RUSH: You know, there’s so much news about Ukraine. I was sitting here telling Mr. Snerdley today, “Why don’t we make it the 58th state?” For crying out loud, it seems like everything is going on Ukraine. And you know what it’s all about? It’s all about money.

If you think ideas matter in politics, ha! It’s all about money. It always has been about money. That’s why people care so damn much about fundraising and why I despise it. Fundraising’s the worst thing that ever happened to ideas.

Anyway, greetings. Great to have you with us. Rush Limbaugh with you behind the Golden EIB Microphone. We’re gonna do Open Line Friday on Thursday today because I am being stripped away from the EIB Network Golden EIB Microphone tomorrow. I will not be here. I am going to be away on unavoidable business matters that I must undertake. They can’t be done on the weekend. I’d be happy to do it on the weekend, but, no, no, no, we gotta do it during the week so we can expense account everything. So I will not be here tomorrow. We’ll make the most of it.

Yes, I’m in a rotten mood today, folks, but I’m not gonna bleed on you. I’m not gonna share it with you, like the other day, I told you I can whine with the best of ’em; I just don’t. I got plenty of stuff I could whine about and complain about, but I’m not gonna do it. I’m gonna try ride herd on it here and enjoy the next three hours.

Man, oh, man, every day you wake up and there’s another pile of manure that you have to negotiate around. So now we got a Fox News poll that shows — isn’t it amazing — 51% of the American people now think Trump should be impeached and removed from office in a Fox News poll. Fifty-one percent.

So I wonder, how does this happen? And I wonder what effect it has on people. I know Fox has been losing favor with conservatives for a while, for obvious reasons. I mean, I can’t look at that network anymore without seeing Donna Brazile staring back at me. I’m saying, “Why do I need to watch Fox to see or hear what Donna Brazile thinks? Who’s next, The Forehead? Are Carville and Forehead gonna be given a show?”

So, anyway, I looked at the breakdown of the poll, the percentage of Republicans and Democrats, only 48% of the Fox News sample is Democrat, 40% of the Fox News poll sample is Republican, and 12% are the precious and we couldn’t live without them independents.

Now, the Fox News poll, I think you have to understand, they are not just polling Fox News viewers. A lot of people misunderstand that. Fox News has a polling unit that’s like every other mainstream media polling unit, and it is in that universe that the Fox News poll operates and competes. And that’s what’s newsworthy about the poll. This poll has given CNN and all the other Drive-By Media outlets just a golden opportunity to point to it and say, “See? It’s true. Trump’s losing support. The people are finally seeing the truth about Trump.”

Except there’s some things here that don’t add up to me. For example, while 51% of the Fox News poll wants Trump impeached and removed, only 40% of that sample is Republican, and yet if you look at the latest approval numbers for Trump in the Republican Party, it’s hovering right there at 90%. Trump has 90% approval in the Republican Party. And if you look at anecdotal evidence, Trump continues to — not just sell out — but oversell every venue.

By the way, Trump has won the spat here with this little soy boy mayor up there in Minneapolis. Have you seen the video of this guy dancing on stage up there? We just need to put him in blackface, put him on stage there with Mayor Pete and we got a great duo. They could go on the road and have a great show, leave politics and heed their calling.

“The Minnesota [Democrat Farm Labor Party] tweeted on Monday that Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning Minnesota in 2016, with following threads that the ‘Trump campaign is staffing up in Minnesota in ways we’ve never seen before, and frankly we just can’t keep up.'” Trump is going there doing a rally in Minnesota, and Trump has won the spar with the soy boy mayor there before the campaign rally regarding security costs. “President Donald Trump won a feud with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey regarding $530,000 in up-front security and other costs associated with his campaign rally Thursday at the Target Center.

“Trump claimed in a letter that the half-million-dollar security charges were ‘phony and outlandish’ and blamed,” the soy boy mayor Frey for “pressuring the Target Center into preventing Minnesota residents from exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Trump’s trying to flip Minnesota and some progress is being made. We had the audio sound bites for you within the last couple of weeks. CNN went out there. CNN found a bunch of Democrats that hated Trump, now were gonna vote for him in 2020. But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. The Fox News poll, 51% want Trump gone. The Fox News poll is now all of a sudden the Bible. For a brief moment it’s replaced the New York Times in importance and relevance today.

