RUSH: All morning long on Fox News — well, everywhere — other than Trump’s speech tonight, there has been a singularly dominating topic, and that is the investigation into whether or not the Russians had contact with the Trump campaign and if they worked together to salvage a victory for Trump and a defeat for Hillary. What’s glaring about everybody they talk to is there’s not a single person — not a single person — that has any evidence that any of this ever happened! And yet it has been a dominating topic all morning long.
I’ll take a brief time-out. I’m gonna come back, and I’ll give you an example of this starting with my appearance on Fox News Sunday recently.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to go back to February 19th, nine days ago, Fox News Sunday. Chris Wallace: “You say that what’s happening to Donald Trump right now is that the left-wing courts, left-wing media, left-wing bureaucracy are trying to, in your words, ‘sabotage his presidency.’ Sabotage?”
RUSH: Okay, that’s that. The next point —
RUSH ARCHIVE: People that voted for Donald Trump, people that support Donald Trump —
RUSH: Stop the tape! That’s where I go on and on to talk about the difference in Trump voters and I recall had voters. Devin Nunes. Devin Nunes is the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee yesterday on Capitol Hill. He held a press conference to talk about all of this alleged contact between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, and during the Q&A a CNN reporter, Manu Raju said, “Can you say categorically there were no contacts whatsoever between any officials affiliated with the Russians and the Trump campaign?”
NUNES: Not that I’m aware of. We still have not seen any evidence of anyone from the Trump campaign — or any other campaign, for that matter — that’s communicated with the Russian government.
RUSH: Nobody has, folks! There is no evidence here. I told you you’re phone get bored or angry wishing me to move on, but this allegation, again, is the number one thing propelling Democrats and the media in their opposition to Trump. That his presidency is illegitimate, that his election was fraudulent, that Hillary should have won. Everybody knew she should have won! But Trump worked with the Russians and they hacked the emails, got Podesta’s emails, embarrassed Hillary. But there’s no evidence. Every news story about this, no evidence. It’s all about the seriousness of the charge. There’s more from Devin Nunes. Next question: “Why would you agree to talk to reporters at the behest of the White House knowing that you’re still looking into this matter?” Meaning: The investigation is still ongoing. Why are you commenting?
NUNES: That story was a little odd, I thought, because if you ask me to contact the White House and said, “Hey, could you set me up with somebody at DOD or the intelligence agencies?” I would say, “Sure.” So it was kind of an odd story, I thought.
RAJU: Is it compromised in any away, the fact that you have already made in determination?
NUNES: How? How is it compromised if I’m trying to be transparent with the press and if the White House asks me to talk to a reporter — which, by the way, it was one: reporter. If the White House asked me to talk to you, would you think that that would be okay or not okay?
RAJU: What’s your response to that.
NUNES: What’s your response to it?
RAJU: You’re investigating this matter, and the White House is urging you to knock down these stories that are raising questions about this.
NUNES: That absolutely didn’t happen.
RUSH: No. There is no request to knock down the stories! This is how this lie gets started, and this lie got started thanks to CNN. And I’m gonna rehash this. It’s one day at the White House recently. Andrew McCabe number two at the FBI, after whatever event there was going on there, pulled Reince Priebus aside. McCabe at the FBI started this conversation. He said (paraphrased), “Reince, FYI: All of this stuff about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians in New York Times? We don’t have any evidence for that.
So word of this leaked out, and CNN runs a headline: “FBI Refused White House Request to Knock Down Recent Trump-Russia Stories.” No. Did not happen. The news in the story is: FBI deputy director says no evidence of collusion between Russians and Trump campaign. The CNN story, clearly that was the point of it and that the White House was trying to knock down the lies in this story. That story was such journalistic malpractice; it still frosts me! But that lie persists and is continuing this story, which we’re trying to knock down yet again today.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: No, no, no. I am not suffering any pangs of guilt. I just feel it necessary to explain. The bulk of this audience is here every day. You’d be amazed at the number of people in this audience, which is now in excess of 20 million, that listen to all of it. You would be stunned, my friends. But even at that there are people that don’t listen to all of it. They tune in here and there when they have time. Plus we have the new members of the audience which, you know, can find some today for the first time, last week for the first time.
