And there’s certainly nothing illegal about Trump being excited that a bunch of Democrat dirt’s about to be introduced in the campaign. But it doesn’t say that he had anything to do with it. And Cohen, right out of the bat — I mean, every time he’s asked, says, “I can’t testify to any collusion. I don’t know about any collusion.”
By the way, that statement from Cohen is further exclamation point on the evidence that there wasn’t any. If there was any collusion between Trump and Russia, that would have been the first thing Cohen would have been the swearing to, admitting to today. The fact that he didn’t want to go anywhere near that means that Mueller doesn’t have anything on it, it means the SDNY doesn’t, because if he had that, he wouldn’t be going to jail. If he had evidence Trump had colluded with Russia, he would be a star. He would not have had to force a deal that includes jail time.
So he says that Roger Stone called Trump, “Hey, WikiLeaks got some stuff and it’s about to be dumped.” And Trump says, “Wow, man, that’d be great.” Where’s the crime there? Is it criminal for Trump to enjoy that the Democrats are gonna be sweating? Well, that’s dangerously where we’re headed here, because there is a Stalinist characteristic, a Stalinist flavor to this whole thing today. So the fact that Trump was told that WikiLeaks had a bunch of stuff and they were gonna be dumping it, that Trump was happy about it. What do you mean happy the Democrats are gonna suffer? That’s a crime in America today. Nobody’s allowed to be happy when the Democrats are about to be embarrassed.
The Stormy Daniels stuff. There’s nothing illegal in any of this! I hate to tell you, but there’s nothing illegal. Whether Cohen paid her and was reimbursed. Even with personal money, there is nothing illegal. And he made a point of saying Trump never directly told him to lie to Congress. He gave this whole scenario of how Trump commanded him to but never directly, never directly told him to lie, but that’s not how Trump did it, Cohen.
But yet here’s Trump, who knows everything and is aware of everything and gives everybody orders, except when it came to lying, Trump never specifically told, never directly told co. There are so many contradictions that Cohen is getting into about his portrayal of Trump.
So what is the point of this? What’s the point of this? The point of this is to pick up the ball where Mueller has dropped it. The original objective remains: drive Donald Trump’s approval numbers down as low as they can get them. Drive ’em down to the thirties, maybe drive ’em down to the twenties so as to speed up and move along impeachment. They are hell-bent on driving Donald Trump from office.
I was watching Fox earlier today, and there was a lot of — oh, what’s the word? A lot of shock, a lot of surprise the Democrats would dare do this on the very day the president is trying to achieve a nuclear deal with the North Koreans. And it’s a good point. Imagine being so distraught, so out of sorts, so bamboozled, so destroyed by losing an election that you would even go so far as to distract or perhaps sabotage nuclear peace talks from the political party which has attempted over the course of my life to portray nuclear weapons as the absolute worst thing — goes back and forth between that and climate change. And we’ve gotta do anything we can to get rid of nuclear weapons. We can’t have Ronald Reagan in charge of nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan’s a cowboy, his finger on the nuclear button. We’ve lived all through this panic and fear.
And now all of a sudden Democrats don’t care about nuclear weapons, don’t care about the effort to get North Korea, an aggressive state, to denuclearize? North Korea has not launched a missile in 457 days. They haven’t conducted a nuclear test in 543 days. They have destroyed a major missile engine test. And Trump is over THERE trying to continue this progress in North Korea, something no Democrat has ever been able to do.
No Democrat president, no Republican president has ever made this kind of progress de-nuking North Korea, and here’s the Democrat Party today attempting to undermine and sabotage that and everything else. Because, folks, what remains the objective is to drive all of you Trump supporters away from Donald Trump. This is the next phase, perhaps the most intense phase that they’ve engaged in yet, and it’s happening because Mueller has nothing, and they are panicking. And Democrat donors are panicking.
One of the Democrat donors that’s heavily involved in orchestrating this whole thing today is Tom Steyer, who is a Democrat billionaire from California who is a gigantic participant in the worldwide man-made climate change hoax. And he is becoming unraveled and unhinged like all the other Democrats are over the fact that they cannot lay a glove on Donald Trump. The fact that Donald Trump remains 44% to 52% approval in various polls has got them so ticked off, they can’t deal with it.
