RUSH: No Russia news today. First day that I can think there is not a blockbuster of Russia news. There’s blockbuster news, and that is that Trump’s base is abandoning him and that Trump supporters are beginning to separate from him on the issues, and some in the Drive-By Media are very curious because they’re even admitting, we haven’t seen economic numbers like this in a long time, and yet Trump isn’t benefiting from it and they’re all scratching their heads wondering why.

Do you people watch the crap that you broadcast as news? You know exactly why Trump isn’t benefiting from it in your own polls. Trump is not gonna benefit in your own polls for anything. I mean, this is a constant suppression. You know, I sorry. I am gonna have to turn off these TVs. I’m just gonna have to turn off these TVs in here. There’s another woman up there that I can tell just had plastic surgery and it’s depressing and it’s distracting. I’m gonna turn ’em off. (interruption) I’m not gonna tell you that. Doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter who it is. You think I’m gonna say this and maybe be wrong about it. It could just be an excessive amount of makeup, but I don’t think so. It just is a distraction. The whole thing is just a distraction. I’m not even gonna tell you that.

On the Fox show it’s nothing but eight pairs of legs that you see. Who can do a program when all you see is eight pairs of legs with the skirts halfway up the thigh? Here, where is it? What do they expect us to do here?

Anyway, what I was gonna say is there’s no blockbuster on Russia but the blockbuster is how Trump’s support base is abandoning him. The Drive-Bys supposedly can’t figure out why because the economic news is unprecedentedly good, say in the last 15 years, and of course all that’s disingenuous. I’m not even convinced that they’re right, but their polling data, CNN particularly is reporting that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Remember the Limbaugh Theorem, ladies and gentlemen? The Limbaugh Theorem, for those of you new to the program, was an attempt to explain how Obama escaped accountability for all that went wrong during his administration. And the Limbaugh Theorem basically held that Obama was treated not as president. He was not seen as governing. He was seen as constantly running against a nameless, faceless group of powerful people in Washington opposing him on everything.

So when it came to immigration reform, Obama was never held responsible for anything that happened, and it was most prevalent during the economy. As the economy soured — as America’s economy stagnated, as America became an economy and nation in decline — Obama was not attached to it. The Limbaugh Theorem held that the media treated Obama — and Obama himself acted — as though he was still campaigning, and there’s this nameless, faceless bunch of people that are arrayed against poor Barack.

They’re doing everything they can to stop him, and he’s still fighting it — even though he was in charge, in between it was his policies that were having the deleterious effect. Well, I’m here today to tell you of the Limbaugh Theorem as it applies to Donald Trump. We have to make an adjustment — a variance, if you will — in the Limbaugh Theorem. In this case, the effort is to deny President Trump any accountability or responsibility for the good news that is happening in the American economy and throughout American politics and the American landscape.

Such as: The number of immigrants trying to get into the country is way, way down. Such as: The number of people on food stamps is way, way, way down. Millions of fewer people are on food stamps. The economy is growing at a rate Obama never saw. It’s almost 2.5, 2.6%. The unemployment rate continues to fall to the point now where people were asking yesterday: How much better can it get? Christopher Rugaber at the AP. In each of these instances, the Limbaugh Theorem holds that Donald Trump has nothing to do with any of it.

The way they are proving this is to suggest that even though there is undeniably great economic news and undeniably optimistic things happening, Donald Trump’s approval numbers continue to fall. Therefore, it’s automatic that Donald Trump has nothing to do with this. Because if Trump was seen as being the prime mover in all of this — goes the theory — his approval numbers would be rising and way much higher than they are now. So the Limbaugh Theorem is still in play.

Except it’s being used now to deny Trump accountability, responsibility, credit for the good things that are happening. The Limbaugh Theorem — as it applied to Obama — was to insulate and/or shield him from the damage that he was causing, and it worked. His approval numbers remained, I think, very low compared to the sycophantic news coverage he got. I mean, Obama should have been up around 70% approval, given the media coverage he got, and he was barely, barely over 50% in his second term. The media and the polling units out there are clearly doing everything they can to destroy Trump– and you’d have to say that in their minds, they are succeeding.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

From TheHill.com: “Signs of Trouble Emerge in Trump’s Base.” This suffices as the bombshell that dropped late yesterday. “President Trump took to Twitter on Monday to boast about the strength of his base of support,” and right on time, TheHill.com has a poll telling a different story. “Trump, who is at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club,” which the media hates, ” lambasted the media on Monday … insisting, ‘The Trump base is far bigger & stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling).’

“As evidence, [the president] cited large crowds at rallies in states including Pennsylvania, Iowa and Ohio. But polls indicate that his base is in fact showing signs of erosion.” Funny, I remember the Drive-Bys constantly telling us their polls showing Trump was losing support during the Republican primaries too. Remember that? Every week! Every week during the primaries, they told us that Trump’s support had peaked, and then when bombshells came out — like the NBC Access Hollywood video or some other thing that Trump had supposedly done to step in it — there is polling data: “This is it! He’s gotta pull out. It’s over. Trump is finally imploding and we can see it,” and yet every week Trump’s numbers continue to increase.

