RUSH: First on the Gorsuch nomination, the Democrats, Chuck Schumer is confirmed now to have enough votes to stop the confirmation of Judge Gorsuch without the nuclear option. So it is reported. The news is that Judge Gorsuch will not get the 60-vote threshold to go to a full vote on the confirmation. We’ve got reports of some Democrats voting to confirm him. I think Susan Collins has signaled to the Republicans she’s gonna vote against him, which, believe me, makes no sense, just absolutely no sense.

Mitch McConnell assured everybody on Meet the Press yesterday that Gorsuch is gonna get confirmed and it’s gonna happen by Friday, and that means if they have to pull the nuclear option, they’re gonna do it, which the Democrats know. It is silly for the Democrats to force the nuclear option on this nominee. I tell you, folks, I know this goes against the grain of the daily soap opera narrative. I mean, when you turn on mainstream news, what I’m about to say goes against what anybody concludes watching just a few minutes of news.

I think things are imploding on the Democrats, and I actually think this is one of the reasons why the media is so desperate, because despite all the minutia and detail here, in the real world, the things the Democrat Party believes in are failing all over the world, not just here in the United States. The Obama administration was an economic disaster, was an economic failure. Liberalism, socialism around the world is imploding.

The Democrats are losing power in every election. And I think that’s part of the panic. They want us to believe that the behavior and panic is rooted in an absolute outraged offense over this president that we have, this is just unacceptable and some maniac like Trump is so out of the ordinary, out of the norm, has to be stopped. I don’t think that’s what it is. I mean, it’s part of it. But I think there’s a much larger panic that is taking over the Democrat Party. And it’s gonna implode on ’em.

And I’ll tell you, one of the areas it’s gonna implode is this entire effort they have made to tie Trump’s election to Russian malfeasance or hacking. That is about to blow up in their face. In fact, it may of already have. It is just that you don’t find this news yet in much of the mainstream media.

Pulling out all the stops here on Gorsuch politically makes no sense, but it does make sense if the Democrats’ lunatic maniac base is demanding it and threatening never to send the Democrats any money ever again. Then that would explain why they’re willing to fall on the sword here, because this is not the nominee that you want to force the nuclear option on. Because once the nuclear option is pulled, it’s pulled. And once the rule is changed, it’s changed. It’s not changed per nominee. It’s changed. And if they force this, then all they’re gonna need in future Supreme Court nominees is 51 votes.

Trump could nominate somebody they literally despise, somebody that could be the most outrageous choice in the world, and they’re not gonna be able to stop that nominee if they force McConnell to pull the nuclear option.

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RUSH: We start on the phones today in Oxford, Ohio. This is Bill. Bill, great to have you. How are you doing, sir?

CALLER: I’m doing outstanding, Rush. How about yourself?

RUSH: Fine and dandy. Great to have you here.

CALLER: I got a quick question real quick, like Mr. Snerdley said. My question is, why is everybody so scared of the filibuster? Why don’t they just let the Democrats get on the floor and talk and talk and talk?

RUSH: That’s not what a filibuster is. That’s not the kind of filibuster we’re talking about.

CALLER: It’s not?

RUSH: No. A filibuster is a rule in the Senate that essentially says anything has to get 60 votes before it can proceed to the Senate for a debate, either a piece of legislation or a Supreme Court nominee. Now, Harry Reid triggered the nuclear option on lower-court nominees and appellate court nominees to get rid of the filibuster, so now for those nominees, those judges, it only takes 51 votes. The kind of filibuster you’re talking about would say the Democrats would eventually wear out, they’d have to take a potty break and give it up and the Republicans would eventually get the floor back. That’s not what we’re talking about here.

CALLER: Okay. So I had just a misunderstanding, then.

RUSH: You know what? But I’m glad you called because a lot of people do. This is another one of these — I had the same exact reaction you did, when I first started studying or learning about this, and I heard the filibuster used, but I never saw anybody on the floor of the Senate talking? What the heck was this filibuster? And it was explained to me they allow for somebody to pretend to be occupying the floor, and instead of that, they substitute a requirement. It was done to protect minorities from overreach by the majority.