So I’m always making efforts to keep things in context here so that new listeners have some background of what I’m talking about. And this story about collusion between Trump and the Russians to effect the outcome of the election, folks, there’s a reason the media and the Democrats will not let go of this. It’s all they’ve got.
Now, I think at this stage it’s largely fundraising. I think the Democrats know their base is losing its sanity, and that’s the best time to separate them from their money. So all this talk of impeachment is designed to ratchet up donations. They also mean it and they’re also genuinely plotting, behind closed doors, on how they could get rid of Trump. And it’s not just Democrats. This is a nuclear explosion combined with an earthquake in Washington.
They don’t want Trump to succeed. They don’t want an outsider to be able to come in and do what they’ve told us all these years is impossible. They don’t want somebody to be able to come in and cut the budget. You know the drill. “Well, there’s not enough discretionary spending in the budget to make a difference. The budget 60, 70% entitlements. We can’t touch those.” That’s the built-in excuse for the budget always growing.
Wait ’til you see what Trump’s gonna propose tonight. He’s gonna propose cutting the EPA in half. He’s gonna propose even more than that. There are going to be heart attacks. There gonna be people jumping out of tall windows on Wall Street tonight. Well, maybe on K Street. They cannot allow this to succeed.
Remember, these are not people that put the country first. They put themselves first. They believe the country’s always gonna be there. There’s no crisis to them. There’s no country losing its culture. There’s no country losing its identity. There’s no country being invaded. We’re not really at war here. They don’t even consider terrorism to be that big of deal. Immigration they’re in favor of. So they think all the things you believe that elected Trump, you’re crackpots. And they can’t permit this to happen.
They’re not ever going to accept Trump as president, the people I’m talking about. And these are the people that are running with this story that his election was illegitimate. And it’s that one story that permits all the things that are happening. That belief, that Trump is illegitimate, is what fuels the protests, is what fuels the riots, is what’s fueling all of the trouble making going on at Townhall meetings and just for no reason at all in various cities.
I don’t know how many of ’em really believe it. It doesn’t matter. It’s the opportunity that saying they believe it provides. If Trump’s illegitimate, then anything he does is illegitimate in terms of his agenda. If anything he achieves, if he actually gets some of this stuff done, it’ll be easy to get rid of it, they think, because eventually they’re gonna prove, they’re gonna prove that Trump did not legitimately win.
That’s why this needs to be beat back. This is why it needs to be focused on. This story dates back to 2015, folks, when Barack Obama, in March of that year, first said that the Russians were not succeeding in hacking American elections. This story has been out that long with no evidence, no evidence whatsoever that there was any collusion between Trump and the Russians.
Yeah, but what was the outcome? What resulted from these so called conversations? Which there’s no evidence that that happened, either. The only evidence that somebody with Trump talked to the Russians is Flynn last December, Michael Flynn. There isn’t any evidence of any of this. Yet the stories keep being published and updated with more unnamed sources claiming more speculation and conclusion. And every one of these new stories, because they have to, they have to say buried deep: no evidence yet has been produced.
All that means is the smart people are on the case and they’re gonna find it, they’re gonna find the evidence. They haven’t found it yet, but it’s there. This is what is being reported. But the allegation, the allegation doesn’t even specify anything. You know why? Because they can’t. This my point to Chris Wallace. There is no way the Russians could have determined the outcome of voting. Trump or his people talking to the Russians during the campaign — for which there’s no evidence, even if that happened — how in the world does that affect who voted, where they voted and who counted the votes?
It doesn’t! It’s impossible. Particularly when we have an election determined by the Electoral College. This is specious. This is absurd. It is preposterous. And yet it lives every day. And its purpose is to raise doubts in as many people’s minds as possible that Trump is indeed a fraud, that he is the result of cheating, that the Russians, the evil empire, they wanted Trump. That’s bad enough. What do the Russians like about Trump? Oh, my God. We’re supposed to be scared of that.
