RUSH: Stephanie in Ventura, California. Great to hear from you. How are you doing?

CALLER: Oh, great. It’s as such honor to speak with you, Rush. It really is.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: I appreciate it.

RUSH: Pleasure is all mine. Thank you.

CALLER: Getting to Michelle Carter, the thing that — this is not my topic, but it sort of ties in as I do understand that she was on the phone with him while he was dying and listened to him dying. And then after he died she called her friends and told ’em about it, instead of calling the authorities or calling 911. And I don’t know what the punishment is for that, but that was sort of the horrifying part about Michelle Carter.

RUSH: Well, see, here is the thing, I mean, it’s despicable, the woman is obviously hateful, insensitive, mean-spirited, all these horrible things, but she didn’t pull the trigger or whatever he did to commit suicide.

CALLER: Yes. (unintelligible)

RUSH: Pardon?

CALLER: Wasn’t it carbon monoxide?

RUSH: Yeah, it might have been, I forget which. Whatever, she was not on site. Whatever, she didn’t do it. And to be charged with manslaughter? As I say, it takes away — this young man had the choice, he could have done whatever he wanted, notwithstanding what people were telling him or she was telling him to do. I think it fits with the devolution of our culture.

CALLER: Yeah.

RUSH: But you brought it up. What did you want to say about it?

CALLER: What I called in particular about was that I thought that the Republicans were partially responsible for the violence because they’re not supporting Trump. You said it yourself, some Republicans are waiting for President Pence and waiting for the other shoe to drop. The Democrats are famous for circling the wagons, and the Republicans can’t even get in a half circle. They’re letting the Democrats set the narrative. They’re letting the Democrats call the shots, literally, and I feel they’re partially to blame for all the violence.

RUSH: You know what? I think you’ve got a great point. We run the House of Representatives. We run the Senate, and we’re letting the Democrats run it with all this investigatory stuff and the calls for independent counsel. But even now with Scalise shot, you don’t have the Democrats being excoriated for their language. Republicans are not standing up and taking it to the Democrats and, as such, they’re leaving once again Republican supporters without any leadership other than what they’re getting from Trump.

CALLER: Exactly.

RUSH: So you think that there may be some culpability shared by the Republicans because they’re ceding the stage, c-e-d-i-n-g, ceding the stage to Democrats?

CALLER: I do. I do.

RUSH: I’ll tell you, I’m seeing more and more of this on our side in the media, you know, asking, “Where are the Republicans?” How in the world can all of this be happening to a Republican president when the Republicans have control of the legislative branch? How in the world can it be happening? And of course the answer is self-evident. It’s happening because the Republicans don’t want to stop it. Now, why don’t they want to stop it? That’s where it gets interesting.

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RUSH: Back to the phones. Fred in Cleveland. I’m glad you waited, sir. It’s great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. How are you?

CALLER: I’m doing great, Rush. I hope you’re doing well.

RUSH: Thank you, sir. Appreciate that.

CALLER: My point today, I think that Mueller is going to clear Trump and put this investigation in the rearview mirror.

RUSH: Why do you think that out there, Fred?

CALLER: I think that Mueller knows the gravity of the situation, meaning if Mueller were to come out publicly and say this is ridiculous, there’s no charges, it’s over, all the Republicans would jump on the Trump bandwagon. There would be a complete —

RUSH: I don’t think so.

CALLER: — tsunami in the country, and Trump would get everything he’s trying for and everything would be turned around. If Mueller goes in the opposite direction, then I believe it’s all-out war on Trump and it will never end.

RUSH: It’s all-out war.

CALLER: We’ve got four years or eight years of war with these people, and we see that they’re already unhinged.

RUSH: All right, Fred.

CALLER: Things will get —

RUSH: Fred —

CALLER: — worse and worse and worse.

RUSH: Fred, it’s already all-out war on Trump, and it’s already gonna go on through 2018. That’s in the game plan. I mean, Mueller cannot call this off as soon as you have predicted. He’s not even finished hiring his staff yet. You know what? Mueller will probably earn $10 million minimum doing this just in terms of his fees. He can charge the government whatever he wants, and we will pay it, and of his staff. Nobody talks about that angle of this. But we will continue this here in a second. I’m glad you called, Fred.

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RUSH: I don’t want to be totally dismissive of our last caller. I was facing a limited amount of time. I have heard… Folks, there is scuttlebutt going around — and who knows what to believe now. So you just hear it all and you absorb it. You process it; take it all in. It becomes — if nothing else — fascinating to discuss. One of the things that I have heard, not from somebody I don’t know. I mean, it’s not something I’ve seen on the internet. This is something I have heard from learned people in this bailiwick, the legal special counsel/political bailiwick.

And there are some who theorize… Look, this is all based on one hard, cold reality: Trump hasn’t done anything. There isn’t any evidence. There is no evidence. That’s the starting point for the discussion: There is no evidence of collusion. There is no evidence of obstruction. There isn’t. Comey didn’t even think that Trump obstructed him way back on February 14th when they had dinner. There’s no evidence of anything, and that is the foundation for what comes next. No evidence. After a year, there is no evidence.

