RUSH: The other big news over the weekend was or is that one of the early members of Trump’s White House legal team, Don McGahn, has spoken for 30 hours to the special counsel. Thirty hours. And ostensibly the White House doesn’t know what McGahn said. And, of course, what is going on here? It’s a big, long New York Times story, and what they’re trying to do is get Trump on obstruction.

The point of the story is they want us to believe that Trump was trying to fire Mueller, but that McGahn was heroically stepping in at each moment Trump wanted to do this and stopping him from doing it. And they’re trying to then say that Trump wanting to fire Mueller is the same thing as Trump firing Mueller. And that then equals obstruction. The problem is, Trump has not fired Mueller, Trump has not obstructed, and he probably couldn’t be guilty of obstructing anyway because he would be doing nothing more than carrying out presidential prerogatives.

But the point of that story in the New York Times, when you strip it all away, they want you to believe that Trump was trying — There is no trying! You run the executive branch. You’re president, how do you try? How do you try to fire Mueller? Somebody explain this to me. How do I try to do show prep every day? I don’t try. I do it! It’s not like I come in here, “Yeah. I was trying to do show prep, but the phone kept ringing. Yeah, I was trying to do show prep, but Snerdley came in and heroically prevented me from doing it.” What is this? You either do it or you don’t. There’s no presidential trying to fire anybody.

But the New York Times is desperate to try to use McGahn to suggest that Trump wanted to fire Mueller, even though he hasn’t. And they’re creating as best they can in the minds of people that Trump has obstructed or wanted to, which means he could be found guilty of it. I think there’s much more than that going on with this. You know, why would McGahn talk for 30 hours to the special counsel?

You know, you’ve heard me say, you have heard me say many times on this program that I have been very puzzled by some of the early staffing choices the president made. And I think, without naming a whole lot of names, I think Trump made the mistake of choosing people from inside the Beltway, thinking that might be a way of taming all the opposition to him there. And it was a mistake because there is no taming it.

And by hiring people from the swamp, by hiring people who not necessarily hate or oppose Trump; that’s not what I’m saying. But if you’re in the swamp, if you live and work in the establishment, that’s where your loyalties are ultimately gonna be, because Trump is gonna come and go. In whatever period of time, Trump is gonna come and go. And after Trump is gone, you don’t want to go with him. You need to hold on to your status and position in the swamp.

And McGahn is a swamp rat. That’s where he’s grown up, that’s where his career is. And so Trump, his original lawyers were not warriors, were not warrior lawyers. His original lawyers may in fact have been like the early days of the GOP House leadership, thought Trump did collude with Russia and thought that Trump wasn’t gonna survive, and so the objective here was to limit the damage.

But they weren’t aggressive, they weren’t pushing back, they were not relying on the Constitution executive power to assert privilege and prominence for the president, Donald Trump, in all things in the executive branch. And they were playing defense. When Mueller is appointed, then everybody even got more frightened. “Oh, my God. Don’t want to upset — oh, jeez. We don’t want to do anything that could look like obstruction or collusion.” So everything was defensive.

Now they’ve got some different people in there, and it’s not the way it was, but Trump didn’t get a warrior attorney general, either. Some of his staffing decisions may be coming back to bite him in a small way.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, the New York Times story about Don McGahn speaking for 30 hours. There’s a lot going on here. The New York Times is trying to make you think that Trump has a Judas on the team who went in and spilled the beans on Trump obstruction, and that is not what happened. Trump waived executive privilege. Well, his legal team did. The legal team, John Dowd and those guys, waived privilege so that McGahn could go talk. And wait.

McGahn was not happy about this. McGahn didn’t want to go talk. He was not happy they waived privilege. But why did they waive privilege? Why’d they waive privilege? They waived privilege… This is back in the day when everybody on the team thought that it would be very helpful if they showed that they were willing to cooperate with Mueller. Folks, I cannot express to you — and I’ve gotta dial this back, because I’m gonna blow up with this. All of this is a fraud.

Every aspect of this. The premise behind it, the narrative behind it, there is nothing real about this investigation except that it’s happening. And what is happening is a gigantic cover-up to prevent the discovery of what actions the real collusion and criminality was, and that was with the Hillary — the DNC — side of this. So acting afraid of Mueller and wanting to demonstrate that we’re willing to cooperate, that’s why McGahn talked with them for 30 hours. He didn’t seek ’em out. He wasn’t acting as a traitor. I’ll explain this as we go on.