It’s not in the Constitution. It is a Senate rule that was established some years ago. And very simply, it just says that, be it a piece of legislation or in this case a Supreme Court nominee, there must be 60 votes to stop debate. The debate is what you think the filibuster is. When you hear this, you think, “Oh, there’s countless people on the floor of the Senate just talking and reading and saying nothing, just wasting time.” They suspend with that. They just assumed that would happen. They don’t put that requirement, and instead 60 votes are needed, pure and simple.

The nuclear option is eliminating that 60-vote requirement and returning it to simple majority, which is 51. Harry Reid did that so that Obama could pack the lower courts. Obama’s appellate nominees and district court nominees only needed 51 votes. Harry Reid did that so that the Republicans, who were in the minority, could not stop, that Democrats — no party has had 60 votes in the Senate in a long time. That’s one of the reasons the number was arrived at. So Harry Reid said, “You know what? I’m not even gonna let the filibuster play out here.” He changed the rules.

That’s what all of this handwringing is about now, should the Republicans do what Harry Reid did and change it to include Supreme Court nominees? And of course the purists are saying, “We can’t do that. That would be tearing up the rules of the Senate, that would be eliminating centuries, years of tradition.” No, it wouldn’t. When Harry Reid changed the rules nobody was wringing their hands. Nobody on the left, nobody in the media thought, “Oh, my God, what’s the Senate doing?” Nobody thought that. They praised Harry Reid for a brilliant political maneuver.

Now that Mitch McConnell might do it, now everybody, “You can’t do that. You can’t destroy the Senate that way. That would destroy the Senate.” It’s already been destroyed, if that’s what defining destroying the Senate is. Now, as to your other question, let me tell you why the timing here may matter. The second and third week of April is when the Supreme Court announces cases that they are going to take for the next session, which will start after the summer recess. The court comes back around late September, early October. They start ostensibly with the fiscal year of the federal government’s budget.

So they are gonna be announcing in the next three weeks the cases they’re going to be taking. That would mean that if McConnell is right and he’s gonna have Gorsuch confirmed by Friday, that means Gorsuch will have sway on those decisions. I think the truth of the matter is — and your call kind of illustrates it — I don’t think the majority of Americans care how Gorsuch gets through the Senate.

If they need to nuke, nuke. If they have to trigger the nuke, do it! “But, Rush, but, Rush, the Democrats will get away with it ’cause of the media, but they’ll skewer McConnell.” Look, the day has to come, doesn’t it? I look heavenward, I pray, I pray, can the Republicans just one day do something not out of fear? But McConnell has pretty much committed himself to this, if he has to he’s gonna do what it takes.

Here’s the thing about this though, Bill. Once the rule is changed, it’s changed. They don’t just change it for a nominee. That’s why the Democrats doing this is very odd because the odds are that Gorsuch is gonna be confirmed anyway, so why go through this when he’s not really objectionable? The only reason he’s being so objected is because the Democrat donors, the lunatics in their base are telling these guys if they don’t stop this Gorsuch guy, they could forget about getting any donor money.

I heard Dianne Feinstein today, you know, the Senate Judiciary Committee is gonna vote this week, and they all get to make a statement, and DiFi, the chairman of the Democrats or ranking member, was reading it. She didn’t even know in her heart why she opposes the guy. It was embarrassing to listen to her go through this. It was clear that somebody had written it for her and she was not doing a very good job of reading it. Anyway, I’m out of time here. There’s your answer. This is not this is not the kind of filibuster where you remember Rand Paul and Ted Cruz talking for days on the Senate floor.

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RUSH: Oh! Oh. I need to correct this. You should have shouting this. Snerdley sends me a little note here on an obscure…

I’ve got eight monitors in front of me, and Snerdley wants the note here on an obscure little 10-incher. Susan Collins… Somebody in the audience called Susan Collins’ office, Senator Susan Collins, and berated whoever answered the phone because Collins was gonna vote against Gorsuch. The listener called here and said that the Collins office said, “No,” that Senator Collins is voting for Gorsuch. So I stand corrected. But I’m telling you, I saw this in an interview on Fox today. I don’t remember who said it.

