RUSH: Okay. Grab sound bite number 24. This is fake news Jim Acosta, CNN. Wolf Blitzer says, “What are you picking up over there at the White House, Jim?”

ACOSTA: I’m told by, uh, a separate White House official, uh, just in the last several minutes, uhh, that Steve Bannon was given the… Uh, was essentially supposed to be fired two weeks ago but was given the option to resign. Make no mistake: Steve Bannon was fired by the White House. He was fired! He was… He was given the boot. When you are told that you have the option to resign, you are being fired. So, just, uh… You know, just to sort of, uh, break our way through the semantics game here, uh, that is essentially what has taken place and, you know, this is essentially something that’s been in the works for some time. Uh, as I said, a White House official told me, uh, that some of this was supposed to happen, uh, two weeks ago.

RUSH: Now, the cheat sheet here says that Acosta reported that the chief of staff, Kelly, fired Bannon, but you heard Acosta didn’t say that. So I’m still trackin’ that down. But what we can take from this is Bannon’s out of there… The story at Circa News: Bannon said he has resigned from Trump’s White House and did so two weeks ago. The source here is Sara Carter at Circa News, which is a news outlet owned by Sinclair Broadcasting, Sinclair Media.

In this report, you heard fake news Jim Acosta saying that Bannon was given the option to resign two weeks ago but didn’t; that he was fired. Now, Acosta in his elementary way of speaking… You know, it’s like he’s talking to Fredo Cuomo. (impression) “Well, when they tell you that you have the chance to resign, they’re really firing you.” “Yeah, that’s right! That’s really smart, Fredo. You’re right.” Bottom line: Timing here. Two weeks ago, Bannon was told, “We want you out; you can resign or not.” In that two weeks, Bannon called Kuttner at The American Prospect and sells Trump out on North Korea and on China — and on, supposedly, Trump’s own base.

Then the news hits two days after that interview that Bannon has been fired. Apparently, he didn’t resign, although he’s now saying he did two weeks ago. It’s convoluted. But I want to make a prediction here in the next hour — and, Mike, I want you to roll this prediction off ’cause I’m not gonna be here next week. And if I’m right, I want you to grab the prediction and play it for people, ’cause I can see two or three different ways this can go now. One of the ways… This is not the prediction.

One of the ways is that the media, which has hated and despised Bannon since he first got this gig and maybe even before, will now turn around and not hate Bannon — and, in fact, will portray Bannon… It’s possible, because of that interview he did with Kuttner at The American Prospect where he did undercut Trump’s North Korea policy. He said, we can’t do it. I don’t know what… He didn’t say, “I don’t know what Trump’s thinking,” but he basically said they’ve got us; this can’t work.

Now, the media could portray Bannon as the only sensible, sane guy in that White House, and he wanted out of there but didn’t want to resign, ’cause that’s quitting. He wanted to be fired, and that’s why he called The American Prospect, and that’s why he sold Trump out, because Bannon’s the only sane guy in there, and he couldn’t take it anymore and he wanted Trump to fire him. I can see them doing that. Anything to get Trump and anything to portray Trump, you know, as unbalanced and a lunatic.

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RUSH: I’m sure somebody has already presented this too. “Bannon’s not really fired. They’re just saying so. Bannon’s gonna keep advising Trump on the down-low, on the phone. You know this is just for optics!” Somebody will have that interpretation too.

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RUSH: Grab sound bite number 25. This is the guy that Bannon called who runs The American Prospect. This is the guy he called, gave the interview to earlier in the week. CNN breathlessly tracked this guy down. Robert Kuttner had an interview with him out there.

And it was Wolf Blitzer. And Wolf’s question was this. He said, “There are several people who have been fired or resigned either from the White House or the campaign, and the president still maintains that back –” I told you, I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. The last thing I said in the previous hour, I said that there are gonna be people that think he’s not really fired. It’s just optics. He’s still gonna be advising Trump, meaning Bannon. He’s gonna be advising behind the scenes, everybody knows that.

I said somebody’s gonna say this, and Wolf Blitzer did! Here’s the question. “There are several people who have been fired or resigned either from the White House or the campaign, and the president still maintains that back channel communication with ’em. So, do you suspect that the communication with Bannon will continue even though he’s officially out of the White House?”

KUTTNER: I think it makes the White House itself more chaotic, but it also means that Trump is even more relying on all of these back channels. And I think the man of the hour is General Kelly. I mean, what is he gonna do? If he had not succeeded in forcing Trump [sic] out, it would have shown that he’s impotent. So now we know that he has some power, but does he have enough power, given all of the propensities of this president?

RUSH: He misspoke there. He meant to say Bannon when he was talking about General Kelly. I mean, what’s he gonna do? If he had not succeeded in forcing Trump out, is what he said. He meant Bannon. Would it have shown that he’s impotent? So what they’re setting up here is that Kelly is the man of the hour. General Kelly finally put his foot down and brought some sanity to this place and forced Bannon out of there.

He didn’t answer Wolf’s question about back channels here. He continued to say that the thing for Kelly now is to see, he realizes has got some power, he succeeded in getting rid of Bannon, but does he have enough power giving all of the propensities, meaning all of the insanities, of Donald Trump.

So that’s gonna be a new take on this. Now, this can go any number of ways, the treatment of Bannon. But you know what I think is happening out there? You tell me if you think I’m right or wrong on this. Look at the media and the way they’re focusing on this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half of America is saying, “Who? Steve who?”