There’s just a bunch of fake stuff that has leaked to the media that has never had any factual basis to it. Nothing! No evidence of anything criminal involving Donald Trump. So here comes Mueller. Who is he? He is the highest regarded person of his ilk in Washington. He has the greatest reputation for the greatest integrity and decency and honor — a man who cannot be swayed by lucre or women, a man who is rock solid and has a life of devotion to fealty to prove it. Not a single crack in his reputational honor or integrity. So if you couple those two things — a man who is universally respected, who has never once been tarred or feathered or even touched by allegations of impropriety or partisanship.

You couple that with a perp — i.e., Trump — who’s done nothing, for which there’s no evidence, what do you get? You get an exoneration. Remember, he was hired by the Trump deputy attorney general, Rosenstein. The Democrats not hire him. So what has happened? He’s gone out and he staffed up with all liberals. He staffed up with Hillary loyalists, Obama loyalists, Hillary donors. It has been so many that it’s noteworthy how many partisan leftists, how many leaning to the left Democrat lawyers he has hired. The theory is that he’s doing this so that when Trump is exonerated, the backlash will be limited because the investigators are all Democrats. They’re all leftists.

I can tell you that the scuttlebutt… It’s a theory and there are as many theories as there are people in that town. That’s one of the theories going around. Remember, the bottom line is Trump hasn’t done anything. I know there are process crimes. You go out and get somebody for lying to the investigators and all that kind of stuff. But Trump hasn’t done anything. “I know, Rush, but they’re trying to make it up. They’re trying to make it up!” But Mueller has the greatest reputation. He doesn’t railroad people. He doesn’t make stuff up. He doesn’t lie. He doesn’t do anything.”

If he did, it would be the greatest pockmark on his reputation ever, something he would never, ever want. Because if the day comes were Trump’s exonerated… This is where I differ with the caller. If the day comes where Trump’s exonerated, the left — I don’t care how many Hillary and Obama loyalists are on this independent counsel team, the left is… Ho! Ho! That day is gonna be delectable and threatening at the same time. That’s gonna be just over-the-top wonderful and engaging, and on the other side, the Democrats are gonna be just…

The bottom will fall out of everything. I know all the things arguing against it, folks: He’s a career Washington guy, and the independent counsels never exonerate, they keep going and keep going and keep going ’til they get somebody guilty of something. It’s desired to hurt Trump; it’s not designed to help him. It’s gonna go on through the 2018 midterms, because all this is designed to help the Democrats. That’s conventional thinking, conventional wisdom. There are alternative theories to it. Remember in the Trump administration they’re very well aware they can’t clear themselves.

They are very well aware there’s not a thing they can do. They can have proof after proof after proof after proof — they can have admission, they could have evidence — it wouldn’t matter, the Democrats are not dealing with that. But now you have this most independently respected, with the greatest integrity and reputation ever to live in Washington. And if this guy ends up saying, “Sorry. We’ve looked at everything, and there just isn’t anything here. There’s no Trump collusion. In fact, the collusion we found is between the Russians and John Podesta,” which there was, folks.

Podesta was tied to the Russians and making some money with ’em. You’re not hearing about that because that doesn’t fit the narrative. (interruption) What would the Republicans do? (sigh) I think if Trump’s exonerated, it’s gonna be a mixed bag. Half of them are gonna be exhilarated and act the way the caller suggested. They’re gonna be all fired up, a thousand percent on Trump’s team. “Let’s go.” Half of them are gonna go, “Oh, no! Are you kidding me?” This is the We’re Waiting for Pence crowd. The We’re Waiting for Pence Republicans are gonna be devastated. “Oh, no! You mean we’re really gonna have another two and a half years?

“Oh, no! Oh, why did we win? Damn it, we… Oh, no.” ‘Cause they’re hoping that Trump will go down and free them. ‘Cause, let’s face it, folks: There’s some Republicans that are just embarrassed of Trump. When you get right down to it, they’re just embarrassed. They’re embarrassed to be Republicans, since he’s president. They’re embarrassed to be in the party. They’re embarrassed to say anything about him that’s good or positive. They’re just embarrassed. They hear all the criticism of Trump and they hear it as criticism of them, too, since they’re in the party.

They’re just flat-out embarrassed. “My God, did you see what the guy did on Access Hollywood? Oh, my! Trump… This guy says one thing and the next thing…” It could well be that Trump’s running rings around these people and nobody knows it. There could be any number of things happening here, because everybody cannot help but look at this through the lens of conventional wisdom and the way Washington always works. And if you look through that lens, then Trump does look like he has no clue what he’s doing, looks like a big mistake.

He looks like, “Oh, my God, it’s total chaos!” But that’s not who Trump is, and this is what it looks like. If your objective is to overturn the establishment, drain the swamp and cause them chaos and pain, this is what it looks like. Draining the swamp, overturning the swamp, getting rid of the establishment was never gonna be pretty and was never gonna be orderly.