Also last night, “a new CNN poll put his job approval rating at 38%. Just as worryingly from the White House’s perspective, the same survey showed his ‘strong approval’ among Republicans sliding to 59%, from 73% in February. In a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, Trump registered an overall job approval rating of just 33%,” and it said, “The president was even underwater among white people without a college education — the heart of his election-winning coalition last November — registering 43% approval and 50% disapproval with” white people without a college education.

That would… If that’s true, that means the Trump base is inverting on him. Anybody believe this? As I say, Barack Obama — with all of the fawning coverage and all of the coverage that ignored any of the things that were going wrong that never, ever attempted to attach Obama in the event with accountability or response — he should have had a 70 approval rating, and they could barely keep him above 50. Those polls, I think, are part of the silent coup that is designed to, first and foremost, paralyze Trump — and then, if they can, get rid of his presidency.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Chris in Houston, Texas. Great to have you with us on the program. How are you doing?

CALLER: Hey, Rush. I’m doing good. Thank you for asking. I just want you to know I listen to you every day, and I consider you a friend and defend you every opportunity I get. I just wanted to say — like I told Snerdley — I’m in the petroleum-transportation business, and last year when Trump got elected —

RUSH: Hey, wait a second. Wait a sec. When you say “petroleum-transportation business,” does that mean your job is moving petroleum products and shipping them and transmitting them over the open road? You get oil and gasoline products from one place to the next?

CALLER: Yes, sir, and hazardous materials.

RUSH: Hazard…? Okay, cool. Got you. So you’re one of the guys that’s responsible for climate change —

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: — because you are retarding the use of renewable, clean energy by continuing to transmit this filthy, polluting stuff over the open road. Just wanted to clarify that.

CALLER: Well, Rush, I don’t believe in global warming, thanks to the knowledge that you’ve bestowed upon me and your audience. The common sense behind it all just flies in the face of their religion, as you put it. You’ve taught me so much, Rush. You really have. I wanted to tell you, my business really picked up in the last quarter of last year, which is very, very rare for my business to tick up. It usually slows down. But the economy was excited and got a shot of adrenaline when Trump got elected.

RUSH: What is your business? Why does your business slow down in the fourth quarter every year?

CALLER: Well, they’re trying to slow down production so they don’t have as much chemical on the books and have to pay taxes on it.

RUSH: Oh, I see. Okay. Yes, yes, yes, of course.

CALLER: But my main point is, you know, I never heard you say before, Rush… I want to see what you think. In ’08 — actually ’07 — I realized that Bush helped bail out the car companies, and that was kind of the beginning of a slowdown. But I really, truly believe — and it’s so obvious to me — that when Obama got elected, businesses and companies began to withdraw from the economy such as slowing their expansion and their hiring, because they weren’t sure what the rules for the economy were gonna be. You know, Obama, they weren’t sure what he was going to do, and they started to pull back. You know, with Obamacare, the different EPA regulations.

RUSH: It’s exactly right. You are exactly right. Starting, in fact, with the two months before he was inaugurated. Layoffs, people getting fired spiked. People were afraid. Look, the people we’re talking about know what liberalism does, and they knew Obama’s penchant for raising taxes and increasing government spending, and there was enough education outside to know what Obama wanted to do with health care, which is essentially have the government run it, and he was going to put that burden at first on large companies.

So there was a lot of preparing for the Obama economy by businesses trying to get rid of the easiest labor costs at first they could, which is firing people. And, by the same token, when Trump was elected, the reverse happened. When Trump was elected, following that election, businesses began to ramp up. A stock market record high was achieved yet again today, this morning. Now, the stock market…

It’s dicey if you start trying to assign specific events to explaining market activity, either up or down. But there is a belief that much of the market’s strength all year is rooted in a confidence that there is going to be significant reform in corporate tax policy. Before you even get to individual tax reform policy, there is a belief that corporate tax reform is coming with a major reduction in two rates — the capital gains rate and the corporate tax rate — and that optimism is still there.

That belief is still there. The fact that it hasn’t happened yet is not being reflected in the market slowing down. In many aspects, the U.S. economy is expanding and growing in terms of employment. What needs to happen next is wages to pick up. We’ll see if that does happen. But your theory is exactly right. I mean, there was an expectation of an expanding government that was going to be punitive to people in the private sector and businesses — even those that had supported Obama.

Crony capitalists, crony socialists, even they knew exactly what was in store. So they sidled up to Obama to try to limit the impact on them, but they started letting people go. The number of people losing their jobs was six figures. In the first two months before Obama, like 300,000, 400,000 people a month were losing their jobs, even before Obama was inaugurated.

And those decisions were validated when the first thing Obama did was that giant stimulus bill, which everybody knew was not gonna stimulate anything but the Democrat Party. That was its ultimate aim, and it worked. It stimulated the Democrat Party by stimulating union employment, and teachers and blue-collar workers and so forth. Anyway, your instincts on this are right on the money.