Now, the media’s acting like, once again, since they report it, everybody knows it and everybody agrees. And so they believe — and not to be redundant — but they believe that Bannon put together the base that elected Trump. And that base is a bunch of reprobates and hate figures. They think Bannon assembled the Nazis and the populists, the nationalists of the white supremacy movement and the KKK to elect Trump, and he did it from Breitbart News. They have believed this. They have tried to convince any number of people that Trump didn’t get elected on his own, Trump didn’t have the appeal. Bannon did it.

That’s why the stories that have been written about, “Will Trump fire Bannon?” for the last number of weeks have all had a theme: “Would Trump dare anger his base?” The theory being that if Trump fires Bannon, that Trump’s base will abandon Trump because they’re really loyal to Bannon. I think that’s a bunch of BS too. I think that’s so far gone that it’s laughable, because in their minds they just can’t acknowledge that Trump could win by himself. He’s such a reprobate, such a pig, and because they lost, because Hillary lost, there has to be something that explains this that was above and beyond their control.

And so they tried Russia. They tried Russia for a year. The fact they’re spending so much time on this is all the evidence I need to know they don’t have anything on Russia collusion, because they keep careening from story to story or issue to issue. The theme is get Trump, get rid of Trump, impeach Trump, somehow get Trump out. That’s what Russia was about and still is. They’re still hoping Mueller comes up with something. And now this Bannon business or this stuff that happened in Charlottesville, that’s all about getting Trump.

But there’s so much focus and so much energy being put into it that it tells me they’ve got nothing anywhere else. Now they think that Trump has really dealt himself a suicidal blow. They believe — do not doubt me on this — they believe that the people that voted for Trump are going to revolt against Trump now because Trump got rid of the guy they really like, Steve Bannon.

In other words, Trump’s supporters really don’t want Trump. Trump’s gotta get elected, but Bannon is the guy, if Bannon’s not there, Trump can’t get anything done. That’s what the media wants you to think the Trump base believes. You know, I should better state it. That’s what the media believes. That’s what the Washington establishment believes. They really do. You might think, “Rush, don’t be silly. They’re not that crazy.” Yes, they are, folks. They have to invent outrageous stories to explain to themselves why they lost.

Remember, they think they own everything necessary to win every election. The fact is they are losing elections and continue to do so. They are not the majority of the country. They are not the mainstream. It just looks like it because they run the media. But they’re not, folks. They are not the mainstream.

So how can this go otherwise? Well, they could look at Bannon and try to turn him into a sympathetic figure. And they will say, you know, Bannon, he knew, he knew this was over. Everybody could see it, Trump had lost his mind, Trump never had a mind, and what little mind Trump had is gone now. It’s not salvageable and Bannon knew he had to get out of there. He gave it his best shot. He had to get out of there.

And so he went and talked to Kuttner at the Prospect and he purposely threw Trump overboard ’cause he had to get fired. He couldn’t quit, look the quitter, had to get fired, had to get out of there, because Trump is such a lost cause. That’s one way the media could take this, sympathetic to Bannon, and try to rope Bannon in and get him as a regular guest. That would be nirvana if they get Bannon in to start savaging Trump.

Oh, can you imagine how happy that would make ’em? Steve Bannon as a nightly strategist or contributor on either MSNBC or CNN. Whenever Trump utters anything, bring Bannon in, “What did he mean? If you had told him to say that, what would your objective have been?” Bannon could say, “Well, I didn’t tell him to say that, obviously, or he wouldn’t have said it.”

It could go any number of ways. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the last year they’ve hated Bannon with a purple passion and overnight turned sympathetic and appreciative of Bannon.

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RUSH: Let me give you another way of looking at this, folks. I just saw something on TV that reminded me this. Look who’s gone from the Trump White House. This is August, so basically eight months. Priebus, Republican, gone. Spicer, Republican, gone. Bannon, Republican (who knows?), gone. Who’s left? Gary Cohn, Democrat. General Kelly, Democrat. H. R. McMaster, Democrat. Ivanka and Jared? They’re Democrats. So was Trump at one time.

Let’s see, who else is in there? Dina Powell, who works with Cohn, Gary Cohn, Democrat, these economic people. Kellyanne Conway’s still there, that’s right. Kellyanne Conway’s still there and Sarah Huckabee. They’re Republicans as well. But you’d have to say some people are gonna look at this and say that the Democrats in that Trump White House have done a great job of getting rid of the Republicans. (interruption) Well, you’re frowning in there. You’re shaking… (interruption) You say…? (interruption) Well, that’s right.

They were establishment guys; that’s true. That’s true. But would you rather have…? (interruption) They’re all establishment guys except for Bannon. Bannon was not an establishment guy. A friend of Bannon just tweeted and said, “You know, Bannon’s gonna be free now! Bannon, he’s gonna go thermonuclear on the globalists! Bannon’s gonna launch now on all these people still there. He’s gonna launch on Cohn. He’s gonna launch on McMaster.”

By the way, there’s a story, too, that General Kelly, the chief of staff, presented a report today to Trump that identified Bannon as the primary leaker in the White House. So we’re just collecting information here as it is regurgitated. This business, by the way… We’re gonna get to the phones here in a jiffy. This business about Trump 61% of the people not having confidence in Trump and foreign policy crisis? Look what he did in Korea. Korea just stood down. There’s no other president that would have stood up to ’em that way. Every other president’s given North Korea something to make nuclear something out of. It’s all perplexing.

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RUSH: Well, of course Mike Pence is still there. He’s the vice president. But okay, put him on the survivor list. Stephen Miller is still there, and Stephen Miller is a gem. Stephen Miller is doing a great job. Don’t doubt me.