RUSH: I really hope, ladies and gentlemen, that you have a significant amount of appreciation for Donald Trump and the way he is dealing with this latest scam of an effort to get rid of him, this phony continuation of an original hoax impeachment move by Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

For practically the entirety of this program, it has never failed — if we wanted to, we could get a call every day from somebody complaining about the Republicans never pushing back or why don’t the Republicans do this and why don’t the Republicans do that. And for every one of those kinds of calls and complaints — and I hear them outside of the program, too — we now have a president, a Republican president who’s doing it daily and multiple times a day.

And even at that, we had a caller yesterday, “I think Trump needs to do more. I think he needs to call a national speech.” And I know what this is all about. There are a lot of people supporting Trump and it’s costing them a lot of things. It’s costing them family relationships, friendships, any number of things. It’s causing strife at work. And I think they want some acknowledgment from Trump that he’s aware of what they’re going through.

And since most everybody — it’s human nature — most everybody thinks about themselves first. It’s just the way it is. They don’t stop to think about the thing that Trump is going through himself and his family and so forth, at least not at first. And it’s the nature of leadership. People always look to the leader to take care of ’em, to do things, to represent them, to fight back for them. And I think this latest move that the Trump White House has made ought to just satisfy everybody.

They have just pretty much told Pelosi to go pound sand, that they are shutting down everything, they’re not gonna cooperate an iota. And I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.

Remember, ladies and gentlemen, it was sometime last week I told you that AP had run a story how the White House had learned — and the AP was not happy about this, the Associated Press was not happy about this. And they were trying to shame the White House with this story. But it didn’t work.

The AP made the point that when the Mueller investigation first began, the lawyers Trump had hired were Washington lawyers. And they encouraged him to cooperate because Trump had not done anything. And since he hadn’t done anything they decided to cooperate, which was a grave tactical error because it validated the investigation.

If the target is gonna cooperate — remember Rudy, remember Rudy’s first statement when he was hired on. “I’m gonna talk to Bob, we’ll get this taken care of in two, three weeks. This is all bogus. Everybody knows it. Bob just needs to know.” So all these guys thought they could tell Mueller how he had been misled into taking the gig and that once they told Bob what was really going on that Bob would shut this down and agree that there was nothing to it.

Well, there was never an investigation. The whole thing was not an investigation. There was never anything to investigate. It was all manufactured and made up. How many times you heard me say there was never a shred of evidence. So it wasn’t long that Trump’s instincts took over and he said to hell with this cooperation. What’s this getting us? All this is doing is making us look like we did it. Cooperation not gonna help here.

So Trump made some changes with his legal team and he got some brawlers in there and got people who would follow Trump’s instincts. They have learned from that mistake. They are not cooperating with Pelosi an iota. They are not going to legitimize this in any way. Trump fires tweets at these people two and three times a day. I have people sending me the tweets.

And they send me these tweets that Trump sends out that they see, great appreciation Trump is doing this. I wrote one of them back today. I said, “Do you think these tweets from Trump are intimidating Schiff? Do you think they’re intimidating the media? Do you think they’re intimidating Pelosi?”

“No, no, no. I don’t think that,” she said, “but I think they are keeping Trump’s base fired up.” And there may be something to that. But the idea of not legitimizing this — ’cause there isn’t — folks, I don’t know how to say it other than there isn’t anything legitimate about this impeachment inquiry.

Now we’ve got, as I’ve pointed out — I’m glad to see so many others in media finally pick up — big segments on Fox yesterday about how Schiff has been given this job ’cause he’s the intel committee, because that allows him to do it behind closed doors. Meaning, there’s no transparency. Meaning, nobody can see what’s going on. Meaning, he can shut Republicans out of the questioning process. Meaning, we have no idea what’s going on behind closed doors. They can have an interview with any number of people, Schiff can come out and lie about what they said. That’s not an impeachment inquiry. This is an inquisition.

