RUSH: Randy in Pittsburgh, and welcome, sir. Great to have you here with us.

CALLER: Greetings, Rush. I hope you’re well. I’ve got two questions for you, given your ability to make the complex understandable.

RUSH: Oh, cool. Okay.

CALLER: The first is relative to Manafort’s circumstances and the bank fraud. I’m curious on whether he got any loans — I know he didn’t get some — but if he did get some and regards to ones he didn’t get, did he pay back the ones that he got? And if he didn’t get loans and he paid back the ones that he did get, what harm was done to anyone? Second question I have is in regard to this, quote, hush money. I’m curious when a confidentiality agreement crosses the boundary to extortion and blackmail. So if you could name your thoughts on that, I’m gonna hang up and listen.

RUSH: Okay. On the Manafort business, there were eight charges that he was found guilty of. There were 10 counts for which he was exonerated. Now, Shannon Bream on Fox had one of the jurors, and she was a Trumpist. She was a Trump voter and she admitted she wanted Manafort to not be guilty. And it was just one juror that held out on those other 10. It was one juror that made the difference.

On the specifics of what Manafort did with his loans and not paying them back, now, I didn’t really get into that detail on the various charges against Manafort. That probably is my bad. The reason I didn’t is because I didn’t think Manafort was going to be found not guilty. Manafort is there for a specific reason. It was to give Mueller a notch in the belt, a conviction for whatever is all they wanted out of this. And the more the better. But just get a conviction which validates and justifies the whole investigation. And Manafort, you know, he skirted the edges of things. I don’t even think he got railroaded.

On your other thing about NDAs and blackmail and extortion, the thing to know, and it’s very simple, none of what Cohen admitted doing is a crime! The reason is that Trump, as the candidate, can donate any amount to his own campaign that he wants. None of those payments to either of those women, no matter how they were made, is a violation of election law. None.