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RUSH: Now, here’s John Dowd, one of the early lawyers for Trump on this Mueller thing. Here’s what he said about Don McGahn. And this is in the Washington Times, but it’s been in a lot of places. “Mr. Trump’s decision to decline to assert executive privilege and attorney-client privilege has come into question,” meaning, why did they let McGahn go down there and talk to Mueller for 30 minutes? Why not say lawyer-client, no?

“Mr. Dowd said it was smarter to waive the privileges and be transparent so as to get the case over with. We made available 37 witnesses. They provided a million documents. In terms of McGahn, he’s right at the heart of case, and they had a lot to cover with him and a lot of notes. It was all routine, very normal. The anonymous sources that criticize us for our strategy don’t realize the alternative was a nightmare, just a war.”

So you see the thinking is that if we’re transparent, we got nothing to hide. This is the thinking. We didn’t do anything. There was no collusion and obstruction. We didn’t do anything. And so, yeah, here’s a million documents, here’s 37 people you could talk to, one of them Don McGahn. They thought they were speeding the process along. They thought that they were moving it along so that they could end it. To oppose this was to invite a war.

They have a war! This is what is so frustrating. They’re in a war! They have been in a war since Donald Trump got the Republican nomination. They have been in a war since Donald Trump won the presidency. They were in a war during the Trump transition, and the war intensified after Trump’s inauguration. And the war is ongoing. And it isn’t gonna end until they get Trump impeached. Whether they get a conviction in the Senate or not doesn’t matter. The objective here is and from the beginning has been impeachment.

Now, the best-case scenario, they were hoping to drive Trump’s approval numbers downs with all these allegations. They were hoping to separate you from Trump. You know this drill. They wanted Trump supporters to abandon him. If they could do that, then they could force Trump to resign. And they thought they were gonna be able to do that in six to nine months. They bombed out. Now they’re going to impeach. That’s why winning the House is crucial.

And part of it, folks, part of it is to get even for having impeached Clinton. That’s part of this. The other part of it and as big if not larger is the pure, undiluted, raw hatred they have for Trump. But to me it is indicative of a total misunderstanding of who and what they were up against. And it’s understandable in the sense that all these lawyers know each other, they all have offices in the swamp, in the establishment, and they all extend to each other certain courtesies and realities and accommodations such as, “We know you’re professional. We know you’re high-ranking. We know you’re smart,” blah, blah, blah.

This mutual-respect business. And Trump himself, I’m sure, thought that he was buying a little peace by hiring some of these people who were thus friendly with Mueller and his investigative team and so forth, not realizing what was going on here. So now that Mueller hasn’t found anything, this is the next key. Now that Mueller hasn’t found anything on collusion or obstruction, it is time to make people think that he has, in preparation for his report.

Now, I am given to understand that everybody involved in this on the Trump side — the lawyers and the spokespeople, communication shop — everybody is expecting a blistering report from Mueller, because that’s all Mueller is going to be able to do. There isn’t any collusion. And, by the way, some of you have asked me, “Rush, I keep hearing all these people say the Manafort trial and the Cohen stuff and the Russian indictments all prove that Mueller doesn’t have anything. But what’s the likelihood that Mueller does and is waiting ’til October to indict Trump or some such thing?”

I don’t think so, folks. And I’ll tell you why. You know, McGahn spoke to Mueller a long time ago. We’re just now hearing about it. They want you to think it happened over the weekend. But it didn’t. It was a while ago. And nothing has come of it. There haven’t been any leaks from what McGahn said. And, by the way, I don’t want anybody to think that I think McGahn flipped. That’s not at all what I think here. There are people trying to make you think that, but they’re not succeeding with me. That’s not what I think went on here.

I think fear was driving everybody on the Trump team. And I always have. Just like Republicans have been afraid of the media for all these years, afraid of what the media will say about them. I think some people even on the Trump legal team have been afraid of reputation damage, of angering Mueller and other people with whom they’re gonna have to continue to work with long after Trump is gone. I know that’s how many of them think. But I don’t believe McGahn flipped.

And the evidence for it is this: Since the time began spoke to Mueller — and it’s not recent — we’ve had two indictments against Russians that do not contain a hint of a suggestion that the Trump campaign had anything to do with collusion with Russia. The Manafort indictments have nothing to do with Trump, period, or the Trump campaign. So what it tells me is that this is all about obstruction. And they’re trying to say, in this McGahn story in the New York Times, that Trump was trying to fire — it’s all about firing Mueller.

