RUSH:  So, now some of the transcripts from Schiff’s closed-door meetings, hearings, whatever you want to call ’em, are being released, and I’m gonna tell you what we’re gonna find.  Now, I’m not gonna go out on a limb right now and say that some of those people were lying. But it’s gonna be close, and maybe some of them did.  But I just want to tell you, I want to reiterate something.  I just saw some of the testimony from some babe — I’m sorry, I’m sorry, some woman — who was an ambassador. She had some role.

Yovanovitch, I think was her name, and she’s testifying about the odd things the president said, the odd things that the president was talking about.  I cannot emphasize for you enough, folks… (sigh) These people in this particular segment, we’re talking about a subset of the deep state, a subset of the administrative state.  This subset contains what we would call the foreign policy establishment.  It contains elements of the State Department, obviously, but people from the National Security Council with whom the president meets and the intelligence community.

Maybe throw some four-stars in there, retired four-stars or active.  These people are lifelong swamp dwellers. They look at themselves as the permanent government.  Even a president is a transient.  He’s gonna serve one or two terms. He’s gonna come and go.  In these people’s minds — do not doubt me — they run it.  They run foreign policy.  They run, they set the foreign policy of the country.  They are the diplomatic corps.  They are the ones who talk to other nations’ representatives.  You throw Trump in the mix; he thinks he sets foreign policy — and he does!

The president does.  These people don’t.  But the way things have evolved over decades… I think the real beginning of this — and it may even predate this — is post-World War II, for certain.  It may predate it.  But this is a group of people who view themselves as permanent.  I mean, they don’t serve for life, but their positions. They do serve longer than presidents.  They are, in many cases, career.  So they are immune to presidential appointment.  The president will appoint secretary of state or director of the National Security Council and then ambassadors.

But there’s a lot of people in there that you and I don’t know, like in the regulatory agencies that are doing grunt work who we’ve never heard of until they pipe up, like Marie Harf and any number of other people. Sally Yates.  Sally Yates is lurking in there in the Office of Legal Counsel, a holdover from Obama. Nobody ever heard her name until she decided that she had to step in and save the country from Trump.  She had no power to do it.  He’s president.  He sets policy. But she didn’t like his!

So she goes public, “We can’t do that,” with the first travel ban.

These people do that.  They set the policy for the government.  They implement it, not the president!  I’m not making this up, and I’m not even exaggerating.  These people are so full of themselves that you can’t believe it — and they’ve been allowed to do it over the course of years. Various presidents of both parties just accept it, because everybody’s part of the Washington establishment and how it functions and operates.  Trump is like throwing a live grenade in a room with all of them.

So to cut to the chase, many of these witnesses whose testimony is gonna be released by Schiff as part of the resolution that he agreed to to go public, if you ever take the time to read them, you know what you’re gonna find?  You’re gonna find these people just disagree!  They just say, “Trump, you can’t do that,” even though he perfectly can!  He hasn’t done anything illegal!  He’s just doing things these people wouldn’t do — and, therefore, he’s gotta be stopped!  They have no respect for the office of the president, particularly when he’s in it.

If any particular president happens to embrace them and include them and bring them in then, yeah, everything’s fine and hunky-dory. But if you’ve got a president like Trump who believes he sets foreign policy, he sets trade policy, he determines the economic agenda of the G7 and the G20, not these people, of course they’re gonna rise up in indignation.  They’re being replaced.  Just like every other… Like the Never Trumpers have been exposed as unnecessary to the conservative movement.  Trump is basically exhibiting many of the people the deep state are not needed.

And in fact, some of them are actually doing great damage, because they’ve got a perverted view of America in the world and American foreign policy.  So you’re gonna see people who are acting like Trump has committed crimes simply because he’s doing it differently than they’ve ever done it.  And that can’t be tolerated.  And I am not… Folks, I’m not exaggerating this.  I’m not firing things out of my mouth up against a wall hoping one or two of them stick.

I’m telling you I know this like the back of my hand, ’cause I know people like this.  It’s more than a cliche.  “We’ve never done it that way! We can’t do that.”  How many of you have ever encountered that in a job?”  You’re new in a job and you’ve got managerial power, and you want to change up some systems, and the existing staff that didn’t get canned along with their boss say, “Wait a minute.  You can’t do that.  We’ve never done it that way.”  Well, that’s what this is, but you throw in a hell of a lot of power. These people are dealing with U.S. foreign policy.