And so as their best witness, as their star witness, as the guy who’s gonna deliver the goods on Donald Trump, they go and revive somebody going to jail in three months for having lied to them in Congress before. This is the best they’ve got. This is the only thing they’ve got. And even with all of what Cohen said today, he has not testified to any illegal behavior by Donald Trump.
It’s been things like (imitating Cohen), “Yeah, Trump had me give a bunch of phony financial statements to Forbes so that he would appear richer than he is. And Trump arranged — this is so bad — this is what a reprobate Trump is. Trump commissioned a painting, and then he arranged the auction, he arranged for the buyer to buy the painting. Trump wanted the painting so he arranged the buyer to be the top bidder and then he paid the bidder for the painting and now the painting is hanging in Trump’s golf club.”
Wow. We’re gonna impeach a guy over wanting a picture of himself at an auction. We’re gonna impeach a guy because he won’t release his tax returns. We’re gonna impeach of a guy because he wanted Forbes to think he’s richer than he is, according to Cohen. But none of this, no matter how you add it all up, is illegal. I’m just telling you, folks, if Cohen had anything that really mattered, if Cohen had anything that was really, truly legally jeopardizing, the plea deal he got would not be including jail time.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number 24. This is NBC. By the way, every network is wall-to-wall with this. They have broomed their soap operas. They’ve broomed their infomercials. They have broomed their local news. They broomed everything to cover this. And I’ll tell you this. They were given Cohen’s 20-page opening statement last night when the Republicans on the committee were not, and the media did not publish it until about 10 o’clock this morning, maybe a little earlier than that.
This is important because the rule is that the minority party gets copies of all opening statements — and the things that are gonna be alleged here in the opening statement — 24 hours in advance of the hearing. That did not happen here. The media got it first, and then they held it, and they didn’t run it. Of course, they could do with it whatever they wanted to overnight in prepping stories, but they didn’t make it public until this morning. That’s the first time Republicans saw it.
I think 7:35 this morning is what Mark Meadows said. So the media is fully colluding with the Democrats on the committee and with Lanny Davis and with Pencil Neck Schiff, whose committee is next up tomorrow. And one of their big donors, Tom Steyer, is hip deep in all of this today. So at NBC News special coverage of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s testimony, coanchor Savannah Guthrie said to former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg, “So what have we learned so far, Chuck,” baby?
ROSENBERG: It’s interesting to me, Savannah. There’s a couple things that stand out. First, uh, Cohen — like a lot of cooperators I’ve put on the stand as a federal prosecutor — isn’t going too far. Uh, for instance, he didn’t say that the president directed him to lie. He said that the president made it clear by implication that he wanted Cohen to lie on his behalf.
RUSH: Right. Now, I made that point a moment ago. This is… I see this a different way. They want on to say here that the fact that Cohen… This is one of the themes that is developing in the Drive-By Media right now: The fact that Cohen has not alleged worse things means that he’s credible! Now, stop and think of this. Already we have Drive-By Media people acknowledging that what Cohen has really isn’t anything new, when you get down to brass tacks. There really isn’t anything new here.
So they are admitting that what Cohen has here is not legally — what’s the word? — precarious for Trump. Politically is a different story. But legally? Trump is not in any legal jeopardy because of what Cohen said. Cohen hasn’t alleged one illegal act here, and they know it at the Drive-Bys. So they are saying the fact that Cohen is reining it in, dialing it back, means that he’s credible, ’cause they know he’s not. (chuckles) How could he be? In fact, a little statistical point.
Republican representative from Georgia, Jody Hice, pointed out just before the start of the program today that this is the first time in the history of Congress that a man who has already been convicted of lying to Congress has been brought back to testify before Congress. That is how far, that is how low the Democrats are willing to go to try to smear Trump and drive him out of office. It has never happened before. Somebody convicted of lying to Congress has never been brought back as a star witness. And it’s the best they’ve got, is what this means.
It’s the best they’ve got.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Something else funny. They’re trying to make a big deal about Trump colluding with David Pecker of the National Enquirer. (Snort!) Do we really want to open that can of worms? You want to talk about collusion with Democrats and every newspaper and network in the Drive-By Media, including the collusion leading up to this hearing today? It’s amazing. It’s amazing the hypocrisy. But that never attaches to them.
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