“Trump’s law firm, Jones Day, sent a letter to the Target Center threatening to sue for breach of contract, citing a Pioneer Press article comparing costs for Trump’s rally to a similar event for then-President,” The One.

“According to the [Pioneer] Press, Trump’s anticipated bill is 26 times higher compared to Obama’s…” Do you know what they charged Obama for his appearance? Twenty grand — $20,000 — they charged The One for security at the Target Center. They wanted to charge Trump $530,000. (laughing) These people are so transparent. You know these impeachment polls, I have to tell you something, folks. Once again, this is the product of media coverage. The American people only know the Democrat side of all this.

It’s another reason why Pelosi’s not gonna really do a full-fledged, let’s-vote-on-it, official impeachment. She doesn’t want the Republicans to have a forum to present counterevidence. She doesn’t want the White House and Republicans to have a chance in the same venue that Schiff and his team are using to provide their own witnesses to counter what Schiff lies are. They don’t… It’s a way for Pelosi to manage the polls. It’s a way for Pelosi to limit the president, the Republicans’ view of all of this.

So I’m still not convinced that there’s ever gonna be a full-fledged impeachment vote, unless… You know, these Democrats are so desirous and they’re so salivating over it that if they get any more Fox News polls like this, they may be convinced that had they’ve got it in the bag, and they may go for it. And if that day happens — if they go for it and if there is a full-fledged impeachment, if there is a trial — then the Republicans get a chance to counter all of this drivel and rotgut that Schiff and company are putting out there.

And that’s gonna have a massive shift in change in public opinion. Pelosi knows this, folks. That’s why this is happening the way it is. Make no mistake about it. So Trump’s holding a rally in Minnesota tonight where he’s trying to flip it and turn it into a state that will vote for him. Again, let me just share with you this note: “The Minnesota DFL Party tweeted on Monday that Trump came within 1.5 percentage points of winning Minnesota in 2016, with following threads that the ‘Trump campaign is staffing up in Minnesota in ways we’ve never seen before, and frankly we just can’t keep up.'”

I doubt CNN knows this. I doubt the New York Times knows this. If they were told about this, they would ignore it; pay no attention to it. But he came pretty close to winning it, 1.5 points, and is now staffing up in ways that the Minnesota Communist Party “can’t keep up” with — I mean, and admitting that they can’t. That’s pretty big. Okay. So Trump has the highest approval rating by Republicans in history. It’s over 90%. You know what the Drive-Bys are saying? Everything that the Democrats do is modeled on something that’s happened in the past.

This would obviously be based on Watergate, so Trump has become Nixon. So now they’re looking at what the timelines were with Nixon. You know, how long did it take, what did they have to do, what were the final straws that finally convinced Nixon that he had to resign? They’re trying to replay or manufacture events now so that they will follow that script. So if you look carefully, you can find stories out there that are designed to keep left-wing activists energized and inspired.

One of my favorite ones out there today, the headline is: “It Took Republicans a Long Time to Abandon Nixon.” (laughing) So the story today for Democrats (impression) is, “It took a long time; so don’t expect this to happen right now. Republicans are gonna hang tough for a while. Don’t think this is gonna happen overnight!” The left is doing everything it can to keep its own radical base from going insane — or further, more insane than they already are. If you know how to read these headlines and how to juxtapose them with what the Democrat strategy is, it’s actually kind of funny.

So, anyway, Trump oversells all these venues that he appears in. There are more people outside wanting to get in than there is room for inside. People stand outside. They watch him on remote screens by the thousands. They come out for days just to get inside the venue — and remember all of this back in 2016? “That it doesn’t matter! You can’t judge electoral strength on the basis of crowd size at rallies. Who does that? You can’t do that.” In 2016, we learned that we can.

So you have these suspect polls that are very… I mean, deal with them as you get them. Choose to believe ’em or not. It’s tough to cherry-pick ’em, but you can, based on what you know about individual polling units. I mean, if you look… For example, you might want to take a look at the board of directors, not just of Fox News but of the Fox corporation. Find out who’s there. Find out what their opinions of Trump are. What kind of influence can boards of directors have on, say, polling units inside Fox News?

