RUSH: I want to take you back to August 21st. I made a prediction on this program. I forget the context here, but I remember there was pressure on me to make some kind of big prediction about Congress’ return. Snerdley challenged me or somebody did, and I came through with one, just off the top of my head, and this was it.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I’m gonna predict when Congress comes back this fall that Pelosi will be forced to cave. That she will be forced to end her resistance because the entirety of her caucus is going to demand official impeachment. … They had visions already that we would be on our way to a trial in the Senate with Trump under the interrogation lights. It hasn’t gone anywhere and precisely because it hasn’t gone anywhere, the left is going nuts. So I think Pelosi will cave. Let me make that as my official prediction. Pelosi will cave when Congress comes back, and the Democrats will complete the trifecta of shooting themselves in the foot and Pelosi will know it the minute she authorizes it, the impeachment of Trump, with one year before the election.

RUSH: And it is. She did. I mean, the Democrats announced it. They’re not gonna start taking a vote. I remember, I made a point (I think it was last week as well) that Nadler’s talking about impeachment and promising, but there has not been an official vote on it in his committee or anywhere in the House. The reason there wasn’t a vote was precisely because Pelosi didn’t want a vote. The reason she didn’t want a vote was the Democrats won the House in 2018 by winning a bunch of districts where Trump prevailed in the presidential race in 2016.

So the standard line of thinking is, “Okay. We’ve got a lot of Trump sympathizers in these districts,” even though these people elected Democrats in the House. As everybody knows, that’s not because of anything other than formula, you know, the sitting Republican or the sitting presidential party always loses seats in the first midterm election after he wins the presidency. So the Democrats know that this is largely a statistical reality coming true. It wasn’t totally based in substance.

So Pelosi, in other words, is not thinking that the people that voted for Trump in 2016 have decided to vote against him in 2020 just because they elected some Democrats to the House. They’re still Trump sympathizers. They’re still Trump voters. She doesn’t want to anger them by having an official vote where these new members of Congress that won in Trump districts go on record voting for the impeachment of Trump. She lost it. The Democrat caucus demanded to do this. They’re gonna do it, and Pelosi is gonna be fretting over this.

You’ll not see it publicly. You’re not gonna see her out there at her press conference worrying about it, but privately and behind closed doors she will be because now these people are gonna go on record with their impeachment vote, and there isn’t a poll out there that shows the American people want Trump impeached. Now, this is interesting, too, because whereas the media has been able to create this myth… I mean, if we’re to believe this ABC poll — by the way, which is a stretch.

But if we’re gonna believe it, 60% of their respondents think that we’re on the verge of recession. That’s simply because the media has been flooding the zone with that story for three weeks. But the media’s also been flooding the zone with the fact that Trump is rotten and needs to be impeached. And there is no polling data that supports impeachment. There’s nowhere near. You can’t find a poll anywhere — other than in specific places like a couple of blocks of New York, Manhattan, or San Francisco, Los Angeles.

But in a nationwide sample, you cannot find a poll where a majority of people want Trump impeached, and that’s what Pelosi’s worried about. Now they’ve gone on record. And there’s no way that this could ever come to anything. There’s no way that there can ever be a trial; there’s not enough time. There’s no way that there will ever be a conviction in the Senate. The Republicans run the Senate. I don’t care how many Never Trumpers are in there, they’re not gonna give the Democrats this win. They’re just not gonna do it.

So there’s no hope of anything really happening here. Plus, depending on how intense they take this, they’re gonna overshadow their own primary campaign and presidential campaign, which they may actually want to do if Biden ends up being the nominee. Like Hillary, the less he’s out there, the better it is. You know, it was true for her. The less you heard from her and the less we saw her, the better her numbers were, and vice-versa. Now, grab sound bite number 8. This is Steve Cohen.

This is the guy who, when somebody refused to testify before Nadler’s committee, he went out and bought a bunch of Kentucky Fried Chicken, had it delivered in there to the committee, and he was eating it out of a bucket trying to convey that whoever refused to testify, whoever didn’t come up was a chicken, was a coward. This guy’s deranged. This guy’s like the… He’s not all there. He was on with Fredo last night on CNN’s Fredo Prime Time. Question: “No crimes, not an agent of Russia, says Mr. Mueller, who everybody was supposed to respect.”

There’s nothing here, Mr. Cohen. What are you gonna impeach him over?