Impeachment is transparent, it is public, and it is only undertaken in the most dire circumstances where the future and the fate of the country is actually at stake. And what’s at stake here is the future and fate of the Democrat Party, which is not the future and fate of the country.

And so now everybody’s picked up on why Pelosi handed this off to Schiff, so they could keep it behind closed doors because they can’t allow anybody to know what’s actually going on here because there isn’t anything legitimate.

So, the New York Times has a story: “White House Declares War on Impeachment Inquiry.” Now, The Politico story on this thing is a different headline. Their headline is: “Trump’s All-Out Blockade Threatens Democrats’ Impeachment Drive.”

Well, let’s go back to the New York Times here for a moment ’cause it’s a teachable, a teachable moment. What has happened is this. Trump’s team of lawyers has sent to Pelosi a letter that spells out why they will not cooperate with her impeachment inquiry. Well, this has offended the guardians of the press.

This has offended the editors of the Democrats in the media at the New York Times. So the New York Times and other Democrats in the media are now calling this a “declaration of war” on impeachment! As if the Democrats in the House were just minding their business, twiddling their thumbs, not doing much to anybody or anything, and then out of the blue — while they’re having lunch in the House dining room — Trump declared war on them.

It’s a total mischaracterization of what’s going on. They’re acting like the Democrats have no role in this and then Trump is some ogre coming in here deciding to blow up the House. They don’t report that Trump is the target of yet another phony political operation that’s designed to get him thrown out of office, and they don’t have any just cause for this. So they’re making it up, and they’re recycling things. Now we’re learning so much more about the whistleblowers.

We’re also learning so much more about Barr’s investigation with his investigator John Durham, the famous lawyer from Connecticut. That’s now gone global. It’s a massive investigation that Barr has undertaken, and everybody in the deep state is well aware, and so the race is on. The Democrats want to beat whatever Barr produces. The Democrats want to get something going on with this. There is an ongoing debate. I saw it played out on TV; I’ve seen it in things I’ve read.

There’s still an ongoing debate about whether or not Pelosi will actually ever call an official impeachment vote. The two schools of thought are: “Yeah, she will, but it’s still going to be mostly a distraction exercise, that it isn’t going to be legit because they’re not going to see this all the way through the Senate. All they want to do is pick off some Republicans in the Senate and in the House and be able to claim it’s bipartisan.”

It’s another thing I pointed out yesterday that others in the media are now picking up on. They just want to get some Republicans on board so they can claim it’s bipartisan. And then there are others, like I saw Brad… What’s his name? Blakeman? Is that his name, Mr. Snerdley? He’s a former Republican Bush official. I think he came out of the womb a GOP official. I mean, that’s… Anyway, he was on Fox. He says, “There’s not gonna be a vote. There isn’t gonna be a vote. She’s never gonna call a vote.”

So there are these two schools of thought. Now, back to the New York Times here for a minute because this is classic. Trump sends a letter. The legal team sends a letter to Pelosi saying they’re not gonna cooperate with this. The New York Times says, Trump “declares war on impeachment inquiry” as those the Democrats are not bothering anybody. They’re just sitting around chewing their cud, thinking about trying to win the House and Senate back — and all of a sudden, they get this massive nuclear attack in the form of a letter from Trump!

Here’s how the opening paragraph of this absolutely pathetic story begins. “The White House declared war on the House impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, announcing that it would not cooperate with what it called an illegitimate effort ‘to overturn the results of the 2016 election’…” You had better be grateful Donald Trump is the president and not somebody else that would be trying to get this thrown out by cooperating with it. Donald Trump is pushing back and hitting them right between the eyes when accusing them of exactly what they’re doing: An ongoing, partisan “effort ‘to overturn results of the 2016 election.’

“In a letter to House Democratic leaders, the White House said the inquiry had violated precedent and denied President Trump’s due process rights in such an egregious way that neither he nor the executive branch would willingly provide testimony or documents, a daring move that sets the stage for a constitutional clash.” How is this a declaration of war? How is this even a daring move? The Trump legal team is merely pointing out that the House Democrats are violating precedent and due process and that they are the ones violating the Constitution!