They think they set it.  So I’ll guarantee you, they don’t want the whistleblower to testify.  What is this business, the whistleblower will answer written questions?  What the hell is that?  The bottom line is, Schiff does not want the whistleblower to testify.  The whistleblower was never intended to be made public because the whistleblower never even heard the phone call.  It’s part of an orchestrated scam that is being made to look like, “There are really some upset people in foreign policy.

“They cannot stand this president.  He’s so dangerous! He’s putting America at risk.  This is very bad.  We’ve got to stop him.” What it really is, is Trump just doing things differently than they’ve done, speaking differently than they have, speaking differently than they do.  Different objectives than they’ve had.  And they just… They’re not gonna sit by and watch their jobs be rendered irrelevant.  And a bunch of them are dyed-in-the-wool leftists who do not view American Greatness as something kosher for the world.

They view America being great again as upsetting all of the plans they put into place for the last 30, 40, 50 years.  “American nationalism,” they say, “what the hell is that?  There’s nothing special about America.  No, no, no.  We’re all globalists now.  We have this intricately woven web of cooperation and understandings, and we’re not gonna let Trump come in here and…” In other words, Trump has not committed a crime that is impeachable.  He’s simply not doing things their way, and they are pushing back.

They’re doing it in conjunction with Democrats under the guise of impeachment to make it look like… In other words, Donald Trump’s doing exactly what you elected him to do, and these people are trying to stop him. And since they can’t stop him any other way, they’re trying to say he’s doing criminal things, impeachable things.  Looked at in that light, it’s not complicated to understand.  The whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, can’t stand cross-examination.  Schiff would no more subject him to it than he would anybody else.

The more we are learning of Vindman, the worse it gets, given his contacts.  And by “the worse,” I mean, this guy is the aide-de-camp to McMaster.  These guys are all thick as thieves.  These are people who were part of the National Security Council.  They’re under Obama or have deep ties to the deep state, and they simply just can’t abide Trump being president.  They can’t abide him coming in, taking over their roles, their jobs, upsetting all the work that they have done.  You know what Vindman’s beef is?  Vindman’s beef — Lt. Col. Vindman (who Kasich says, “When this guy testifies, things will change”) — is he just doesn’t like Trump’s foreign policy.

This guy had no problem with Biden as the point man in Ukraine. None of these people had any problem with Biden and his kid running a scam deal there. They all knew about it. They didn’t have a problem with it because Obama was implementing their foreign policy. So it didn’t matter. If Trump was implementing — well, I won’t go that far. They’re gonna be opposed to Trump no matter what he does.

This is why Trump cannot ever move in their direction. It won’t matter. These people, when you boil it all down, seem to think that the president doesn’t make foreign policy, they do. And that’s, in large part, what this is about.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Something else I want to remind you of.  Schiff is releasing a bunch of transcripts today, partial transcripts from witnesses who have testified before his committee.  There’s only one transcript that matters: The transcript of President Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine.  That’s the only transcript that matters, and there’s not a crime in it, there’s nothing untoward in it, there is nothing impeachable in it, there’s nothing irregular in it.  I’ve had people send me emails.

“Rush, you know, you love the military — you credit these people left and right — and now you’re treating this Vindman guy…” I know. This is tough.  But I can tell you… I can explain this, folks.  I just did but let me add something to it.  We’ve got this permanent cabal.  Now, it gets populated by different people.  Nobody lives forever. But we have this permanent cabal of people in the establishment, deep state, whatever, who run foreign policy.  They’re intelligence people. They’re National Security Council, State Department diplomats, and some military people — and they do it.

They certainly are there longer than presidents.  They outlive presidents.  Presidents come and go.  These are permanent people, other than the appointees.  Most of the jobs we’re talking about are not appointed.  They are career.  And everybody that works in this position, in this cabal, is loyal not to the president, not to the commander-in-chief.  They’re loyal to their superiors within this little subgroup.  I don’t question Vindman’s loyalty.  I’m not suggesting that Vindman, the decorated military hero with the service of valor in Vietnam…

He’s being entirely obedient and loyal to the people that work in the national security apparatus.  They don’t like Trump.  They think Trump represents a threat to American foreign policy, to the world.  Those are the people he works for.  In his life, in his world, his superior isn’t the president.  Now, you say, “But, Rush, every military man’s commander-in-chief…” Yes, I know, but we’re talking about people here like John Brennan.  You’re gonna tell John Brennan to go fly a kite when he tells you something if you have the privilege of working in this august, small, little group of people?

