RUSH: I thought today would be a good time to talk to the Republican leader in the House. The day of reckoning has come where the Democrats get to fulfill their three-year-old dream. Literally the day started out and yesterday the day started out — and pardon my French here — but the media was in pre-orgasmic mode. They were just ready to explode, they were so happy. Then the day came and they\u2019re miserable today.<\/p>\n
You can just see that they\u2019re not even cutting away to commentary much because the feeling of gravity and seriousness and heart-stopping just isn\u2019t there. It seems more routine political bickering than actual impeachment. And commentators on the left throughout cable news networks today have been very open about how unremarkable all of this seems.<\/p>\n
Now, it is remarkable. There\u2019s gonna be a blemish of impeachment on Donald Trump\u2019s record, but it is not due to anything substantive. We have the Republican leader of the House, Kevin McCarthy, with us. So how would you assess the Republicans in the House performance throughout this period where you were denied opportunity to call witnesses, be present down in the basement and so forth, you really had some obstacles in your way. How would you describe the way you guys have held your ground during all this?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: We\u2019ve had every obstacle. They didn\u2019t do anything of the standards we did for Bill Clinton or Nixon. They tried to ram everything, and I\u2019ve never seen the Republicans more united. What you just said about the media, I was just on the floor a little earlier. The Democrats are down. Pelosi promised them that their numbers would be higher. They\u2019re lower.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/APP-121819-Interview.jpg\")
The president\u2019s approval rating is at an all-time high. And you know what\u2019s gonna happen at the end of this week? The Democratic conference is gonna be smaller, and the Republican conference is gonna be bigger. Instead of 19 seats to win the majority we\u2019re only gonna need 18, all because of what they\u2019ve done with impeachment.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Why do you think — is this a Pelosi miscalculation? Because you\u2019re right —<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: By far. By far.<\/p>\n
RUSH: She really misread the public? She really misread these circumstances this badly?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Well, remember what she said in May — or in March of this year. She said it\u2019s so divisive, impeachment, it has to be overwhelming, compelling, and bipartisan to move forward. Had she waited those 48 hours, she never planned that the president would release the transcripts. That was her fatal flaw. But she admitted last week she\u2019s been working at this for two and a half years.<\/p>\n
And when you think about this, Jerry Nadler, you run to become committee chairman, and judiciary is all about impeachment. You have to campaign within your own party. He put out campaign pieces that he\u2019d be the best for impeachment. Those freshmen that gave him the majority uphold — put their hand on the Constitution and say they\u2019ll uphold it. A few hours later that new freshman Tlaib, she says, \u201cI\u2019m gonna impeach the mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then you have Raskin, the congressman they put before Rules Committee yesterday, two days before the president was sworn in he\u2019s on a speech saying he\u2019s gonna impeach him. They have planned this all along. They had a timeline for it. The only thing they never had were the facts.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, I want to stick with Pelosi because the political calculus here is what fascinates me, and you\u2019re closer to anybody than I\u2019ll ever be able to ask about it so bear with me on this.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: All right.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Seriously. Because you know the image. The image we get from the media of Democrats is that they\u2019re experts and they\u2019re the creme de la creme and they never make any mistakes. And Pelosi would not do this, we were told, throughout this period, she wouldn\u2019t pull the trigger unless she knew. And how in the world could she have — their objective all along, Congressman, has been to separate Trump voters from Trump.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve just depended on that. They have failed in every attempt that they\u2019ve made. Did she really think that at some point in the last three weeks that what she was doing and Schiff was doing and Nadler was doing was magically going to cause some Trump supporters to say, “We\u2019ve had enough. This guy\u2019s gotta go”? Did they really think that?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: I believe she thought it. And she doesn\u2019t trust in Nadler, she thinks Nadler\u2019s inept, but she trusts in Adam Schiff. And this is what I believe happened. Adam Schiff, remember where he lied and met with the whistleblower?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Yeah.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: So the whistleblower meets with Adam, hasn\u2019t gone to the IG, doesn\u2019t have an attorney, Adam goes to her and says, “I got it. I got it.” She trusted him. They went and got some freshmen who\u2019d been in the military and others to write — these are the moderate Democrats \u2013 \u201cWe\u2019ve had enough.\u201d So she decides, “Let\u2019s go. We\u2019ve got a whistleblower about this phone call they weren\u2019t even on. I trust Adam. He was a prosecutor. He\u2019s only lied every time before.” And he\u2019s from California, and she trusted in him that it would go, and so she starts.<\/p>\n