It might have been a Fox anchor, it might have been a Fox infobabe, or it might have been a guest. But I saw somebody say it. And the reason I believed it is because I would believe it, and if I heard it about Lisa Murkowski, I would believe it. I’m glad to be wrong in this case. I know there are three Democrats that are gonna vote for Gorsuch. But that’s… I discounted that because I’d heard that Collins was gonna cross over and vote against him on the truck driver case.

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RUSH: Grab audio sound bite number 25. Brian Kilmeade speaking with Shannon Bream on Fox News this morning.

KILMEADE: Are we sure that every Republican will vote for the nuclear option?

BREAM: That’s right.

KILMEADE: I hear Susan Collins might not do this.

BREAM: That’s the tricky thing, because in order to change Senate precedent — you’re not changing rules — you’d have to have all the Republicans on board for this.

RUSH: All right. So, “I hear Susan Collins might not vote for the nuclear option.” Now, this is not what I heard. This was Fox & Friends, and this was said before I got here and turned on the TV. I heard something later on Fox that Susan Collins wasn’t gonna vote for Gorsuch. Now, maybe I’m confused. Maybe they were just reporting that they had heard Susan Collins might not vote for the nuclear option. And, by the way, that is gonna require a lot of Republican participation for all to happen. McConnell, however, seems convinced that he can do it.

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RUSH: What a shock here, folks. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, but that means the Gorsuch nomination moves on to a full vote in the Senate later in the week. Do you know that no nominee for the Supreme Court — I think I’m safe in saying this. If I’m wrong, I apologize in advance, but I don’t think a Supreme Court nominee has ever been filibustered.

Now, the media wants you to think that it’s a minor detail, that it’s part of the process, that it happens all the time, that there’s nothing unusual here. They act like it’s standard practice. Nobody ever fact checks Chuck Schumer’s lies about that. I know Abe Fortas was threatened to be filibustered but he withdrew his name. Snerdley’s in there even now looking to prove me wrong. But I don’t think I am on this.

The Republican committee members, Judiciary Committee, just did a short press conference where each of them took a turn at the microphone and they all guaranteed that Gorsuch is gonna be confirmed by Friday. And what’s gonna happen is that if they have to, they’ll go nuclear, which means get rid of the requirement of 60 votes. (interruption) I know. I knew I was right. No nominee’s ever been filibustered in the Supreme Court. And the media wants you to think, common practice, happens to many of them. No, it doesn’t. Never has happened.

Now, right now it takes 60 votes to confirm a judge to the Supreme Court. Sixty votes for what? Okay, they just had the committee vote. Gorsuch prevailed there. It was a strict party line. Not one Democrat on the committee switched and voted for Gorsuch. Not a surprise. It’s very partisan. The next thing that happens is they have to have a vote to have the vote. In other words, in order to move the nomination to the Senate, they have to get 60 votes before they can have the vote. The 60 votes is to, quote, unquote, break the filibuster. There isn’t a filibuster going on.

In this case, they don’t make the people filibustering go to the well and talk for hours. They just let them pretend that that’s happening. The way you stop any filibuster is 60 votes. So they need to come up with 60 votes. If they can’t, the Republicans only have 52. If they can’t find eight Democrats to join them, well, then it’s nuclear option time. And that would return — see, what would actually happen here is returning confirmation votes to simple majority. That’s the way it always was until fairly recently when this filibuster stuff was put in. So this is actually gonna be a return to what was a previous norm.

Now, the Democrats are making a tactical error doing it on this judge. They should have waited until there was a more controversial pick or one of the libs vacates and Trump picks a conservative to replace a lib. That’s when there’s gonna be an actual nuclear blast. The Democrats are gonna go bananas.

One other thing before we get outta here on this business of unmasking. If Michael Flynn had committed a crime, in other words, if in talking to the Russian ambassador, Michael Flynn had said something about lifting sanctions on Russia, then they could go get him. That would be not right. But he didn’t do that, which is why they’re having to manufacture all of this supposed evil. It’s gonna backfire.