You’ve got Clapper or whoever runs the Office of National Intelligence. You’ve got some military people in here, like you’ve got William McRaven, retired military.  You’ve got former General McMaster, who was the national security adviser for Trump.  Those are the people that Vindman and the whistleblower are loyal to — and, by the way, up their chain is Obama.  In their world, they are obedient to the commander-in-chief, the last legitimate one: Obama.  In their world, Trump is not legitimate.  He’s an existential threat.  But these people all have to do what their bosses tell ’em to do, not that they’re not inclined to do it on their own.

It’s like Lois Lerner.  Lois Lerner didn’t have to be told to screw conservatives applying for tax-exempt status.  She’s a liberal at the IRS knowing full well what her job is.  She didn’t need a memo from Obama to know what to do.  That’s why there wasn’t a smoking gun memo.  So Vindman and this leaker are in their own little self-contained corridor of power. You know, in normal circumstances they work with the president.  I’m sure it was a blast working with Obama.  They had the same agenda: America in decline.

“America’s nothing special.  It’s just maybe a bigger nation than most others but still part of the global deal.”  Obama certainly didn’t believe in sophistry like Make America Great Again.  “My God, how naive,” they think. “How absolutely childish, how old-fashioned.  Great nation? This is crazy,” they think.  So you work for somebody that’s tasked you with helping them get rid of Trump because the nation needs to get rid of Trump. America, to survive as they have set it up, Trump’s gotta go. Who are you gonna be loyal to?  I can explain this to you, whatever question you’ve got.

I’m just telling you this whole cabal, in their minds, have amassed much more power than they should have, than they were ever intended to have.  They should not be running foreign policy.  The president does.  But presidents have been at odds with the State Department for all of my life. The State Department thinks they’re in their self-contained little apparatus over there. Sometimes they work with the president. But oftentimes, man, they gotta protect the world from the president.  In their world, presidents don’t know half what they know.

In their world, presidents are just the temporary stewards of some office over in the White House.  But to them, that’s ceremonial.  They’re doing the real work — and they’re happy nobody sees ’em doing it.  But when somebody like Trump comes along and takes over — and in taking over is going to attempt to totally wipe out what they’ve done? (Snort!) Well, they’re gonna stand up and say, “To hell with you, bud.”  This is exactly what’s happened, and they’ve got intelligence people working with them.

They incorporated some people in the FBI, as you know — Comey and these people.  These are all people protecting their turf at the base element.  They’re protecting their turf, as everybody in the establishment is.  But these people think they run foreign policy, not the president.  “Especially this one!  This one is a joke.  This one is an embarrassment.  This one is… Oh, my God, save everybody from this one.”  They’re arrogant and they’re cocky and they have hubris.

No doubt, in their own minds, they think they’re doing the Lord’s work.  They’re just so out of touch.  They don’t care about public opinion.  It’s irrelevant to them.  They don’t even think about it.  It’s not something that is important in the way they do their jobs.  They look at you the same way they look at Trump.  “You’ve got no business having anything to say about foreign policy.  Who the hell are you? Yeah, go vote, but that’s it.  You don’t get a say in America’s foreign policy!  You don’t get a say in foreign aid.  You don’t get a say in anything.

“You have no idea what you’re doing.  You have no idea what you know. You’re just a dumb voter — and, in many ways, the nation needs to be protected from you dumb voters, like when you elect somebody like Trump.”  This is what’s animating them.  Plus, tack on to all this the literally personal hatred they have for Trump.  That’s what we find ourselves in the middle of.  Now, I want to get to all these polls out there.  I mentioned at the top of the program how we are manipulated with public polling data.

Let me rephrase something — or say something, not rephrase.  Let me restate something.  We see public opinion: “Forty-nine percent think the president ought to be impeached.”  How do we know this?  You have to accept the poll or you don’t.  But do we really think 49% of the people in this country have sat around thinking about it or talking about it?  I maintain to you that public opinion isn’t public opinion.  It is a reflection of the effort to manipulate public opinion.

The mainstream media every day, primary objective, is to manipulate public opinion and create it. Have you noticed, folks, that — well, you may not have. As political scientists look at voter data and as various people, people I respect, by the way, as they examine the cultural shift in America, for example — what was it — 10 years ago, 15 years, gay marriage wouldn’t have — I mean, even Obama was opposed to it. And then transgender rights and all this crap that’s come about because of this.