They’re trying to do this in private, trying to do it in secret with fake, phony whistleblowers. What this does (chuckles) is now throw this to the courts, and you know how fast things happen there. Have you ever been taken to court? “My God, you’re charged one day, and then the next day you’re in jail!” No, actually it can take years. Now, they’ll try to speed this up, because that’s what Pelosi is actually interested in here, in this race against time.

Now, Pelosi, for her part, “said that it was too early to know whether Democrats might draft an article of impeachment based on the obstruction issue.” She had better go talk to Pencil Neck ’cause I’m sure he’s already got it written. It’s “too early to know whether Democrats might draft an article” for those of you in Rio Linda, that means write “akin to one adopted by the Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon. ‘The president is obstructing Congress from getting the facts that we need,’ she told reporters in Seattle, where she was” trying to convince everybody they’re still working on lowering drug prices.

I wonder why she’s doing that. She said, “It is an abuse of power for him to act in this way.” Yeah? So the target is just supposed to sit there and let the accusers do whatever they want, stand aside and let them have whatever they ask for? Let them go wherever they claim they want to go? See, those are the rules of the deep state, by the way. When the deep state accuses you of something, you’re supposed stand aside. You’re supposed to let it play out. That’s the rule. That’s part of the rule of membership in the deep state.

Trump says (paraphrased), “Screw it! I’m not cooperating. I’m not gonna help you. You’re not doing anything legitimate here. You’ve got no just cause for any of this, and I’m not gonna help. In fact, I’m gonna stonewall you. I’m not gonna participate at all. You’re gonna have to go to court to get everything you want — and there’s nothing to get, so good luck.” Now, as I said yesterday, this is what the Democrats in the House are trying to set up.

That is, “Trump obstructing!” They’re gonna try to create the illusion that Trump is covering up. But, you know, if you look at the ambassador yesterday — Sondland, Gordon Sondland — actually blocking him from testifying, in one way, you could say hurt Trump’s case. Because his testimony was going to exonerate Trump, just like the testimony from the State Department guy, Volker. These guys were all on the call. They heard the call. They know the whistleblowers are lying through their teeth about it; they were gonna testify to it.

So it’s clear they’re doing this over due process and other constitutional separation of power concerns, and I think that… I don’t know whether Pelosi and the Democrats anticipated this. It’s hard to know whether they thought Trump would actually just refuse to participate, ’cause I think these people on the Democrat side are really impressed with themselves, and I think they believe that when they target somebody, that that target is all of a sudden scared to death of them. You couldn’t blame ’em if they think that because that’s the way it’s always played out in the past.

Democrats come after you in Washington and you get intimidated, you get scared. Trump doesn’t. I tried to find a Drive-By Media article that actually reports the content of the letter that Trump sent — his lawyers — and its arguments, but you can’t find it. All you find is typical biased crap like this from the New York Times, “White House Declares War on Impeachment Inquiry…” Again, the Politico story, “Trump’s All-Out Blockade Threatens Democrats’ Impeachment Drive.”

This is probably the closest I could find that spelled out circumstances in Trump’s favor. But you know what this story should…? You know what all of this demonstrates is that we really are in the middle of another Washington soap opera with the Democrats and the media as the showrunners writing the script and producing it each and every day. Because if you read this Politico story… Like, there’s a quite here from… Who’s this guy? Congressman Gerry Connolly, Virginia.

He said, “Democrats have to stay very disciplined in adhering to that clear, cogent narrative that was written for us.” What? It’s an impeachment inquiry. What narrative? You got a guy who you think has committed high crimes and misdemeanors! What narrative are you talking about? Who wrote “the narrative” for you? And then Hakeem Jeffries says Democrats should only use six words and repeat them constantly. Now, I thought this was the search for justice. But they’re making this out to be a high school drama play where everybody’s gotta stay on script, where messaging is key? Why do you need messaging if you’ve got somebody guilty as sin that you’re trying to remove from office?