They have tried to bait Trump into firing Mueller. Mueller has tried to bait Trump into firing him. I think a number of people on the anti-Trump side have been baiting Trump and hoping that they would make him mad enough or tick him off enough to make him fire Mueller, and maybe even Rosenstein. And that way they could say, “Obstruction, obstruction, obstruction, he’s firing the guy investigating him.” And they would make the case with the American people that Trump’s scared, got something to hide, is obstructing, except it hasn’t happened.

So the McGahn story in the New York Times is all about how, well, Trump was trying — there is no trying — to fire. You either do it or you don’t. But the spin is that Trump really, really wanted to, and McGahn heroically interceded every time and talked sense into Trump and made sure that he didn’t do it. But the timeline for a lot of this would suggest that Mueller does not have a case because Trump’s actions so far have been lawful and within his constitutional prerogatives.

And that’s what McGahn told Mueller. McGahn told Mueller that he’d not seen any obstruction, that he’d not seen any lawbreaking. What McGahn’s ticked off about is they let him go down there and talk, that he waived privilege for it. I say ticked. Well, he was. Special counsel is requested to talk to all these people. Normally the special counsel, any lawyers told to go pound sand, executive privilege, lawyer-client privilege, “What do you mean, talk to one of my lawyers?” They let him go.

And it was, again, early on where they’re trying to show they got nothing to hide, they’re trying to show they’re cooperative. It’s equivalent of “I can show I can cross the aisle and work with Democrats to make Washington work and to get things done.” Same kind of thinking. Because they were afraid of if they said “no” that they would be starting a war with Mueller and then when Mueller really gets mad, ha, we don’t want any part of that.

What do you mean when Mueller really gets mad? None of this is legitimate! None of it is! Not one aspect of this investigation is legitimate! None of it ought to be happening! I have to take a break. But we’ve been through this. Anyway, that’s pretty much the McGahn story.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: One more thing on the Don McGahn thing. Everybody’s wondering where this came from. McGahn spoke to the special counsel’s office not recently. This happened some time ago, and that is important because Mueller — there isn’t any obstruction. I cannot believe I’m even talking about this as though it’s a real thing. I guess I have to. But I’ve run out of ways to express my incredulity at this. I’ve never seen anything like this, something so phony; so fraudulent; I mean, literally unreal as this.

And the reason I focus on this is because we are and have been regularly told what a man of honor Robert Mueller is throughout his storied Washington career. Whenever he’s been named director of the FBI, wherever he’s been, whatever job that he’s had, that has been the reputation that he’s enjoyed, impeccable character, deep honor, more integrity in his little finger than anybody in Washington legal circles.

It can’t be the case. It simply can’t be true. Because if it were, Mueller would have refused this investigation. He would have refused it on the basis that it didn’t even qualify under Justice Department guidelines. There has to be a crime. Special counsel, DOJ guidelines require a crime to be specified and pursued. And there wasn’t one. There isn’t one. There never has been one. And a guy who had more integrity his little finger than anybody else had would have refused the appointment on the basis there’s nothing here!

And he certainly wouldn’t continue it all this time after learning that there’s nothing there! Instead, what this guy that has more integrity on his little finger is doing, is trying to manufacture evidence for crime or whatever so that he can write a blistering report. And that’s another thing. Everybody is expecting a blistering report. And the blistering report is what ostensibly will sanction Democrat action to impeach Trump after they win the House. And apparently everybody involved here, it’s a fait accompli. There’s going to be a blistering report.

Okay. A blistering report, meaning Trump is going to really, really be blistered. For what? They don’t have any evidence! There isn’t any of collusion. And there isn’t any obstruction. And if there were, it would have leaked long ago. Believe me. These clowns didn’t want this investigation to last this long themselves, other than the people making big money off of it. My point, they want to be done with Trump, they wanted to have him done and gone a year ago.

So the blistering report will talk about how Trump was irresponsible, should probably not have been elected, did not sufficiently understand the ways of the world and the ways of Washington, has put the nation unnecessarily at risk, has provided unusual access to foreign actors to our election. A bunch of tripe! It’s gonna be a bunch of tripe!