COHEN: Over 150 contacts with his, uh, campaign with Russians. They welcomed the interference. Trump even went to television, “Russia, if you’re listening…” There was a reason he said that ’cause he knew they were listening. We’ll find out. What’s in the grand jury testimony that was redacted by Barr? Trump’s Roy Cohn may be the smoking gun or the arsenal or the garrison that breaks this thing free — and someday down the line, there’s gonna be a reckoning and people will see that this was not only the worst the president of the United States, but one of the worst human beings to ever (sputters) grace this earth.

RUSH: They’ve got nothing. This is just pure, raw hatred that you hear here from Steve Cohen. He’s a Democrat from Tennessee. He’s talking about, “Russia, if you’re listening…” This was Trump’s joke. Trump was goosing everybody, trying to find Hillary’s emails. The media, nobody could find them. “Russia if you’re listening, maybe you could find Hillary’s emails. If you do, could you give them to our media? They’re really looking very, very hard for them,” and these Democrats running around thinking Trump was actually asking the Russians to hack Hillary!

They really do. I’ve had people say, “Rush, they know he was joking. They’re just talking.” No, they don’t. They do not have a sense of humor. One other thing. “What’s in the grand jury testimony redacted by Barr … Trump’s Roy Cohn”? Roy Cohn is somebody that you may have heard his name, but you may not know a whole lot about him. Let me give you just a brief explanation of Roy Cohn. He was a New York attorney. He was one of Trump’s friends. But he was a controversial figure in that he loved controversy. He welcomed it. He dove right into it.

When there was controversy, he tried to amplify it. He tried to make it even worse, because as far as Roy Cohn was concerned, whenever you’re in the news, it’s a good thing. And no matter what, it can lead to people being intimidated by you, scared by you. He was the exact opposite of most normal people. When controversy erupted, they run from it, they hide from it, they don’t want to be touched by it. Roy Cohn welcomed it. He counseled his clients:

“If you find yourselves in controversy, double down on it! Triple down on it. Do not run away from it no matter what you do,” and many people say that Trump was mentored by Roy Cohn and it’s one of the reasons that Trump does double down on things. But he’s considered a scourge only because he has a relationship with Trump. In the normal ebb and flow of things, the people now being critical of Roy Cohn would actually embrace him and like him.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Trump has also tweeted a couple things, and I’m glad he did this. It’s gonna get lost in the flow.

But he has just tweeted his absolute disgust with this ABC News/Washington Post poll on the recession, calling it typical fake news, disastrous, very damaging. And he pointed out that the ABC News/Washington Post poll that had him losing by 12 points in 2016 was so bad that he actually had his people call them and they took it down because it was so bad. But his point is, it’s giving historical reference to how inaccurate the poll is — and I don’t doubt it. I don’t think this… They use polls to make news, not reflect it.

They use polls to create and make public opinion, not reflect it. This is a classic illustration. Speaking of impeachment and the Democrats formally voting to do it… You talk about polling data? Folks, I’m telling you, there isn’t anywhere a majority of the American people want the president to be impeached. It just isn’t there. And yet the Democrat base is demanding it. And they are a minority in this country, but they are demanding it. The New York Times is afraid of the Democrat base. The Democrat Party is afraid of the Democrat base.

So they went ahead and voted for it. But let me just give you… There’s a companion story here, “A website and eventbrite.com promoted rallies in Washington, D.C., and other cities across the country to take place Monday to push for the impeachment of President Donald Trump — but no one,” not a single person, “showed up for the” impeachment rally in Washington D.C. “The website, impeachmentaugust.org, said the protest would take place at 11:00 a.m. at 1st Street SE, which is near the House side of the Capitol.

“The website states that the protest is supported by several leftist and anti-Trump groups, including Indivisible, MoveOn.org, Need to Impeach, Stand Up America, March of Truth, By the People, Common Cause, Free Speech for People, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of America, Credo, and democrats.com.” All of those groups sponsoring all these impeachment rallies all over the country yesterday and not a single person showed up at the impeachment rally in Washington.

It was supposed to happen “at noon … on the ‘Capitol lawn below the steps,’ but nobody showed up…” So what if all these leftist organizations planned a rally and nobody turns up? There’s nobody showing up at Joe Biden’s rallies. There are very few people showing up at Fauxcahontas’ rallies. There isn’t any enthusiasm in the Democrat Party, other than the lunatic Drive-By base on social media. But when it comes to actual warm human bodies showing up and demonstrating enthusiasm for any of these Democrat candidates, you need a microscope to see it, a telescope.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Richard in Statesboro, Georgia, as we head back to the phones. Welcome, sir. Great to have you with us today.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I’m optimistic about the 2020 election — 2020 House elections. I think the impeachment, call for impeachment is just their knowledge that they’re gonna lose the House. And they gotta do it now or it’s never gonna happen, they just got to impeach Trump for them to appease their base. And if not now then never, so that makes me very optimistic about 2020.