The president releases the transcript. She can\u2019t stop now so we\u2019re gonna have to change the system. I put a letter out that said if you\u2019re gonna set these rules, will you do it exactly the standard we\u2019ve done before, where we have due process, will you get the same standard of what Clinton had? She knew then she was in trouble once the transcript went, so she said “no” to that. And then she moves it from judiciary into intel and makes it impeachment committee and then gives Adam all control where they don\u2019t even let him yield to another member.<\/p>\n
I mean, every advantage was to them and they saw a little tick-up at the very beginning in the polls, right, \u2019cause people didn\u2019t know what was happening. But once they put their star witnesses out there and they couldn\u2019t say anything was impeachable and they only had hearsay or they had a friend tell \u2019em and they were upset about something, that\u2019s when it started to tumble, and that\u2019s why she moved it a little faster. And the biggest example of this, she announces impeachment and an hour later announces USMCA. She wants to get this over \u2019cause she knows she\u2019s made a mistake now.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
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MCCARTHY: She sees the independents dropping. She lost a member of her own conference that is gonna join the Republican Party. You gotta put this in perspective. People have switched parties before, but I cannot remember a time where someone switched from the majority to go into the minority. They usually go from the minority into the majority.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right, especially during impeachment.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: We\u2019re talking with Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives. You mentioned Pelosi in the — I think you\u2019re right on the money about the president releasing the transcript totally blowing up their plan. They were thinking that they would be able to characterize that phone call however they wanted to. In fact, the whistleblower\u2019s original complaint, he was terrified, he was shocked, he was frightened over what he had heard.<\/p>\n
It turns out he hadn\u2019t heard anything, the transcripts released, and they\u2019ve got nothing. So now they have to go to Plan B. So you bring in Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and all these State Department people, who also couldn\u2019t identify an impeachable offense when asked to. But you say that she trusted Adam Schiff. Adam Schiff, Congressman, I say this not in an accusatory way. The man\u2019s been lying about —<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: — fundamental things for the entire time Trump\u2019s been in the White House. He\u2019s been lying about Trump-Russia collusion, claiming he had evidence. There never was any evidence for it. The way he, in his committee chair, lied in his characterization of the phone call, got called out. \u201cIt was just a parody.\u201d How in the world could she put her trust — it\u2019s gotta be a devotion to Schiff the partisan rather than Schiff the qualified.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: And you gotta understand, on the intel committee, this is only one of three economies that the only way you get appointed to it, the Democrats or the Republicans, is one person, the Democratic leader and the Republican leader appoints you. And she let him be chair after she knew he lied. Now, just yesterday you had a judge going after the FBI about FISA.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: What did Adam Schiff do earlier? He put an entire report by being a chairman of a committee. And your listeners gotta understand, that committee, people hear and get to know knowledge that every other member in Congress never gets to know. So you put a lot of trust in those individuals. And he put out like the FISA court was perfect, nothing was wrong. The person who\u2019s vindicated in all this is Devin Nunes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Amen.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: From the very beginning he came forward, and what they do, they went after him so strong to get him — tried to remove him from that committee. Devin was right on his report from the very beginning. And is this Adam — remember, he started this impeachment, too, so afraid that the administration was gonna block this whistleblower from coming forward.<\/p>\n