And every time I see ’em bring it up, folks, I’m going to beat it back. And it’s been up there a full day today. It was partially mentioned yesterday, a lot last week, because, remember, this story is what justifies or permits or explains all of this anti-Trumpism you see out there. Because if you look at Trump, some of the things he’s actually doing and proposing, they’re not in any way outrageous to the point of creating this kind of reaction to them. I’m talking about on the merits and the substance of some of his proposals and ideas.
So this is clearly rooted in the inability of the left and the Democrats to accept that they’ve lost, and it’s clear that they don’t have any ability to understand why. They didn’t just lose this election. They have been losing elections in droves since 2010. And in their world, it’s never them, never their fault. They are never being rejected. Somebody’s tricking the voters.
This is a dangerous bunch of people in terms of how delusional they are. They’re especially dangerous because of the entitlement they think they have to power, that it is theirs by birthright, and anybody — Trump, Romney, George W. Bush, you name it — they’re all placeholders and frauds and have no business being there.
Now, I got one more. Adam Schiff. Let’s go to a Democrat on this. Adam Schiff is a Democrat in California. He’s the ranking member, which means the Democrats are the minority on the committee, but he’s in charge of the Democrats. He’s their leader on that committee, so that’s why they call him the ranking member. He held a press conference yesterday afternoon on Capitol Hill.
SCHIFF: I just want to make something clear, and that is the committee has reached no conclusion on whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, Russian officials, or any Russian contacts, nor could we. We have called no witnesses thus far. We have obtained no documents on any counterintelligence investigation, and we have yet to receive any testimony from the FBI on the investigation of potential links between the Trump campaign and Russia. So we’re not in a position to reach any conclusions about that.
Okay, Trump campaign talked to Russians during the campaign. So what was the result? What did they arrange? How did they give Hillary the shaft? They didn’t! Hillary lost this all on her own, folks. Donald Trump won this all on his own. But here you have even the ranking Democrat. “We don’t have any evidence. I want to make something very clear. We haven’t reached any conclusion.” But why does the story survive then? Why is it back out there in force all morning today? Why is it the dominating discussion on cable news network panel discussions?
It is as I have told you. It is an effort to continue the doubt, just like they did with Bush after the Florida recount in 2000. Bush presidency was illegitimate. Look what that large, the illegitimacy because the Supreme Court stepped in and stopped the count, Gore was on the way to winning, Supreme Court knew it and they shut it down. That’s what permitted the Democrats to destroy the George W. Bush administration, which they succeeded in doing in his second term on the belief that he wasn’t legitimate.
And look what they did to his approval number. After six years of that, they got it down to the thirties. That’s why you’ve got to learn the lesson and stop this and stuff this, which is why I’m ecstatic to hear Trump blame all of these protests and other things on Obama and his people.
Bernie Sanders, last night CNN, Anderson Cooper, who said House Intel Committee Nunes says he’s got no evidence of any contacts between Trump and the Russians and that there shouldn’t be a special prosecutor to investigate. Investigate what? There hasn’t even been an allegation. Special prosecutor? Here’s what Crazy Bernie said.
SANDERS: No, of course I don’t agree with him. Look, what we have happened is unprecedented in the history of our country. We have a major government, the Russian government, led by Mr. Putin, actively interfering in our elections, determining, trying to do everything that they could to make sure that Mr. Mr. Trump won the election. Now, there may not yet be any evidence of direct collusion between the Russian government —
RUSH: Stop the tape! Did you hear what you just heard? (imitating Sanders) “We have a major government, the Russian government, led by Mr. Putin, actively interfering in our elections, determining, trying to do everything they could to make sure that Trump won. Now, there may not be any evidence for it.”
Well, hell’s bells. Do you know this? James Clapper and this other guy that ran Obama’s national security, what was it, Brennan, John Brennan, James Clapper, do you realize, they issued a report in December — they’re Clinton, they’re Obama guys — they issued a report in December saying there was no evidence any of this happened. And yet if you don’t know any of this and all you do is read or watch the Drive-By Media, you think this is an ongoing thing and the evidence is there and it’s just waiting to be found.
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