RUSH: I want to beg to disagree only slightly. I don’t think these people think they’re gonna lose the House. And I think they’re conflicted. I think that in many sectors of the Democrat Party they are lying to themselves as they have been since 2016. They thought they were gonna get rid of Trump on election night, then a week later, then before the end of the year, then before he was inaugurated.

They were gonna overturn the election results. They were gonna make sure he was not sworn in and every one of these things has happened, they’ve been trying to get rid of him ever since. But in the midst of this is the belief that everybody in the country hates Trump like they do.

So I think they’re sitting there, I think they’re conflicted. One day they think they’re gonna win everything. They’re gonna win the White House back, they’re gonna keep the House, they’re gonna win the Senate. Then they come up and do this impeachment stuff and that sends a signal that I think that somewhere they are not confident they’re gonna win the presidency. I don’t think they’ve reached the point they think they’re gonna lose the House, though.

CALLER: Go ahead. I just think Pelosi’s a little bit more pragmatic. And now that she’s given up, I guess, essentially coming back, like you said, from the recess and allowing it, I think, you know, that’s why I’m optimistic.

RUSH: Well, I’m trying to talk you out of your optimism because I do think that proceeding with this impeachment business — look. On one level it is simply an acknowledgment that nobody in the party can stand up to their base. The New York Times couldn’t stand up to the base. You know, they had on a website a headline that was — I mean, it was unopinionated. It was simply a factual representation of a news event.

Because it didn’t savage Trump, the Democrat base threatened the New York Times about subscription cancellations, bomb threats, you name it, the New York Times caved inside of 30 minutes. Pelosi has done her best to hold off this impeachment caucus ’cause the polling data, she can read it. The American people don’t want impeachment.

The Democrats had impeachment rallies all over the country yesterday. Nobody showed up at the impeachment rally in Washington. There isn’t public sentiment for it. The Democrats don’t have the guts to tell their base “No.” Their base is a bunch of childish, immature, radical, unhappy, miserable people, and there’s not a single adult anywhere in the Democrat Party to stand up and tell ’em to shut up, that they’re wrong, that they’re doing great damage.

Instead they’re kowtowed to. And that’s what this impeachment is. Pelosi couldn’t hold ’em off anymore. Nadler is being primaried. Nadler doesn’t want to be the victim of the next Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez so he’s trying to respond. Nadler is suffering the same fate as that old white-haired 88-year-old guy, Joe whatever his name was that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat in the primary.

Nadler’s being primaried. He doesn’t want to go the same way that a white haired Democrat guy went so he’s trying to send the signal that he’s as radical leftist as the rest of them. They’re gonna do this vote. They’re gonna force their members of Congress to go on record here, presidential level, I think doing this — for all intents and purposes we’re a year out. There’s no way this can end before the election. There’s no way.

There’s no way there’s gonna be a trial in the Senate. And if there ever was there’s no way there’s gonna be conviction. There is no way that this is going to force Trump out of office. Yet they’re doing it anyway. I think it means that they, in the deep, dark corners of their dark hearts and minds, I think they are very, very worried. I mean, they can see their primary candidates. They can see there’s no enthusiasm. They can see there’s no crowds. Raising their hands, “Yeah! I think free health care for every illegal.”

“How you gonna pay for it?”

“We’re gonna raise taxes on the middle class?”

“How much?”

“Well, it’s gonna cost like two trillion, so you figure it out.” Meanwhile, people are fleeing. I saw a story on Fox today, people are fleeing New York and they’re fleeing New Jersey. You know, upper middle-class people, moving to Florida can save $70,000 a year on taxes by not having state and local taxes in New York. You might say, “Well, that’s no big deal.” Add that up over 10 years. You move, you move. Add it up.

People are fleeing. They’re taxed out. And here come the Democrats promising free health care for illegals? Nobody else is being promised free health care paid for by middle class tax increases? They can see this happening. They can see there’s no enthusiasm for the frontrunner, Plugs Biden. I think the handwriting is on the wall for them.