Then we found out he met with the whistleblower. Now he won\u2019t let the whistleblower come forward. If you\u2019re a federal prosecutor and you base an entire thing on an informant, the informant has to go forward, has to present. But now we\u2019ve never seen the whistleblower all because Adam Schiff does not want us to ask him the questions.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Okay. You say that the Democrats that you\u2019ve seen today —<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: They\u2019re down and out.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/APP-111419-Kevin-McCarthy.jpg\")
RUSH: Now, the answer might appear obvious, but why do you think that\u2019s the case? I mean, they\u2019re gonna get him impeached today. They\u2019re gonna get the votes. They should be deliriously happy.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Okay. There are gonna be members in that Democratic Party, but it\u2019s not the old Democrat Party. These new freshmen don\u2019t call themselves Democrats. They call them socialist Democrats. They\u2019re gonna be excited. They\u2019re gonna think they kept a promise they pledged to. But those who make up the majority, I see \u2019em, I see \u2019em in the mornings, they\u2019re down.<\/p>\n
I had one tell me, \u201cLook, I\u2019m probably gonna lose my race, but now I have no choice. I have to go down swinging.\u201d They have let her walk — Speaker Pelosi walk them out on a ledge. And they\u2019ve got no place to go now. Their heads down. What accomplishment do they have for reelection? That they issued more subpoenas and created laws?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, they\u2019re going to. I mean, that\u2019s what they\u2019re promising, never stop impeaching. But are they down because the public doesn\u2019t support them? Are they down because the public doesn\u2019t seem excited? Are they down because they don\u2019t really think they have impeachable offenses? What is it that explains it?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: They\u2019re down for this. Once they came out with the articles, they were embarrassed about it. They started with the whole quid pro quo. They were home making that the case. Then they moved to extortion. Then they went and focus grouped and told \u2019em all to go to bribery, and then they don\u2019t even mention one thing in the articles.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a combination. They don\u2019t have the facts, but also if you\u2019ve spent a couple years running for Congress and you ask people for a lot of money, if you\u2019ve gone back and done it and you promised it was gonna be a high, if you ran for office and said I\u2019d never support Nancy Pelosi for speaker, but then you voted for her.<\/p>\n
And then you said you didn\u2019t run to be impeached, now you\u2019re impeaching. You\u2019re looking at your family, but, more importantly, you\u2019re going home on Christmas and you\u2019re gonna look at your constituents, and you know what you are hearing from \u2019em, you\u2019re gonna realize, you\u2019re gonna be a short-lived member of Congress.<\/p>\n
RUSH: How many of 31 do you think are in jeopardy?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: I would say more than 31 are in jeopardy.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Oh. Wow, wow. Can you hang on just a couple of minutes?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Yes.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House, and we\u2019ll take brief, obscene profit break here. Be right back with him. Stay with us.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: We welcome back Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House. Congressman, I couldn\u2019t do what you do. I want to tell you something I saw yesterday watching the Rules Committee. You mentioned Jamie Raskin. Raskin took the place of Nadler \u2019cause Nadler had a family emergency yesterday, and these people are lying through their teeth.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/APP-121719-Raskin.jpg\")
I saw two bold-faced lies that, if I were Doug Collins sitting there yesterday, I could not have been collegial and silent. The two lies were, they continue to misreport what Trump was talking about when he cited Article II. It was a conversation about being able to fire Bob Mueller. They\u2019re taking it out of context and saying, “Trump wants to be dictator! Trump wants to be king! He says Article II means he can do anything!” They know they\u2019re lying through their teeth about it.<\/p>\n
He says it. I couldn\u2019t sit there and not say anything. The next thing he did, Trump tells that joke about asking the Russians to look at Hillary\u2019s emails long after she\u2019s taken a hammer to her server and used BleachBit, whatever, on stuff. And they know that Trump\u2019s telling a joke and yet they are telling this lie that five hours later the Russians went in and hacked Hillary\u2019s server after Trump gave \u2019em permission. If they\u2019re willing to lie about things like that, how can you trust any of this that they are saying in any of this process?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: That\u2019s the perfect example of why they wouldn\u2019t give us a fair process. And it really comes down to this. They dislike us. They dislike your listeners. They dislike me. They dislike you. Remember, in 2016, they called us deplorables. Now they want to disqualify our vote, and they openly say it.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: They say, “We can\u2019t beat \u2019em. That\u2019s why we have to impeach him, and we\u2019ll impeach him again.”<\/p>\n