We’re left to assume the majority of the country thinks transgenders are a significant portion of the population, that they’ve been discriminated against, that we need to reorder society to accommodate, do we really believe this? Do we really believe that over half the country supports gay marriage? So how did it happen?

One of the big shifts in electoral politics that has shocked everybody is the shift on the part of educated white liberals to radical liberalism or radical leftism. That is, of all things that has happened in American politics in the last, say, 10 years, that is the most shocking.

The Democrat Party is not being shaped, for example, by this influx of illegal aliens. Not the primary shaper. The Democrat Party has gone wacko, radical, liberal left. You can see it in their primary and in all their Democrat presidential candidates. It’s radical, radical left. It’s not just the old liberal that it used to be. Well, who has made this shift? And it has been white, educated women, number one, and men second. White, educated Democrats have become radical leftists.

And so how did that happen? Did these people in mass, intelligent people, by virtue of college educated, did they just all at the same time independently come to the same radical-left belief system? No. The people we’re talking about have been influenced by two major elements of public influence: education and the media. These white, educated suburban men and women are the product of two things: their education as they become adults, and the media.

And as intelligent people, in their minds, in their own minds, as intelligent people, they only want to listen to other intelligent people. They want to be in the group of intelligent people. Well, what do they think of conservatives? They think conservatives are Deliverance. They think liberals are what you see at the New York Times. Liberals are what you see in the mainstream media. Liberals are the people making movies. Liberals are the people recording hit songs. Liberals are the people writing hip books.

So that’s where they go. That’s who they side with. They’re not thinking about anything, per se. Some of them do but, I mean, the point is that they’re being influenced, and that influence then becomes we’re told an expression of public opinion, when it isn’t. It’s public following. Now, you could call it branding, you can call it marketing, what have you.

But everybody I know that I talk about this stuff with has been flummoxed by how rapidly the so-called mainstream of the Democrat Party has become radical insane, believing some of the screwballest, weirdest radical leftist stuff. It’s because all the years of education and exposure to the media with those two things being considered, the epitome of intelligence or the epitome of hip, that’s where they’re siding, ’cause that’s what they think is cool or that’s what they think is smart. But it isn’t dyed-in-the-wool learned decision-making after digesting a bunch of information that would then qualify as public opinion.

It’s really that these people have been masterfully manipulated. Not saying they don’t believe it, but one of the reasons they believe it is because there’s comfort in believing the same things that other people smart believe. And isn’t it interesting that every Republican president is an idiot? George Bush couldn’t talk. He was a blooming idiot! Trump an even bigger blooming idiot. Ronald Reagan an amiable dunce. Who is it that creates those memes? It’s the media that creates those, along with education.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: What I’m saying is, that many of these people don’t really support this radical stuff. Now, they don’t really believe it, but they support it because it’s hip. They support it because everybody they respect does. It’s not public opinion as presented to you. It’s not that a majority of your fellow citizens have gone over the deep end and think all this oddball, kooky cultural stuff is normal. It’s just that these are the people who must be what the majority, they must be with what they think is smart, with what they think is cool.

And I’m not trivializing it with the use of the word “cool.” In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s used to reflect public opinion. I’m just telling you that if we ever want to overcome this stuff — well, that’s for when I have more time. I’ve gotta make a point very quickly here. Lee Zeldin just tweeted the following: “The transcripts from the interviews of Ambassadors Yovanovitch & McKinley were just released. Will immediately review. Assuming all is accurate, having sat through both, there is NOTHING in there to impeach POTUS for. A Pres can recall an Amb at any time WITH or WITHOUT cause.”

See, that’s exactly right. He recalls an ambassador, these people, “He can’t do that, he’s gotta go. He can’t recall one of us. He can’t throw us out.” But now here to further add evidence to what I’m saying is A.B. Stoddard of the media just a moment ago on CNN.

STODDARD: The role of Rudy Giuliani and a black ops, rogue foreign policy outside the official channels as an unaccountable private citizen who Mike Pompeo gave the State Department over to, with goals that ran counter to our Ukraine policy –

RUSH: Stop the tape. Right there it is! Right there it is! Trump runs foreign policy, not these people! If he wants Rudy Giuliani to do something in foreign policy, he can do it! If Mike Pompeo agrees that Giuliani’s gotta do something, he can do it! These people do not run foreign policy. They are the ones right now running black ops rogue foreign policy because they are running foreign policy in opposition to the president of the United States!

