RUSH: What is happening in Washington with this ongoing manifestation of lies, this is no different than “Hands up, don’t shoot.” I was thinking about it the other day. “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Remember this mythical thing that happened in Ferguson, Missouri, where supposedly a young African-American high school graduate walking happily down the street on a sunny Saturday afternoon contemplating his first year at college was murdered by a white cop simply because he wasn’t walking on the sidewalk.
It turned out to be nothing close to the truth. But from it we had this new narrative and meme develop, “Hands up, don’t shoot.” And the story was that the young African-American bound for college — ahem — when he saw the cop put his hands up, “Don’t shoot, dude, don’t shoot.” Never happened. Just like all of this stuff never happened. The Ukraine stuff, the phone call, the whistleblowers.
You know, this is so crazy. The whistleblowers don’t know half of what happened on the phone call! And yet all Schiff and his people want to talk about is what the whistleblowers heard. Despite the fact the transcript has been released.
The whole thing, this entire thing is a manufactured illusion. Now, do you remember — grab audio sound bite number one — do you remember I shared with you a key element of all of this last Friday on this program.
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RUSH: [W]hen Mueller’s appointed, they announce at the White House they’re gonna cooperate — and I didn’t understand that. I never understood why they weren’t adversarial from the get-go, because there was nothing ever substantive to this. But somebody in there had advised Trump, “Cooperate. We didn’t do anything wrong. They’ll see that we haven’t done anything wrong and it’ll be fine,” and that’s not at all what happened. When you cooperate, what did they learn? When they cooperated, they looked to be on the defensive!
When they cooperated, they pretty much sanctioned the premise that there was something here worth investigating, and there wasn’t. This investigation was a fraud! There never was anything to investigate other than the people doing the investigating.
But Trump thought the way to deal with this was to go ahead and hire people that know Mueller and know this system and this process. And it was only when Trump said, “To hell with this!” Cooperating wasn’t getting ’em anywhere but looking guilty! So they’re not making that mistake again here in this impeachment business.
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This is exactly the White House not participating in this. This is so important. Back during the early days when Mueller was appointed and that investigation got going, there were lawyers on the Trump team from inside the Beltway who said, “Look, look, look, we didn’t do anything wrong here. They’re going down the wrong path. We just need to work with them and show them.” And these inside the Beltway clowns had no idea that there was not a real investigation going on here, that it was nothing more than a political hatchet job in the making.
Trump went along with his lawyers at first. What’s he gonna do? He’s a new arrival in Washington, he thinks he’s taking the advice from these people he’s paying. And it wasn’t long after that that Trump figured out this is getting us nowhere. Rudy says he’s gonna talk to Mueller, it’s gonna be over in two or three weeks. Ha.
This is totally manufactured. It’s a whistleblower that talked to Schiff in advance. And I can’t emphasize enough, because I don’t see this being said enough on TV: The whistleblowers are old news and irrelevant. They’re only relevant as far as creating and maintaining this illusion is concerned. The transcript of the phone call has been released. It doesn’t matter how many whistleblowers there are! So now the ambassador has refused, the State Department’s refused to let the ambassador show up and testify.
So now this is causing Schiff to say, “Well, see? We’ve got obstruction!” This is what he wanted with the phone call. He wanted obstruction, wanted to be able to say, “Cover-up,” wanted to be able to say, “Trump’s hiding stuff!” What Trump’s doing now is making no pretense of cooperating with this. Trump and his team are now characterizing this for what it is. Now, I’ve had a bunch of people ask me a question about something I said.
At the time I said it, it was correct, but it’s now a little different. I’ve been making the point that whenever you hear the word “subpoena,” disregard it, because there has not been an official impeachment vote yet. So nothing about this impeach-wise is official and, therefore, there aren’t any subpoenas. There are actually just letters, actual letters asking for voluntary cooperation. That has changed. I did another look at this before the broadcast today.
They are now issuing some subpoenas, Schiff and his committee. Elijah Cummings of the Congressional Black Caucasians sent a subpoena over the weekend. Now, here’s the way this all shakes down. The rules of the House allow the chairmen of most standing committees to issue subpoenas. Now, in the case of Elijah Cummings it’s quite interesting that he waited ’til everybody left town on recess and then issued the subpoena, claiming it was an emergency and that there was no time to have the committee vote on it.