RUSH: How hard has it been for you? You expressed great satisfaction in the unity, that you\u2019ve not seen this kind of unity among Republicans before. And it certainly wasn\u2019t there in previous Houses, previous speakers. How hard has it been to maintain this unity?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: It hasn\u2019t been hard, but the one thing I did when I became leader is, we had to unite if we could ever win the majority. You\u2019re not given the majority. You have to earn it. And if there is one thing I\u2019ve watched, it\u2019s you\u2019ve got to work together to get the synergy. I wanted the very best people. I didn\u2019t care if we had differences of opinion. You know, Jim Jordan ran against me for leader and I\u2019m the one who called him to become ranking member of Oversight.<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t even running for the position. He\u2019s sitting in the gym. I said, “You gotta get over here.” I go into the Steering Committee; they get upset with me. I said, “He is the very best person for this job,” and he has done an amazing job. I put him on the Intel Committee, and this is what\u2019s happening. We\u2019re bonding together, and what\u2019s even more powerful, in 2010 I was the recruiting chairman. So I was going out… That\u2019s the year we beat 63 Democrats, right?<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: At this moment in time, we have 200 more candidates running than we did in 2010. We have more women running as Republicans for Congress in the history we\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n
RUSH: And, by the way, they\u2019re doing a bang-up job. The woman, Raskin, from Arizona, is that her name? Not Raskin. She\u2019s been on TV a couple times. She\u2019s awesome. You\u2019ve got some really, really fine people making the case.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: We\u2019ve got amazing… Wesley Hunt down in Houston, a graduate of West Point. He flew Apaches for eight years defending our nation and freedom.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Now he\u2019s gotta defend it at home. He\u2019s never been elected before. He\u2019s ahead by three points.<\/p>\n
RUSH: So what happened in 2018? What went wrong? I know there were a lot of retirements, 55 retirements. What happened in 2018?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: I think it\u2019s a combination of things happened in 2018. We weren\u2019t united. History tells you the party in power — whoever wins the White House — loses on average more than 30 seats. Obama lost 63. Too many retirements, way too many retirements. They recruited pretty well. But one thing Democrats did that nobody talks about? They changed the election law. Do you know in Maine, that only has two congressional seats, when you run for office — only federal office — you don\u2019t vote for one person, you rank them?<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/APP-100919-Trump-Stare.jpg\")
So the Republican got the most votes, but he\u2019s not the sitting congressman today because the lower person, they drop out, and that second vote, it\u2019s a first vote now. In Pennsylvania they sued and got redistricting and they picked up three seats. And the biggest contribution they had was Michael Bloomberg gave the \u2019em more than $110 million.<\/p>\n
Because the difference between me being in the minority and being speaker is less than 106,000 votes. There\u2019s one other factor, if you want to know why President Trump will win. There are 8.5 million people who voted for this president in 2016 who did not show up in 2018. Had they showed up — we know who they are, where they live — we\u2019d have 28 more seats today. We\u2019d be in the majority by 10.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now (chuckling), I don\u2019t doubt that\u2019s true, but I have a tough time understanding why. If you vote for Trump in 2016, you\u2019re voting for him for specific reasons. He\u2019s going in there to rework it, to throw out some things, and you know that he\u2019s gonna need some help to do it. And you don\u2019t show up two years later to give him some people to help? That —<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: They follow him. They don\u2019t follow the party.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: What they will do, they will show up for him now. And the one thing that the Democrats are making a fatal flaw here, they have intensified the base. If you looked at the base in the last election, the intensity level was on the Democrats\u2019 side by 8.5%. CNN\u2019s poll just within the last month had Republicans +7. That would put us in the majority. If you just look at the North Carolina 9 race, this is one that we barely won in 2018 and they didn\u2019t seat the individual. We went from winning it with about 500 votes to 4,000. If you just do that small improvement, that\u2019s 13 seats out of 19 that we need.<\/p>\n
