RUSH: I’m getting some emails. “Rush, you don’t seem to be taking impeachment seriously enough. I think you’re wrong. I think the House is gonna impeach Trump. They’re gonna do it. I think there’s gonna be a trial. I’m really worried. Why aren’t you?” I’m getting a lot of emails that have that as a basic theme. I’ll go through it again, but let me give you a very simple reason why I think they aren’t going to actually have an official vote and transfer all this to a trial in the Senate.
That’s why they’re not gonna do it. They’re not gonna turn this over to the Senate — and not even because the Senate would acquit. They’re not gonna give the politics of this away. They want to be able to talk about impeachment, and Pelosi and Schiff and the Democrats want to be seen as the people running it, in charge of it — the politics of it.
The minute they have a vote and hand this over to the Senate, the Senate is in control of impeachment, not the House. The Senate is run by Republicans. They’re not gonna do that. It’s real simple. They are not going to let go of their control of all the narratives attached to impeachment, and that would happen if they go to the Senate with it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, I’m gonna expand on this as I did yesterday. Basically I’m just gonna remind you what I said yesterday. But do you foresee Pelosi and Schiff giving up control of the impeachment process, turning it over to the Republicans, to the Senate? Forget that the Senate is Republicans. Forget that. Do you see them giving up day-to-day control over the narrative of impeachment? I don’t, and that’s the main reason I think that they’re not gonna go through with this because I don’t…
Look, they’re not idiots. I don’t care what, you know, the ebb of flow of things happen. If there actually ever was a trial in the Senate, they are not going to get 20 Republicans to vote to convict. They might get Romney and two or three others, but they’re not gonna get 20. That means Trump’s acquitted. That’s the worst thing that could happen. That’s not their gambit. Their gambit is the Richard Nixon gambit. They forced Nixon out without ever having to impeach him. They did it in the media.
They were able to scare a bunch of Republicans in the Senate and shame a bunch of Republicans in the Senate into renouncing support for Nixon and then sending an emissary — it was Howard Baker — up to the White House to tell Nixon, “You’d better quit because you’ve lost all support here on Capitol Hill. If they vote to impeach you, you’re done. If you want to be the first president removed from office by impeachment, then hang tough.”
Nixon resigned. That’s what they want to put out. They want this to go on all next year. They want to be able to have this thing go on and on and have it be a daily thing. And the minute they have a vote and the minute they go to trial, they turn control of it over to Mitch McConnell, who they hate — and I just don’t see them doing that because, folks, this is purely politics. This is raw politics. This isn’t about crimes.
It’s not about criminal behavior, high criminal behavior, misdemeanor criminal behavior. It isn’t about any of that. It’s about trying to overcome and reverse the 2016 election. That’s all this has ever been; it’s what it remains today. It’s not because they think Trump is an embarrassment that’s endangering the country and he’s just destroying it. It’s not about that at all. It’s about the fact that they couldn’t beat him. It’s about the fact that he won. It’s about the fact that they haven’t been able to get rid of him yet.
See, that’s another thing that, when you get right down to it, they don’t have anything impeachable. All they have is what they used during Nixon. And that is a daily opportunity to try to turn Republican support in the Senate away from Trump with public shaming; never-ending, relentless media narratives that cause Republicans to cave. That’s the model that they are following.
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RUSH: In fact, folks, I’ll tell you something else. I may be going out on a limb here, but I’m gonna say it anyway. If I have to walk it back, I’ll walk it back. I actually think politically the Democrats have shoved the actual impeachment of Trump aside. When Pelosi said they weren’t gonna do a vote, that’s what that meant to me. Look, when Pelosi cancels the vote and says there’s not gonna be a vote, what does that mean? She doesn’t want this to end! If they have a vote — and let’s assume that they’ve got enough votes to impeach. Okay, then that eventually — and the Turtle, Mitch McConnell, is out there saying if they do this, he wants this done by Thanksgiving.
They’re not gonna turn control of this over to the Senate, folks. They’re just not gonna let go of it. I cannot see it. That’s not the gambit. The game plan here has always been to force Trump to resign. I mean, they weren’t gonna impeach during the Mueller years. This has all been about trying to get Trump to resign. The next election’s not ’til 2020. Let’s put this in perspective. Trump wins on election night 2016. They immediately begin this coup! They start the silent coup. Trump-Russia collusion, eventually they get Mueller.
What are they gonna do? They can’t redo the election. There will not be a do-over. So they’re faced with Trump for four years unless what? They’ve always wanted to force a resignation. They weren’t in any position to do a formal impeachment during the Mueller two years or any time prior to it. And impeachment is, you know, short of illness or death, the only way to remove somebody from the presidency — and it was not even an option.
Even if Republicans hate Trump, why give the Democrats any semblance of a victory here? The election happened. Republican voters chose Trump. You understand the Democrats wanting to sell out voters, but Republicans? Why in the world would they want to sell out their own voters? There are gonna be many elections long after Trump has served his term, so it’s been extremely frustrating. It’s so obvious what this has always been.
Trump being forced out of office cannot happen unless elected Republicans join the Democrats and demand it. That’s the only way, and that has been the objective. Okay. So it failed! The coup and everything failed. Forcing Trump to resign failed. They even tried the 25th Amendment! You know, and then they were gonna wear a wire, Rosenstein was gonna wear a wire try to get the goods on Trump being unfit. They wanted the cabinet to come in!