Which is another ploy to protect the Democrats in pro-Trump districts from voting on an impeachment inquiry. They still haven’t done this. They don’t want to do this yet. Although I’m told a lot of Democrats are getting very impatient and want to speed this up. They don’t like the way this is shaking out. Some of the internal polling data is not looking good on this. John Kasich has once again informed CNN that nobody’s talking about Ukraine in Ohio, meaning they don’t care about the Trump “scandal in Ukraine,” and they don’t care about impeachment.
They’re not talking about it in Ohio, and Kasich’s trying to get CNN to listen. CNN’s not listening. Other Democrats are getting impatient. They want this moving forward. They’ve got the taste in their mouth. They see Trump in jail. They see Trump resigning. They see Trump on some airplane outside of Washington, leaving town forever. They can’t help themselves. So Cummings issued his subpoena when everybody’s gone. This is a key tactical point here. Cummings issued his subpoena after the Congress went into recess.
He said it was an emergency. No time to have his committee vote on it. It’s another ploy to protect the Democrats in pro-Trump districts — the people that won in 2018 — from having to vote on an impeachment inquiry. Now, it is true that Schiff and some of the others have mostly been proceeding by letter that the media has been referring to as subpoenas. They have been mostly proceeding by letter because subpoenas are compulsory orders that can be challenged in court.
If you send somebody a letter asking them to voluntarily show up and they don’t, then all you can do is get together with your media buddies and lie and say they’re violating a subpoena. But if it’s an actual subpoena, because they are compulsory, then the person receiving the subpoena can challenge it in court. The Democrats don’t want to go to court yet. But now they have been issuing at least some subpoenas, and here’s why I think they are.
So they’re getting a little bolder. Then if the administration moves to quash a subpoena, they probably hope that they’ll get a friendly judge in the D.C. District Court who will not give them a hard time about failing to vote an impeachment inquiry. In other words, they want to get these subpoenas in force (because they’re compulsory) without having to take a vote. It is still operative — it is still true — that they need an exemption in order to subpoena people for not having yet had a vote.
They want to be able to subpoena without having the vote, and they’re now probably looking for friendly judges if a subpoena is challenged. So issuing the subpoena is to force the process along. What Schiff and his buddies are hoping is that a friendly judge will allow them to send subpoenas without having to have an official vote. Otherwise, if the polling continues (in their view) to go their way, they may go ahead and have a vote if Pelosi figures she can get a healthy number above 218 to go along.
So if they’re believing their polling data — and it appears that they are, which is what the appearance of some subpoenas now indicates — they think they’re getting closer to success. They think the public is moving in their direction. If they think that, then they may push for the vote. They want more than 218. They want it bipartisan, like we spoke about yesterday. Pelosi probably thinks that she can afford to lose 15 Democrats and still get to 218 if she picks up a few queasy, antsy, nervous Republicans. So it’s nip and tuck here.
Folks, there is so much misinformation here. Some Republicans are saying that if the House votes to have an impeachment inquiry, that would trigger a process in which they would get some subpoena power and the ability to cross-examine witnesses. But that’s not automatic. I’ve had a lot of people say, “Why are we afraid of the subpoenas? If they start throwing around subpoenas, then we get a chance to issue our own, and we can cross-examine.”
Not necessarily.
Elections have consequences.
The House of Representatives sets up its own rules. If the Democrats want to deny the minority subpoena power or cross-examine rights, they can damn well do it! What they’re relying on, these Republicans, is they’re relying on precedent from other impeachments. But they’re not binding. Precedent isn’t binding, particularly in the House. Pelosi can make any rule she wants. She runs the institution. If she wants to say that the Republicans do not get to cross-examine, they don’t get to send their own subpoenas out, then she can make that rule.
There’s nothing Republicans can do about it except howl to the public and the media about unfairness. But elections have consequences. It’s what happens when you lose the House. It’s what happened when 55 Republicans resign or retire for whatever reason. Now, if the Democrats… Here’s the telltale thing. If the Democrats are really serious about having a credible impeachment — which I don’t believe they are. But if they are, they will give Trump and the GOP some due-process rights so that the process looks legit.
There are no rules of fairness or anything. The House of Representatives is not this democratic institution like everything else you think in life. They set their own rules. The party that runs it sets those rules, and we see this throughout this process. So it’ll be very… We’ll find out in due course just exactly what the Democrats’ real intent with this is based on how they treat the Republicans in the whole investigation, subpoena, cross-examine witnesses process.
If they let them do that, then it means, in my estimation, that they’re serious about impeachment being credible and a means to get rid of the president. If it’s just a political exercise that is meant to be a political issue — the issue — for their 2020 campaign, then they will not grant the Republicans any power. They will not grant them any rights to question or subpoena. We’ll see. Keep a sharp eye.