Rudy was acting as his representative. Just because he’s not from the foreign policy structure administration, just ’cause he’s not from the foreign policy movement — Rudy can do whatever Trump tells him to do! This is the point! This is a major thing. This is a major attack on presidential constitutional power that they’re trying to say is criminal and impeachable when none of it is! They are! What they are doing actually is impeachable, if you ask me!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  No, I’m not exaggerating — and if there’s a better term for it, somebody give me one.  I’m telling you that all of this — everything Schiff is doing with the whistleblower/leaker and all this stuff — is nothing more than Trump-Russia collusion.  All of this is a never-ending, continual effort to build an illusion that Trump is massively guilty and that there’s a separate search for truth. “Everybody knows he’s guilty, we just can’t find it. Yet we’re getting close.”

None of this is true.  They’ve got nothing!  They never have had anything.  Now, what Schiff is doing today is releasing some transcripts from witnesses that have testified in private behind closed doors in his stupid little hearing room.  They don’t matter. These transcripts do not matter. The only transcript that matters is the transcript of the phone call between Trump and the Ukraine president.  That’s it.

Because there’s nothing criminal, there’s nothing impeachable, there’s nothing untoward.  There is nothing wrong with what Trump said to the Ukraine president.  Trump is president, not these people!  A.B. Stoddard: “Rudy Giuliani was running a rogue foreign policy.”  No, he wasn’t!  He was acting on orders of the president, who runs foreign policy.  This cabal of people at the National Security Council, the State Department, military people, intelligence people, they do not run foreign policy.

They may think they do — and they may have been, actually, under certain presidents.  But they don’t constitutionally or any other way.  The rogue behavior is theirs.  The rogue behavior is on their part.  Trying to tell a president he can’t do this, can’t do that? They weren’t elected to do anything.  None of these people.  So the only transcript that matters is the transcript between Trump and the Ukrainian president, the phone call.  The illusion is that Trump’s incompetent, a boob, doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“Great patriots are trying to save America from this guy.”  It’s the exact opposite.  Donald Trump is trying to remake American foreign policy along the lines of making America great again. Not subservient, not guilty, and certainly not responsible for the world’s problems like these people have been doing.  This is not hard to understand.  The challenge we have is that it all looks legitimate because of the people behind it.  “The intelligence community? Why, they’re great patriots.

“The State Department? Looking out for America’s best interests. The media? Objective and fair.”  That’s all a crock.  We’re dealing with unobjective, unfair, and maybe not even the best qualified people!  We may have people who are way beyond their abilities here, the Peter principle. Any number of things could apply.  But even that doesn’t matter.  They are not the boss, and they are acting like they are the boss and that Trump is an interloper and that anybody he has doing anything for him is not allowed.

And in that, they’re telling us how this country has been run!  They’ve been running it.  They’ve been setting foreign policy.  They’re the ones responsible for the world thinking we are destroying the planet with climate change.  They’re the ones responsible for convincing the world that we are doing great damage because of fossil fuels.  These are the people responsible for the idea that the United States owes the world everything because we’ve stolen what we have from the world, that it’s time we paid it back!

It’s these people who have acknowledged the United Nations should be able to put their hands in our back pocket any time they want just to make it fair.  But it’s the exact other way around.  Donald Trump has the executive branch.  Therefore, he heads the Department of Justice.  He heads American foreign policy.  He’s the commander-in-chief of the American defense operation.  None of these people are either of those things or any of that.

Yet they’ve operated as though they are — and when they’ve been on the same page as previous presidents, like Obama, then it’s one big, happy family.  But this isn’t one big, happy family because Donald Trump was elected in stark, direct opposition to these people.  So they’re coming around, “Well, look at this transcript! Rudy Giuliani was making trips to Ukraine.  He was talking to the Ukraine president.  That’s rogue foreign policy.”

No, it’s not.  Trump ordered him.

“Well, Rudy Giuliani is not from the foreign policy establishment.”

So what?  Where’s it written that a Trump emissary has to come from your cabal?  If Trump wanted to send me someplace, he could do it.  You’d have a conniption fit, but he could — and he probably should, but he probably won’t.  But he could, he should, and he might.  The point is the president runs the show.  He was elected to run the show. If the American people don’t like it, next election they say, “Sayonara,” but they’re not gonna say, “Sayonara.”