They were doing everything they could to try to force Republicans, elected Republicans to abandon Trump. That was the only way ever they were gonna get rid of Trump before 2020. Well, we’re now one year out from 2020, and they have failed. They’ve tried everything, and now they’re continuing. Now they’re up to impeachment, and they got everybody believing that we’re on the verge of actually having articles of impeachment and then a trial and then a conviction.
But wait a minute. They’re not gonna go there! It’s never been about a trial in the Senate — unless, as I said, there is something that the whole country agrees is unacceptable. But there isn’t anything like that. There isn’t an impeachable offense here. I mean, look where we’ve come from. We’ve come from Russia collusion. (Raspberry!) Now we got a phone call, a phone call to the president of Ukraine. We’re gonna impeach for that? Come on, folks.
This has always been a grand illusion that Trump is unfit, that Trump is incompetent, that Trump is a danger, what have you. So now we’re one year out, and now all of that forcing Trump to resign, that’s now in the rearview mirror! Now it’s about 2020! They know they’re not gonna force Trump out! They know there’s not enough time for the Republicans to abandon Trump, to force him to resign before 2020. They may dream of it, but there isn’t time for that. It isn’t gonna happen.
They’re gonna have to have an election. They’re gonna have to win the next election. Now, you’ve heard some Democrats say, like Al Green, “Hey, if we don’t impeach the guy, he’s gonna be reelected!” What does that tell you? They know full well what they’re facing here. So they’re not going… Pelosi and Schiff and the rest of that gaggle are not going to lose control. They’re not gonna give up control of the political issue. The Democrats are running for the White House in 2020 on impeachment, on Trump’s unfitness, on Trump should be impeached.
Trump’s still out there having a ball. Trump’s still out there doing his rallies. People show up at the rallies. They love the rallies. They’re having a great time. They have not turned Trump into a whimpering mental case hiding in the corners of dark rooms of the White House residence. None of that’s going on. But I’m just telling you the minute they have a vote… (Snort!) They’re not going to. Pelosi said they’re not gonna do a vote. That’s all you need to know, that they’re not serious about it. It is nothing more than…
See, when you have the media on your side or when the media is your leader? (chuckles) Why, that changes everything. Then you can do whatever you want and call it whatever you want. So they’re running their 2020 campaign to defeat Trump, and they’re calling it impeachment. They’ve named their campaign “impeachment,” but there isn’t an actual impeachment going on. “Wait a minute, Rush. Wait a minute. They’re calling witnesses.”
Yeah, they’re calling witnesses in the basement behind closed and they’re not letting anybody read the transcripts! They’re not… Folks, this is all… I keep trying overusing the word “illusion,” but having the media helps. Whatever they do, they can call it, “We are impeaching the president. We have an impeachment inquiry. We are issuing subpoenas and letters.” But no, not really, and I cannot emphasize enough that actually having a vote and presenting articles of impeachment — drawing up the cases and then the House managers assigned to go conduct the trial in the Senate — guess what?
That puts the entire Democrat reelection or election campaign in the hands of the Senate. They are not going to do that. If I’m right, six months from now, the Democrat campaign will still be focused on impeaching Trump. “Well, wait a minute, Rush. Everybody will know six months out they’re not gonna impeach Trump.” They’re gonna call it that. No matter what they do, that’s what they’re gonna call it. That word, they think, holds magic. That word, “impeachment,” they’re hoping it will scare Republicans at some point into abandoning Trump.
Now, if that happens, if they’re successful in forcing Republicans to abandon Trump, then they think that will give them the 2020 election. But that’s where the focus is now. Two years ago, the focus was on Trump resigning — and if they could make that happen now, they still will. Don’t misunderstand. But time is running out on them. And, by the way, all of this, every bit of this is gonna change when they have a nominee, and we don’t know when that’s gonna be.
What we’re looking at here — and I know it doesn’t look like this at all. But when I look out over the landscape the last three years, I see one Democrat failure after another. I literally see them as a bunch of Wile E. Coyotes either blowing up themselves up or running off the cliff. And I say that because their objective has been forcing Donald Trump to resign, to getting him out of the White House in Washington, and they have failed.
And they may have succeeded in slowing down the implementation of his presidential agenda, but they haven’t stopped it. We’ve got an economic set of circumstances they can’t argue against — unemployment, wages up, unemployment down. They don’t have any issues to run on. Now they’re even… Now, if you didn’t know better, the Democrats are for war. They want troops deployed all over the world! (Snort!) When did that happen?
Trump’s got them taking positions simply because they hate him that are positions they’ve never taken before. It’s gotta have some of their serious supporters scratching their heads out there. “Do we really want to vote for somebody that wants to send troops all over the world here? This is not what we thought we were about.” So all I am saying is that I think this impeachment thing is actually a gigantic failure.
And I was gonna say here before even the show open that I’m going out on the limb. I really think, despite the language and despite the news narratives and coverage, I think they’ve given up on actual impeachment — meaning a vote and a trial (Snort!) — for the very simple reason they’re not going to give control of the, quote, unquote, “story.” The last thing they want is impeachment in the Senate, in the hands of the Turtle, in the hands of Mitch McConnell.
And the last thing they want is an acquittal in the Senate. And they need to find… If they’re gonna do this and get a conviction in the Senate, they need 20 Republicans to vote with the Democrats to get rid of a Republican president, whom they have failed to be able to get rid of for three years ago. Now, there may be a couple of Mitt Romneys over there, but there aren’t 20 of them.
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