Another thing that galls me about this. Everybody involved in it knows it. Everybody. Every investigator on Mueller’s team, Mueller himself, Rosenstein, Republicans, Democrats, everybody knows that this is a total fraud. And the damage that these people are doing to our electoral system, this is unconscionable to me. And it is far more than Vladimir Putin could dream of riding without a shirt on a horse all the way through the Ukraine and conquering it.

There is no way that Putin would ever think he could do the kind of damage that official Washington is doing to our electoral system. Every election from this point forward is gonna be questioned. Every election the Russians are gonna have had a say, especially Democrat losses. But even elections the Democrats win. They’re gonna say they had to overcome a bunch of Russian meddling. They figured out how to do it, and they’re gonna praise themselves for beating back Russian oligarchs and all that.

The Russians are now a permanent fixture in our election system when they didn’t do anything because it was impossible for them to do anything. It boggles my mind. As I say, I have run out of ways to express my incredulity. But, anyway, Rudy’s reaction to this was to say that Mueller is panicking. Where did this come from? Where did this story come from? Because McGahn spoke to Mueller many, many moons ago. So where’d it come from? I have no doubt it came from the special counsel’s office.

The New York Times, they probably have a bureau there. The New York Times bureau at the special counsel’s office. I wouldn’t put it past them. Maggie Haberman probably has a satellite office right next to Mueller’s desk, may even have a tap on his freaking phone, for all I know, with permission. And so now they write that McGahn’s talked 30 hours. They don’t want you to know that that was authorized. They want you to think McGahn’s flipping and that, as I say, it’s all about Trump trying, wanting to fire Mueller. But the problem is, Trump hasn’t fired Mueller. And he hasn’t fired the inestimable Rod Rosenstein.

So Rudy thinks that this means Mueller is panicking, the Mueller team is panicking because they’ve got nothing, and so they’re leaking all this stuff to make it look like they’ve got something. It doesn’t matter. They don’t have anything. There’s nothing to have.

In addition, this man with more integrity in his little finger has looked right at the FISA court violations, he has looked right at all of the lawbreaking of the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton, the involvement of the Clintons and the dossier, and he’s ignored it. Because all of this is a cover-up for everything everybody did on the Hillary side.

Because, remember, the purpose of this at the beginning was to exonerate Hillary to clear her for a presidential run. She was gonna be the next president, and they were gonna be in her administration. Their lives were set, life was gonna be wonderful and rosy and great. The problem was the nominee is a criminal! They had to exonerate her! And that’s what they’ve done! And in the process they’re trying to go out and get Trump for something that didn’t happen.

Look. This is it. I’m backing off now. I know that you probably saying, “Rush, we get it. We get it. Calm down.” It’s one of these things where I know you get it but I still don’t think I’ve convinced anybody yet, or not enough people.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mark. How you doing?

CALLER: Good, Rush. This is Mark from Bellaire, Michigan. Mega dittos, and thank you for doing what you do.

RUSH: Thank you sur. I appreciate that.

CALLER: I know that I voice personally, I talk to many people during the day and I voice my opinion of many, many Americans, you are very important to this country, doing your vocation as our president is doing right now. So never doubt yourself. And in the day you may get discouraged, please continue to go forward. You’re doing greater things than you can even measure.

RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much. I really appreciate that.

CALLER: The reason I’m calling is I had a thought I wanted to share with you and I’d like to see if you can see it through this lens. A couple of times you’ve mentioned that Donald Trump may have mistakenly kept the wrong people in place and not doing the things that we think they should be doing.

RUSH: Well, I had some questions about the choices of staff, yeah, early on.

CALLER: Right. And it makes sense. But I’ve read his books, I’ve watched all of his Apprentice shows and I’ve seen how he works. There’s a very key ingredient he uses in all of his businesses and is applied very successfully to this. He is a master of understanding men’s egos. Those men will eat each other up like sharks down there to get at him. And he knows that.

And like you said, you’ve mentioned this many times, Rush, and you hit the nail on the head. The swamp will never go down silently. They’re gonna fight tooth and nail. He knew this. And the things that are being exposed is because he’s done exactly that. I ask you to look at it through this lens ’cause I really believe it looks a lot differently when you think of it that way.

RUSH: Well, okay. Let me ponder that. I’ve gotta take a break. Your timing was impeccable. I mean, you could be host. You got that said in the exact amount of time, and you didn’t know how little time you had.

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