RUSH: I’ve got news here about Cocaine Mitch and is what I’m trying to let the printer print. I got two things here I need to share with you. (shuffling papers) Here it is. Okay. The first story is from TheHill.com. The headline: “McConnell: Trump ‘Provoked’ Crowd That Stormed Capitol.” There it is. This has been sort of simmering underneath the radar out there. It has been an item of curiosity.

“What is the Turtle gonna do? Is the Turtle gonna dump on Trump or is the Turtle going to maintain one last vestige of loyalty?” And we now have the answer. “Outgoing [ahem] Senate Majority Leader” Cocaine Mitch — and, by the way, I don’t know what that means. I just find it hilarious. I read a couple of blogs who nicknamed him that. I have no idea.

I probably ought not use that, actually, ’cause it might mean something that I don’t know it means. It could be more than just a clever little nickname. So, I’ll just stick with the Turtle. “Outgoing Senate Majority Leader [the Turtle] Mitch McConnell today “accused President Trump of provoking the violent crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.”

So this is gonna end whatever scant, faint, nearly invisible hopes there were that there would be some kind of even quasi-loyalty between the Republican swamp and Trump. It was more than likely to eventuate this way, but there was still scant hope that maybe it wouldn’t. Here’s what McConnell said on the Senate floor:

“‘The last time the Senate convened, we had just reclaimed the Capitol from violent criminals who tried to stop Congress from doing our duty. The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people,’ McConnell said on the Senate floor, marking the first convening of the full Senate since the attack. McConnell’s statements carry significance ahead of an anticipated Senate impeachment trial.

“The GOP leader has told colleagues he hasn’t yet decided how he would vote on a House-passed article of impeachment against Trump. His remark that the crowd was ‘fed lies’ is a reference to baseless and debunked claims spread by Trump and members of his legal team and inner circle that widespread election fraud cost Trump a second term. Trump has not formally conceded the race to President-elect Joe Biden” even now.

“His remark … the crowd was ‘fed lies’ is a reference to [Trump’s] baseless and debunked claims” is what that should have been written to be more easily understood. In other words, McConnell “remark[ing] that the crowd was ‘fed lies’ is a reference to [Trump and his] baseless and debunked claims … that widespread election fraud” is what spurred on the protests.

So here the marker’s been thrown down. The only reason it happened… Cocaine Mitch is saying it happened ’cause Trump fed the mob lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people. We’ve been through the timeline on this. There’s no way this can be true. Trump didn’t give any marching orders. He didn’t tell anybody to go down to the Capitol and do what they did.

It’s why this is troubling. Now, Mitch McConnell, no question, is the king of the Washington Republican establishment, and he’s made it clear what his objective is. His objective is to kill off the Trump movement. He said as much. I think McConnell also opposed the Tea Party movement. Now, this story… There’s a story at TheRightScoop.com.

“‘The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people’ –McConnell.” So it’s clear what’s happening. He is attempting to kill off the Trump movement, the MAGA movement. He’s attempting to impugn it and make it impossible for it to have any credibility going forward, making it clear that he believes that all of this that happened on January 6th at the Capitol happened precisely because Donald Trump wanted it to happen and directed it to happen.

But Trump didn’t direct anything of the sort. In fact, Trump was still speaking when these people started doing what they were doing, and we also know that Antifa had infiltrated this movement and was making themselves to look like Trump supporters. You think McConnell knows that? Think McConnell is aware of the Antifa and Black Lives Matter involvement in all of this?

You know, I had a story in the Stack yesterday, and let me… (sigh) I was hoping I wasn’t gonna have to use this. But it’s about… Yeah, here it is. “Mitch McConnell…” It’s a Peter Schweizer story. Peter Schweizer has written books about the financial corruption of the deep state, financial corruption of people in the Washington establishment.

He had a piece in Breitbart yesterday. The headline: “Mitch McConnell and His Wife Financially Tied to the [ChiCom] Government.” As I said, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use this. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go there. But, man, folks they’re making it hard. I told you some Mark McKinnon stories. Let me tell you a little — a brief little — Mitch McConnell story.

After every presidential election where we lost the Senate, where we had minority control of the Senate, Mitch would call, and he was really trying to be helpful. He was attempting to… I’m sure I wasn’t the only person he called. He was calling a lot of people explaining to them how the Senate works and that there was no reason to really panic over having lost the Senate because of one thing.

If he called me once, he must have called me three different times after three different elections where the Republicans had not secured majority control of the Senate. He said, “Look, the bottom line about the U.S. Senate is it takes 60 votes to get anything, and the Democrats don’t have 60 votes,” and then he embarked on an effort to educate me on the filibuster and what the Democrats would do if they triggered it or if they blew it up and didn’t use it, whatever.

