RUSH: So what can Trump do? The worst thing Trump could do is start firing people. That’s what he’s being goaded into doing. Many of you think that’s what Trump should do. Many of you think this is the just and proper thing. But this is more than just and proper right now. This is about survival. And Trump and his people and by extension those of you who voted for Trump are up against people who aren’t playing by any rules. There’s no reason you should, either, then. There aren’t any rules governing what’s happening here. They’re violating rules.

The first rule violated was the appointment of Mueller! He should never have been appointed, and when he was, he wasn’t given a specific crime to pursue, unlimited budget, no boundaries on where he could go. By the way, that’s the interesting thing here. On this whole raid of Trump’s lawyer’s office, Mueller didn’t do this. Very wisely.

What Mueller did was refer this to the U.S. attorney’s office for the famous now SDNY, Southern District of New York Manhattan. That is the mother court. In the DOJ the Southern District of Manhattan is the court. The district for Washington is number two. This is the court.

So Mueller refers what they think they found with Cohen. By the way, let’s review what they think they have with Cohen. The charge here bank fraud campaign contribution, Washington Post, the FBI was looking for evidence of bank fraud and illegal campaign contributions. That’s what all of this, according to the Washington Post, is about, and their headline: “Michael Cohen is in Serious Legal Jeopardy.”

The bank fraud is supposed to be the $130,000 loan that Cohen took out to pay the porn star, Stormy Daniels, whom Trump had a meeting with, whatever happened at it, one time 12 years ago. I didn’t know it was against the law to take out a loan to pay somebody for a nondisclosure agreement, but they’re saying that it was an illegal campaign contribution.

Cohen’s payment, illegal campaign contribution. The reason is he was paying her to shut up a couple of weeks before the election. And that we’re told is the equivalent of a campaign contribution, and it’s way in excess of the individual limit. Can you imagine the unreported contributions in the Clinton years alone? You want to talk about illegal campaign donations, Hillary Clinton was selling her presidency all over the world via the Clinton Crime Family Foundation which shut down after she lost.

There was no more reason to keep it open because there was no more reason to give the Clintons any money! And it was never once looked at. Nothing Hillary Clinton’s done has been looked at. Her lawyers were granted immunity, not had raids conducted in their offices. When’s the FBI gonna raid Mark Ellis in Perkins Coie? That’s the law firm that Hillary used, the cutout, to pay Christopher Steele for the Trump dossier. The Clinton campaign, the DNC were paying people for the Trump dossier. How come that’s not considered a campaign contribution, for crying out loud? It’s opposition research.

The whole Clinton Foundation slush fund, which was nothing more than a rinsing operation disguised as a charity. So what could Trump do? Let me take you back to George H. W. Bush December 1992. Do you remember this, Mr. Snerdley? Caspar Weinberger was being investigated by an independent counsel. He was secretary of defense among many other things for George H. W. Bush.

Bush 41 granted pardons to everybody the special counsel was looking at. Lawrence Walsh was his name. Right before Bush was to leave office, this was December of 1992, the election had been the previous month, George H. W. Bush issued six pardons that effectively shut down the prosecution of Caspar Weinberger.

So what if Trump pardons Cohen? What if Trump pardons anybody he wants in this mess? What if Trump pardons himself? You might say “Rush, that’s very bad. It’s against the rules.” We’ve already gone way past the rules here, folks. We’re now at survival. And if the Mueller team is gonna refer a criminal action to the Southern District of New York which is gonna then have the FBI raid your personal lawyer’s office, home, and hotel room, and then we’re gonna tell the media the reason for this is it’s gotta be something really, really bad, it must be really, really serious or they would have never granted a search warrant for, it’s got to be bad. Then shut it down. You don’t have to fire anybody. Just grant everybody pardons.

Now, admittedly George H. W. Bush was leaving office when he did it. But we’re talking about survival. We’re not talking about coming to a mutual agreement. We’re not talking about Trump sitting down for an interview with Mueller and coming to an agreement to end this. This only has one objective: Get rid of Donald Trump. Donald Trump’s objective, therefore, has to be to survive this attempt to get rid of him.

Firing Mueller and Rosenstein is exactly what people want him to do, make him look like he’s out of control, make him look like he’s hiding something. And I think they’re trying to goad him into doing it again because they don’t have anything on Trump! They may have something on Mueller. They don’t have anything on Trump. I don’t think right now they have anything they could prosecute Trump on. Impeach, different thing. That all hinges on the Democrats winning the House of Representatives in 2018.

