RUSH: Just before the program started I was watching Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has gotta be steaming because the Mueller indictment mentions the Russians were trying to help him. It’s kind of flown under the radar, but the Mueller indictment, about which we’re gonna have much more today, so hang in there and be tough. But Bernie was going on and on about how it is just obscene that Trump is not reacting properly to what we learned in the indictment, about how the Russians are meddling in our politics.

Folks, in truth — and I said this on Fox News Sunday — the Russians are pikers compared to everybody else in social media trying to change minds. The only thing different about the Russians is that it’s against the law for them to do it, just like it’s against the law for us to try to affect the outcome of the election in Israel, which Obama actively did.

But the Russians, $1.2 million? I mean, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to the money that was spent throughout this campaign. The Russians really are pikers. This thing is being blown way out of proportion. And, in fact, this indictment is not even really an indictment, because these perps are never gonna be known. The Russians are not gonna extradite them. There’s not gonna be a trial.

This is a pure public relations exercise on the part of the special counsel. But Crazy Bernie is stand, and he’s livid that Trump has got this tweet storm going and is not reacting properly. And Crazy Bernie said, “We need a president to speak out on this issue,” and all I could think of was Obama admitting that he told Putin to cut it out. We’ve had presidents speaking out on it. Obama’s spoken out on this I don’t know how many times.

Do you remember this quote? Obama said Russia meddling in our politics is like a gnat on an elephant’s butt. And he made that comment as an insult to Putin, and the media loved it. The media thought, “Man, this guy’s so sharp, this guy is so funny, this guy is so with it. Did you see how he just sliced and diced Putin, that Russia is no more than a gnat on an elephant’s butt?”

And now look. Now it seems like Russia is this gigantic behemoth against whom we cannot survive, against whom we cannot triumph. And it’s pure politics. It’s all it is. Getting something serious and genuine out of this takes a lot of wading through the murk, and that is what we are going to do today.