RUSH: It was Debbie Lesko.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Debbie Lesko. Fantastic. Arizona.<\/p>\n
RUSH: She\u2019s been phenomenal today. They all have. Sensenbrenner. They\u2019ve all been great. You should be very proud. Time is dwindling. I need to ask you about process. When do you think the final vote on these two articles will actually be on the clock tonight? What time will it be?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: It\u2019ll be somewhere between 7 and 7:30 tonight.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Any chance you could delay it until midnight or 2 a.m.?<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: No, because when you have 218, you control the rules of this place.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: And another example: How did we take the impeachment to the floor with Clinton? We took it on a privilege motion so everybody could have a say, so we could expand it longer if you want, so the minority has more power. They brought it under what is called a rule. Once you go to that rule, they control all. They control the time. We can\u2019t stop it. We can go do some antic. It will just make the clock keep running.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Right.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: Every part of this process has been against every standard we\u2019ve ever lived by. I mean, they\u2019ve taken the most basic thing — that you\u2019re innocent \u2019til proven guilty — and they tell the president, “Well, he could come and try to prove himself innocent.” I mean, the idea of what they\u2019ve done — and I go back to this — they don\u2019t like us, Rush.<\/p>\n
RUSH: I know.<\/p>\n
MCCARTHY: They don\u2019t like who we are, they don\u2019t like what we believe in, and they will do anything and lie.<\/p>\n
RUSH: They hate us more than Trump. They blame us for Trump. Congressman, I\u2019m up to it. I\u2019ve got 20 seconds, and I need that to be polite to thank you for being with us today, making time and spending this half hour with us. And I\u2019m gonna guarantee you: Millions in this audience smiled when you reported that you have seen evidence the Democrats in the chamber today are down. That\u2019s Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House. A quick time-out, and we\u2019ll be right back. Thank you again, Congressman.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Thanks again to Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the House. It\u2019s very interesting he\u2019s not had to work hard to maintain unity in the Republican caucus in the House. That\u2019s refreshing to hear.<\/p>\n
Whenever these partisan battles come up, look, folks, I know that many of you fear and worry that within any collection of Republicans, whatever size, that there\u2019s gonna be a percentage of RINOs or Never Trumpers in there that can\u2019t wait to undermine. And, so far, if there are any, they have stood mute. They haven\u2019t arisen. They haven\u2019t joined the Democrats. There\u2019s not one of them. There\u2019s not a single Republican defection on this.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/APP-100919-Rush-CAPITOL.jpg\")
You know how odd that is? This may not… This wouldn\u2019t have happened in the first year and a half of Trump\u2019s term. Paul Ryan was speaker. You go back to the first year of Trump\u2019s term, the very first year. For the first six months of it, a lot of Republicans believed this Russian collusion stuff and didn\u2019t think Trump was gonna survive, and that\u2019s why they didn\u2019t get involved in helping him move the agenda, particularly in reforming Obamacare.<\/p>\n
It was… I can\u2019t tell you how frustrating that was for me. There was no way it could have been true, Trump meddling in the election with Russia. It was just absurd from the get-go — and then once you learn the facts it was Hillary that was actually doing it with Fusion GPS and all that? It just makes you wonder how in the world can these people not see what\u2019s plainly in front of their face? But now there is total unity in opposition to this, and I think that\u2019s also something Pelosi didn\u2019t figure.<\/p>\n
I think whether she miscalculated or just rolled the dice… Well, either way is a miscalculation. But I will guarantee you that she didn\u2019t think the polls were gonna go down. She wasn\u2019t gonna lose support. She actually thought that pulling the trigger on this was gonna cause some defections, that it was gonna create an attitude of defeatism that many Republicans were gonna finally throw up their hands and say:<\/p>\n
“Okay. They\u2019ve won. We can\u2019t stop them” and join them. And that has not happened. So you can think whatever you want to think of \u2019em, but, in this case, there aren\u2019t any Romneys in there, apparently — and there aren\u2019t any wishy-washers looking for the first chance they can to undermine Trump. Not in the House, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MCCARTHY: I was just on the floor a little earlier. The Democrats are down. Pelosi promised them that their numbers would be higher. They're lower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":331900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n