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RUSH: Look, folks, just as was the point with Trump and the transcript of the phone call… Schiff did not think Trump was gonna release that. Schiff was all prepared to go after Trump on, “Cover-up! Here come all these allegations! The whistleblower says that Trump nine times told the president of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Biden,” and they never thought Trump would violate presidential secrecy and release the transcripts. They were all prepared to be able to say whatever they wanted ’cause the whistleblower was gonna have all credibility, and then Trump was gonna be guilty of obstruction and cover-up.
Then Trump releases the transcript and blows the whole thing up. Now, the point about what’s going on now with Ambassador Sondland refusing to testify, is the Democrats do not want Trump to cooperate! Schiff telegraphed this with the whole whistleblower scenario. They want to write an article of impeachment charging Trump for withholding information and witnesses from Congress. They want to say that he is obstructing, withholding information. That’s why they keep making these outlandish demands for testimony and appearances and so forth. Let me… Hang on. I’ll complete the thought when we get back.
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RUSH: Welcome back. Rush Limbaugh here, the EIB Network, the nation’s most listened to radio talk show.
Now, before I go back to this Democrat strategy that I have alluded to — and we saw it begin with the whistleblower setup, the whistleblower lie. But I want to finish the thought here on all the subpoenas and letters flying around, what the Democrats’ intention is.
It’s all predicated here on the Democrats believing that the polling is moving in their direction now. This is making them more confident that they are not going to harm themselves either in House races in 2020 or even for the presidential election. You know, the conventional wisdom’s always been — well, it’s more than conventional wisdom. It’s actually been borne out by the data — that the country doesn’t want this.
In fact, I think the polling data they’re looking at is manufactured for this purpose. And I don’t think it’s real. I’ve done my own anecdotal research here. Impeachment is a really rare and therefore really serious thing. When you impeach a president, it brings everything to a screeching halt. This isn’t bringing anything to a screeching halt. This is just seen, even by casual observers, as the next Democrat thing in their battle with Trump.
So I’m not sure I believe this polling data that shows impeachment moving in the Democrats’ favor, certainly with their base. But the Democrats are not appealing to mainstream, particularly independents right now. And I think this is why they want to move fast.
There are two schools of thought on this. One is the Democrats want to drag this out as long as they can because they think — well, it is. It is their 2020 campaign issue. They are not gonna campaign on anything that has to do with life in America. They’re not gonna campaign on a damn thing. Health care, prescription drug prices, gun control — out the window. This is it. So they need it to have legs.
Then there’s another faction that wants to do this now, get it done, strike while the iron is hot and put Trump on the defensive and keep him there all the way through the election. And that’s what Schiff is doing. Now, Schiff telegraphed that what they want is to be able to write an article of impeachment that Trump is obstructing, is not cooperating, is covering up. I mean, the magic phrase right there.
I think that they can’t help themselves. I think they want to move quickly. I think they’d be happy with one or two articles of impeachment based on Ukraine by Thanksgiving. Soon in your life may be the end of the week or tomorrow. In these people’s time frame, soon is by Thanksgiving. I think that’s when they would like to get this done, have one or two articles of impeachment actually voted on in the House, one of them based on Trump trying to ask Ukraine to sabotage Biden and then an article accusing Trump of obstructing Congress.
And that’s why they’re subpoenaing all these people they know Trump is not gonna permit to come up and testify. And I’ll tell you what. Look at the testimony we got from Volker the other day. This guy totally exonerated Trump with a phone call. Totally exonerated Trump. As would the guy that the State Department’s not letting go up and testify, Sondland. He would totally, totally back up Trump’s version of things.
The Democrats are perfectly fine with these people not showing up. All they’re doing is manufacturing an obstruction impeachment article. It’s just like what Mueller was doing. Mueller was trying to manufacture an obstruction indictment. Not collusion. There never was any collusion. But Mueller wrote the Mueller report so as to allow Democrats to suggest that Trump had covered up or that Trump had obstructed or that he had attempted to make sure Mueller wasn’t able to do his job.
And so Mueller puts a bunch of different examples in there such as the president asked people to fire him, but Mueller never got fired. They don’t want dissension. They do not want anybody who’s gonna come up and contradict the whistleblowers. So when Trump doesn’t allow — when the State Department doesn’t allow Sondland to go testify, that’s fine with the Democrats.