The president’s got another rally tonight. Kentucky.  The lines are thronged.  They are long.  The media doesn’t talk about this anymore, because they’re trying to make it look like it’s old hat, no big deal.  But, see, to show these long lines and to show eager, excited people — average, ordinary, normal Americans who want to go see their president — would counter the idea that he need wants him impeached and thrown out of office.  So they don’t show this anymore.

I’m telling you, a majority of the American people do not want Trump impeached and thrown out of office. I don’t care what the hell these polls say, because that’s not what these polls are saying.  These polls are reflecting something other than public opinion on that specific.  They are reflecting the human nature of people to want to be part of the smart people, the majority, whatever it is.

Or they are reacting to people they think are smart like the media and like people that teach them.  People that teach them, they have respect for ’em, and if they think Trump’s the bad guy, then Trump must be a bad guy.  “My smart teacher says so.  In the media, Trump’s a dangerous guy; I trust the media. I watch the media.  I’m not gonna spend my whole life not believing the media.  I can’t do that opinion. I gotta believe the media.  Trump’s bad guy. He’s gotta be a bad guy.”

This is how this all happens.  People are not coming to these opinions after their own time and study.  They’re simply reflecting what they’re hearing other influential people tell them.  And I’m gonna tell you: Thank God for the alternative media.  Thank God for us, all the other radio shows, telephone shows, Fox News. Because if it wasn’t there, Trump would have never been elected, A, and B, would have been toast by now.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: George in Charlotte, North Carolina.  You’re next, George.  Glad you waited.

CALLER:  Hey, Rush.  Yeah. (chuckles) Longtime listener.  What I wanted to tell you is — it’s a comment I have to make — I’m surprised that Vindman is not being investigated by the Army for an Article 32.  This man was privy to a conversation between the president and another head of state, and if he leaked that information to the whistleblower, he should be charged with conduct unbecoming, which is dismissable from the Army and loss of benefits.  I don’t understand why they’re not doing this.  It would also give —

RUSH:  Now, wait, wait. Hold it a minute.  That’s a good point.  Answer your question: Why are they not doing it?

CALLER:  I don’t know.

RUSH:  Because they’re part of the effort to get rid of Trump.

CALLER:  Well, there’s another little tick to this too.  You know Vindman has a brother and he’s also in the military — and he’s a JAG, okay? Guess where he works or where he worked?  In the White House?  You know what the odds of two brothers with different MOSes in the army working in the White House are?  They’re so astronomical that you can’t calculate them.  They had to be placed there.

RUSH:  Well, exactly.  They’re twins, by the way.

CALLER:  Yeah.

RUSH:  They’re not just brothers.  They’re twins out there!  You don’t know where one or the other is.

CALLER:  Right.  Well, it’d be interesting to see who put them both in the White House, because one’s a lawyer and the other one’s in intelligence.

RUSH:  Well, I can tell you… Pfft! Well, I can’t tell you. I mean, I could intelligently surmise that it all stems from the tree with the guy at the top of it named Obama.

CALLER:  Yeah.

RUSH:  I’ll guarantee you…  We talked about this a moment ago.  We do have an Army lieutenant colonel who overheard a phone call and then ratted the president out to a whistleblower — who’s not a whistleblower, he’s a leaker.  Now, he gets away with it and is a hero!  Why?  “Well, because the assumption is the president shouldn’t be president.  He’s not qualified. Vindman is saving the country from Trump.  He’s being a patriot.” This is what Schiff and his team are saying.

But like I said, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman is following orders, George, and he is being obedient.  He’s being loyal to his boss, who is not the president.  His boss is either the National Security Council head honcho or the CIA director — or actually, the deputy director of operations runs that joint; so whoever that is.  Or John Brennan.  But I’ll guarantee you, Lieutenant Colonel Vindman does not think he works for the president.  He works for the foreign policy establishment, and they’re out to protect America from the president.

(interruption) You have a question?  What’s your question? (interruption) Yeah, he’s not been fired.  If Vindman has been fired… (chuckling) There’s no way.  We’d have heard.  If Vindman’s been…? No, no.  Vindman hasn’t been fired.  If Trump were to try to get this guy out of the White House at this point, all hell would break loose.  No, I think Vindman’s in a safe house.  (I’m joking.)  Vindman testified.  He’s got protected status now.  Anyhow, George, thanks.  Thanks for the call.

By the way, a JAG officer. Judge Advocate General is what the acronym JAG stands for.  Most people think JAG is a TV character ’cause there was a show called JAG.  My cousin Dan was a JAG in the Army.