There’s any number of variables here. And since everything in media is fake these days, sadly — sadly — the smart thing to do is to doubt everything you see and hear when you first see and hear it. I don’t know about you, but I hate having to do that. I hate having to doubt everything. I hate what these people have done to some of the institutions that are crucially necessary for a functioning country like ours.

So Ronna McDaniel at the Republican National Committee, GOP chairwoman, tweeted, “The Fox News poll is wrong, just like their final poll in 2016 (had Hillary winning by 4) was wrong.” She then points out, “A staggering 48% of those polled on this bogus impeachment charade were Democrats,” and she’s right. The polling sample is 48% Democrats, 40% Republican, 12% precious (God we love them) independents. She concludes her tweet with, “Our internal polling shows voters, particularly Independents, oppose this sham!”

So that’s what she says. Move over to Rasmussen now. The Rasmussen Report’s Daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 47% of likely voters approve of the job that Trump is doing; 51% disapprove. The latest figures include 33% who strongly approve of the job Trump’s doing, 43% who strongly disapprove. So the approval index rating is a minus 10. Again, with the carpet bombing of smears and lies that Trump is getting, 47% approval is pretty good.

In fact, in one way it’s almost unbelievable. How can somebody who has been routinely smeared, blasphemed, slandered, libeled, and hereticized be at 47% after 2-1/2, almost three years of this? But there Donald Trump is. Supporters are digging in, breathlessly awaiting whatever Attorney General Barr and John Durham are going to produce.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Joseph in Staten Island. Great to have you, sir. Hi.

CALLER: (garbled speaker phone) Thank you for taking my call, Rush. It’s a real pleasure. I wanted to speak about what I believe could be the situation — and it’s a hypothesis. It is that I believe that there are many Americans that are so disgusted with this three years of trying to impeach this president, when polling like this comes out, they are basically saying, “Okay, impeach and remove him so we can get it over to the Senate and the Senate can finally put an end to this madness.” That’s what I think is happening, ’cause no one with any common sense can really believe that the president is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So you think that people want this to move forward so that it will end in the Senate?

CALLER: Correct. Yes.

RUSH: So you think that’s why a Fox poll would show 51% might be in favor of impeachment?

CALLER: Absolutely correct. People are sick and tired.

RUSH: Except the Fox poll says impeachment and removal.

CALLER: Yes! Of course it does! However, there are so many people that are saying, “I had enough. Whatever you want, I’ll give you to you.”

RUSH: All right.

CALLER: “Get it over to the Senate. I’ll give you whatever you want in your stupid polls.”

RUSH: All right. All right. I hear that. I understand it. I agree with you. I want to examine this theory, because it’s very close to, “Rush, let Clinton win, and then people can find out how rotten he is!” “Rush, let Obama win. Let him destroy health care and people will finally found out how bad liberals are.” I never understand how losing was winning. Okay, so now there’s a new theory out there to explain the Fox poll, and that is that people want this to go forward! They want this impeachment process to go forward because it’s the only way it’s gonna end.

“The only way it’s gonna end is for Trump to be acquitted in the Senate, so let’s let it go!” Okay. I’m examining the theory. The theory requires ontological certitude that the Senate would acquit, and obviously proponents of this theory apparently are not worried at all about what would happen in the Senate. “So go ahead, impeach the guy! Have your trial, you crumbs, and then let it go to the Senate — and we’ll whack it back down your throat and any other orifice that’s handy.”

Well, guess what’s happening in the Senate? Mitt Romney is leading the resistance movement in the Senate, and he’s trying as we speak, Mitt Romney — and he’s working with people like George Conway, they’re trying to dredge up as much anti-Trump support among Republicans in the Senate as they can. (interruption) I have no idea. I mean, you need 67 votes. It’s very hard to do. No president has ever been removed this way, folks.

No president has ever been convicted and removed in the constitutionally mandated impeachment protocols and process.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: That Fox News poll, speaking of all that. What do you think the odds are — I’m just throwing this out for you to think about. What do you think about the possibility the Fox News poll is designed with potential advertiser gain in mind? All these boycotts of Fox sponsors for being conservative and so forth. So Fox comes out with a poll: 51% hate Trump and want him gone, advertisers, “Ah! A friendly place now.” What do you think the odds? Possible, or not? Just throwing it out there. I have no idea.