So then I can imagine what you’re asking. “Well, then, Rush, what’s the case here? If on the one hand you say that cooperating makes you look guilty or puts you on the defensive, and then not cooperating like Trump eventually did with Mueller puts you back on offense, if the Democrats now want Trump to not cooperate, think they’re gonna win that way, then — and if they can get an article of impeachment saying he obstructed and covered up and so forth, well, there will be all kinds of court battles.
Once this thing is official, if it ever is, if there are actual votes on impeachment, this kind of stuff, the president’s not just a sitting duck, not just sitting there waiting for people to do things, the Democrats and their lawyers, he can have his own team. But it’s clear to me what the White House strategy here is.
Adam Schiff is creating a bunch of lies, is using a bunch of lies to create an illusion, and the White House is simply not gonna help. They’re not gonna assist it. They’re gonna not help this guy in any way. In fact, Trump tweeted something. This is what fighting leftists looks like. Trump’s tweet: “Hasn’t Adam Schiff been fully discredited by now? Do we have to continue listening to his lies?”
Every Republican ought to be out there echoing this same sentiment. Every Republican ought to be on TV ripping Schiff a new one. Now, one did today. His name is Lee Zeldin, and he is from New York, and we’re gonna start, audio sound bite number 5. He is fed up with it, he’s had it.
This was this morning and it’s House Republicans speaking to the media about the State Department ordering Gordon Sondland to not appear today for a scheduled interview. Lee Zeldin is a Republican from New York, and here’s the first sound bite of what he said.
ZELDIN: Over the course of Ambassador Volker’s next several weeks engaging with Ukraine, Ukraine makes no reference to there being a hold on aid or there being a quid pro quo. And, by the way, you know what else Ambassador Volker testified to? This entire time the aid was getting released. It was going to get released, and guess what happened? The aid got released and you know didn’t have to happen? There was no new investigation that had to get created. This whole thing is a fairy tale. Adam Schiff is misleading you and you’re playing along with it, many of you are, and the American public is then getting deceived.
RUSH: Congressman Zeldin, the media is not playing along. They know full well. They’re not being hoodwinked. They’re not being tricked. They are helping orchestrate this! I kind of have to laugh when the Republicans call the media in to their press conferences or when they just want to share some information with the media. As though the press is actually open-minded, has ears tuned in to what the Republican version is to balance it with what the Democrats — you’re talking to the strategists for the enemy!
When you convene the media, you are talking to the strategists and the advisors to the Democrats on this. You are not talking to fair-minded people who are gonna balance what you say against what the Democrats are claiming and report on it fairly. Here’s Zeldin with some more with the next sound bite.
ZELDIN: I’m pissed as I stand here. Why are we not working together to pass USMCA next week? Why aren’t we working on a bipartisan basis to lower prescription drug costs? It’s all to appease an enraged liberal activist base insisting on resisting, impeaching, opposing, and obstructing everything and anything.
RUSH: Right. It’s true. But the thing he’s doing, he’s talking to that enraged liberal activist base when he makes this observation to the media, ‘cause they’re the ones running the show. They are the strategists for the Democrat Party. And they’re the cover for the Democrat Party as well. Okay. That’s that. That’s about as full of an explanation I can give you as to what I think is going on as of this moment.
We’ll take a break and get to the phones when we get back. So don’t go away.
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RUSH: Now, keep in mind one thing. Except for Schiff and a couple of these other screwballs, Congress is out of town for another week. They’re on another recess right now. So here’s the plan. The plan is for Schiff and his committee to keep making these demands for the next week when nobody’s in town, when Congress is at recess. Keep making demands for witnesses. Keep making demands for documents. Keep demanding as much as you can, with the confidence that the White House is going to refuse. Then the Democrats will be back on Monday.
Everybody is. Congress is back in session on Monday, and you wait. Beginning with the Sunday shows if not sooner (but certainly beginning with the Sunday shows), the theme will be, “Congress is returning on Monday following two weeks — or perhaps three years — of the Trump administration obstructing Congress!” This will be the theme on the Chuck Todd’s show, the theme on CNN, that Trump has been obstructing the past two weeks.
They’ll probably focus on that. Congress is coming back. They’ll have to do something! Trump has been disrespecting them. Trump has been objecting. Trump has been obstructing. Trump has been covering up. The media will say, “The Democrats’ hand has been forced! They have to do something,” and they’ll make it look like (whining), “Trump made this happen! The Democrats are just trying to protect the Congress and the vested interests of oversight.