But he was attempting to be very helpful. At the same time, he was the engaging in CYA. I mean, they had just failed to win majority control of the Senate, and one of the reasons for his calls was to tell me, “It’s not that bad. They need 60 votes, and they don’t have 60 votes,” and then he would explain to me the purpose, the constitutional purpose of the Senate.

I’ve shared this with you before. He said, “Look, the purpose of the Senate is to cool things down. You know, the House of Representatives, ‘the people’s house,’ that’s where it gets knock-down, drag-out. That’s where there’s all kinds of raised voices and lots of energy. But when what they’re working on at the House, legislation, gets over to the Senate, we’re like a coffee cup saucer, Rush.

“We are where the hot coffee might boil over. It’s collected in the saucer where it cools down, and that’s what we at the Senate do. We provide the slowdown. We provide the cooling off of overheated passions in legislative arguments. We should never pass legislation in the heat of any emotional argument or in the midst of any emotion out of control, and that’s what we in the Senate does.”

So he called two or three times to assure me that, “Doesn’t matter. They don’t have 60 votes.” And he would run through the vote count, and he would tell me the various Republicans he thought would cave and vote with Democrats. And he did it by name. But he would always fall short of 60. He would always tell me, “No reason to worry. Yeah, we didn’t win control but since you need 60 votes up here, they’re not gonna be able to do anything.”

To which I said, “Well, wouldn’t it be better to win? I mean, I realize you didn’t and you want to make the best case for losing you can, but wouldn’t it be better to win majority control? Wouldn’t you have more power? Wouldn’t you have more ability?”

“Yeah, of course. But we didn’t. We lost. So I have to look on the bright side, Rush, and the bright side is that 60 votes, they can’t do anything without it, and they don’t got it.”

Anyway, here is Schweizer’s story. Schweizer on Sunday detailed how Mitch McConnell and his wife, Elaine Chao, are financially tied to the ChiCom Communist Party. “Schweizer said on Fox News Channel’s ‘The Next Revolution,'” that’s with Steve Hilton. He said “that McConnell’s ‘position on China has softened over the years,’ which he argued is due to the growing relationship between the Chinese government and the Chao’s company.”

Schweizer said, “Really, it goes to the fact that Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao, his wife, are financially tied to the Chinese government.” Now, I have to say that Peter Schweizer has written book after book after book. He’s detailed the Clintons and their financial corruption and their illegal ties to agents of foreign governments, and nobody has challenged him. Nobody has sued him. Nobody has told him to take it down, nobody has accused him of lying. They just ignored it and hoped that it would go away. And the same thing is happening here.

So if you want to know why the establishment, the swamp, the deep state, if you want to know why they say that China Joe and Mitch McConnell will work well together, look no further than renowned investigator Peter Schweizer’s follow-the-money revelations about McConnell and his wife. And, you know, folks, I know both these people. I know Mitch McConnell. I know Elaine Chao. This is why I’ve always said, you never want to get close to these people because you don’t want to make ’em enemies, and you still have to be able to report the truth.

Again, Schweizer has not been wrong on any of his years and years of reporting on the Bidens. I suspect that he’s not wrong on this. Nobody’s even tried to debunk it. Elaine Chao was the first to ditch Trump. According to Schweizer, this is the strategy of the Chinese government across the world. They seek out political elites, they give them commercial deals, and they end up being wedded to the ChiComs. They don’t want to anger the Chinese, the McConnells don’t, because they could destroy their families financially, like the Mafia.

So you don’t want to make the ChiComs mad once they’ve got their hooks into you. So there’s some snark going around that maybe the Chinese told McConnell, “Hey, it’s time to lower the boom on Trump.” So I don’t know if it would even take that. I don’t know how surprised I am that this has happened because I think all of the Washington establishment has made up their minds that they are all-in on destroying as much of Trump and his family as they can.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Like I say, folks, it doesn’t make me happy nor comfortable to have to discuss Mitch McConnell this way. But it’s undeniable what he said. McConnell has been, over the years, nothing but helpful to me. That’s been his… At least that’s my interpretation of all the times he reached out to me. I literally thought he was trying to be helpful.

I haven’t heard from him in a long time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But now McConnell is making it clear where he stands, that Trump is responsible for what happened at the U.S. Capitol. It’s Trump who did it. It’s Trump who encouraged it. We got the audio sound bite. This is from the Senate floor just this afternoon.

MCCONNELL: The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people —

RUSH: Who is that?

MCCONNELL: –and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like. But we pressed on. We stood together and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation, not even for one night. We certified the people’s choice for their 46th president.

RUSH: (summarized) “And we did it proudly. We proudly certified Joe Biden.” You think this guy is ever gonna be seen in public? Do you think Joe Biden is gonna be a virtual president? No, I’m serious. Do you think Biden’s ever gonna show up in public and do public events? Now, he’ll be on TV from the Oval Office. Will he ever leave the White House? Will he leave the residence?