“And Trump has left them with no choice now (sniffle) but to move forward with their impeachment inquiry.” And I’ll tell you, they’ll do that. They’re gonna focus on this obstruction and cover-up business. It’s much cleaner than Ukraine, which nobody cares about, plus it takes Biden and his kid out of the news. So we’ll see if this prediction happens to be right. But I think it will be.
CALLER: Hi, Rush, and good morning. There’s something going on here. I disagree with a little bit of what you’re saying.
RUSH: Oh! Okay.
CALLER: The reason I say this is because we’ve never had a time in American history where the government has acted this corrupt. You say to us a lot, “Don’t doubt me.” I’m gonna tell you, “Don’t doubt me.” There are people here in liberal California that are seething mad over what is going on, and the polls are not picking this up, and I can tell you this: My instincts and my predictions have been pretty right, pretty accurate since 2015 regarding Trump and the liberals —
RUSH: Have you had your opinions audited by the Sullivan Group?
CALLER: I’m about 98%. I think my wife would agree.
RUSH: All right. Well, that’s not the Sullivan Group.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: You know, there’s an official auditing firm. You should start submitting your stuff to ’em.
CALLER: No, but my wife’s pretty smart. She’s an attorney. But let me get to my point real quick.
RUSH: Okay. I thought you’d made it. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
CALLER: (laughing) This impeachment is going nowhere. When Durham and Barr come with their report — which is coming soon. I know it’s coming soon. The American people can feel it. That’s why Schiff and Pelosi and Clinton are acting out of their minds. They’re crazy. Now, if you stop and think… I know you’re in your radio world, but there are people actually seeing this throughout the country, and they’re looking at this. There’s something wrong here. These people are doing —
RUSH: Okay, wait a minute, Jimmy.
CALLER: (crosstalk)
RUSH: Jimmy, hang on. You say I’m sitting here in my radio world like I’m missing things?
CALLER: (crosstalk)
RUSH: All I did today was tell you what the Democrat strategy is. That’s all I did.
CALLER: No, no, no! I —
RUSH: I didn’t tell you it’s gonna work.
CALLER: No, I’m not saying… I’m not being disagreeable, but I think you’re… Let me rephrase it. I think you’re giving them too much credit. Schiff is looked at as a joke. They’re sick. These people truly, in every sense of the word, they’re sick. This is what people are saying at the coffee shops, at the gyms, at the grocery stores —
RUSH: What about in the homeless camps? Are they saying this there, too? Because you’re close. You’re close by.
CALLER: Well, let me tell you, San Diego’s right behind “San Fransicko” and Los Angeles, two of the most —
CALLER: But to my point, I’m telling you that when this Durham report and the Barr report drop, this impeachment baloney is going nowhere, and the American people can feel it. Don’t believe these polls. And I wouldn’t even… Here’s my point. Don’t even talk about these polls. These polls from the fraudulent media… It’s not the Drive-By Media anymore.
RUSH: (chuckling)
CALLER: It’s the fraudulent, corrupt media. These polls mean nothing. It’s a waste of your airtime to even talk about ’em —
RUSH: No, no. You’re misunderstanding. I’m simply trying to inform. You are misunderstanding or you’re conflating something that I am somehow endorsing their strategy or warning people it’s gonna work. I happen to agree with you, before you called, that Adam Schiff is deranged. He’s delusional. However you want to characterize him — sick, insane, or whatever. I’m the guy that coined the phrase that these guys have been “poisoned with their hatred.”
And I don’t think they’re persuading anybody but their base because that’s who they’re playing to. I just got through saying that the country hasn’t stopped. It hasn’t stopped what it’s doing to pay attention to this. “Impeachment’s a very serious thing.” They just look at it as the next Democrat attempt to get rid of Trump. I don’t think this is gonna work, and I’ll tell you why it isn’t gonna work. They don’t have one fact that is used here to propel them. They don’t have one truth. There is no salient truth.
They have no moral foundation for any of this. It is going to implode on them. But I’m just warning people. We have people in this audience, Jimmy, who watch the media and get bummed out by it. I’m just warning ’em what’s coming. I’m just using my intelligence guided by experience (backed up by the Sullivan Group) to tell people, “Be on the lookout for what the Democrat strategy entails,” and you watch. It’s gonna be exactly that. I’ve not said that it’s gonna work, and I wouldn’t say it because I don’t think it!
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RUSH: Guess where Nancy Pelosi is today? Nancy Pelosi’s in Seattle today. Do you know what she’s talking about in Seattle? How the Democrats are trying to push a new proposal to control drug prices. I wonder why. I wonder why Pelosi would be not talking impeachment and she’s out there talking about drug prices in Seattle.
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