Will he leave the Oval Office, the West Wing? I guess he’s gonna have to for some ceremonial things, but they’ll employ Kommie Harris for as much of those things as they can. So, anyway, you heard him saying it. “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” We don’t know who he means there.

“They tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government,” which they did not like — and that’s what he means: The United States Senate. But McConnell wants you to know that your senators bravely pressed on, that they were not intimidated. They were not in any way inspired to quit. They bravely kept on. They pressed on.

They stood together, and they said that “an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law” in our inauguration, by golly. So they bravely continued work. They bravely stood up to that mob that was inspired by the president — provoked by the president. So I guess the mystery is now over, and we know where McConnell — and thus, the Republican leadership — stand. They’re not alone.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Would I be mean — would it be mean — to point out that Mitch McConnell didn’t seem to mind his wife getting a cabinet job under Trump? And in fact, she was in the Trump cabinet for four years, right? She was one of the early, I think, labor secretary? (interruption) Well, no. I mean, if Senator McConnell is now going to dump over Trump…

You know, grab sound bite number 23. This is on the Senate floor today. This is Mitch McConnell, who I guess has pretended to represent 75 million Trump voters all these years. But here’s Senator McConnell, leader of the Republicans in the Senate, on the Senate floor just this afternoon.

MCCONNELL: The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people, and they tried to use fear and violence to stop a specific proceeding of the first branch of the federal government which they did not like.

RUSH: Yeah.

MCCONNELL: But we pressed on.

RUSH: Yeah, right.

MCCONNELL: We stood together —

RUSH: We were brave.

MCCONNELL: — and said an angry mob would not get veto power over the rule of law in our nation —

RUSH: Right. We were brave.

MCCONNELL: — not even for one night.

RUSH: That’s right.

MCCONNELL: We certified the people’s choice for their 46th president.

RUSH: And we were brave about it. We certified the people’s choice for the 46th president. That’d be Joe Biden. So you don’t think it’d be mean to point out that Senator McConnell didn’t mind his wife being in Trump’s cabinet for four years? (interruption) Well, no. I mean, I’m thinking if Trump’s capable of all of this, then clearly this isn’t the first time Trump has done things that you might object to.

Why didn’t Elaine Chao resign from the Trump cabinet much earlier? Because there were clearly signs. I mean, they were talking about invoking the 25th Amendment! They were talking about, you know, two years in doing all kinds of things to get rid of Trump. But she hung in there for all four years as a member of Trump’s cabinet. There has to be a reason why.

Today on CNN, the infobabe Brianna Keilar had as one of her guests Ronald Brownstein of The Atlantic. He’s a senior editor there. She asked him this question: “Does what Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor,” the sound bite you just heard. “Does what McConnell said tell you anything about what to expect from Senate Republicans in the impeachment trial?”

BROWNSTEIN: It is important that Senate Majority Leader McConnell is saying these things and drawing these lines. But you can’t ignore his role in getting the party and the country to this point. I mean, Donald Trump did not get to the point of January 6th overnight, and he did not get there alone. McConnell’s comments do signal that this, in fact, may be a breaking point for some of them.

And if you look at the polling, it is true that three-quarters of Republicans say that Trump won the election; it was stolen. They see nothing wrong in how he’s behaving. That’s an ominous number for the stability of society. But if a quarter or a fifth of Republican voters are uneasy with the party kind of merging with these extremist elements, that’s a pretty scary number for the future of Republican electoral prospects.

RUSH: So if McConnell thinks… The way I interpret this is if McConnell thinks that he’s buying himself some goodwill from the Drive-By Media, he can think again. They can’t buy goodwill. They’ve never been able to buy friendship, support, or goodwill. Yet they do not learn from this. They nevertheless end up thinking that it’s always possible, and it isn’t.

And you hear it right here in Brownstein. (summarized) “Okay. So fine. Mitch McConnell saying these things, he’s drawing these lines. But you can’t ignore his own role in getting the party and the country to this point! I mean, Donald Trump didn’t get to January 6th overnight, and he didn’t get there alone. Mitch McConnell helped out. Now, McConnell’s comments do signal maybe a breaking point for some Republicans — and if you look at the polling, it’s true.

“Three-quarters of Republicans say Trump won the election, that it was stolen. They see nothing wrong with how he’s behaving.” Brownstein says, “That’s a — that’s an ominous number for the stability of the society.” That number scares the hell out of them. We’re talking 70 to 75 million people, and there’s polling data out there that says 75% of those people think that Trump won, that the election was stolen.

They see nothing wrong with Trump behaving the way he is, and they’re worried. See, this has bombed out on ’em, and we had a sound bite earlier today that demonstrated that. They failed. They were certain that this, what happened on January 6th… They were certain that this was going to end up destroying the bond that Trump has with his voters.

And it hasn’t happened.

And they’re devastated.

They don’t know what to do.

They literally thought that they were going to be able to end all of this with that revelation, and it’s not been the case.