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RUSH: Remember it wasn’t that long ago that Trump’s lawyers were told by Mueller that Trump is not a target. But of course that can change the next day. That Trump is a subject, but he wasn’t a target. And the reason for that, they hadn’t found anything. Still looking. So Trump’s not a target, and yet his personal lawyer’s office, home, hotel room was raided by the FBI with a search warrant.

Now, why else raid Trump’s personal lawyer unless Trump is the target? As I said when they reported that Mueller told Trump’s lawyers Trump’s not a target, that’s also a setup because Trump is the target, he’s the only target, he’s been the target since he won the presidency. I want you to listen to a little sound bite here. It’s an audio montage we put together of what I consider the Drive-By Media goading Trump, trying to goad him into firing Mueller.

DON LEMON: Sources warn the president’s anger could lead to him firing Mueller.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Is the president going to fire Mueller over this?

ALISYN CAMEROTA: Trying to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

MAGGIE HABERMAN: Fire Mueller.

JOHN DEAN: Can he turn around and build this into a case to fire Mueller?

HODA KOTB: Could the President fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller over it?

JIM ACOSTA: Whether to fire the Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

WOLF BLITZER: You think he might fire him?

PREET BHARARA: I thought all along he might fire him.

PETER ALEXANDER: Simply fire Mueller.

JIM CRAMER: Is he going to fire the Special Prosecutor like President Nixon?

GLORIA BORGER: The question that you’ve been raising all evening is does this mean that he would fire Bob Mueller.

RUSH: Now, one of the voices you heard there was Preet Bharara, who used to be the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan at the mother court. He’s the one who said, “I thought all along he might fire him.” So they know Trump watches TV. They’re doing everything they can to make it sound, “Hey, it’s the next logical thing. Trump’s gotta fire this guy.”

Here’s Jonathan Turley on Fox & Friends this morning. Steve Doocy says, “It looks as if they’re going after Michael Cohen on bank fraud unrelated to the Russia investigation, but you say it’s all about using him as bait?”

TURLEY: The president has to be very careful. The greatest danger that he faces is not Michael Cohen as a defendant, but Michael Cohen as bait. In many ways this could be as cunning as it is hostile on the part of Rod Rosenstein. He expanded the mandate for Mueller to go after Manafort on crimes that were far more remote than this. So why would he refer it to the Southern District? It has a real threat for the president. It expands the investigation, involves the Southern District that can prosecute it. But if the president reacts aggressively, he could end up triggering a far more serious problem for himself and his presidency.

RUSH: Now, again, I need to stress that — that’s Turley — I don’t know how to say this without needing two or three stabs at it. These are people who have an august, revered view of law enforcement in the Southern District of New York. And I don’t mean to say it this way, but it’s almost like you do not disagree with them, you do not challenge them. If they’ve got somebody in their crosshairs, it’s legit, it’s gotta be, they wouldn’t waste their time on innocent.

And so now the message is don’t do anything to make the Southern District mad because after all you’re just the peon president, but they are the Southern District of Manhattan New York, they can get rid of you. You’re the president. You can’t get rid of them, except that he can. So, Mr. President, you better be very, very frightened of a U.S. attorney’s office. You better not make them mad, Mr. President.

I find this incredibly curious. In Trump’s whole world the media tells him you better be afraid of Mueller, you better be afraid of Rosenstein, you better be afraid of the Southern District New York, you better be afraid, period. Why is it none of them should be worried about what Trump might do? All of this is flaking and forming Daily News coverage to make it appear Trump is powerless, he’s ineffective, he shouldn’t have been president, shouldn’t have been elected, it’s all a mistake. The adults at the SDNY, the adults at the Mueller team, the adults at the DOJ, don’t worry, we got this, we’ll get rid of Trump here pretty soon, everything will be back to normal. That’s what you’re supposed to —

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RUSH: Robert in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You’re up first today, sir. It’s great to have you here with us.

CALLER: Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Dittos to you. I’ve been listening to you for years.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: My comment is I think Trump really needs to go ahead and fire Mueller. His support rating is up. A lot of people also are tired of the witch hunt. The ratings for that is up, that everyone sees that this is nothing but a witch hunt. I think there might be some backlash, but in the long run I think he will keep his supporters, and I think it’ll help him.

RUSH: There’s one big reason not to do this. I’ll give you a few seconds here to see if you come up with what it is.

CALLER: Well, I know the Drive-By Media would just have a field day with it. The Democrats, of course, will say that there is collusion because he’s firing everybody. But I believe his support base will stay, and I think he may get even more higher ratings only because people are so fed up with the witch hunt.

RUSH: Well, that all might happen, but the investigation would not end. Mueller would be replaced. If he fires Rosenstein, the investigation does not end. They’ll just find somebody to replace Rosenstein. If he fires Sessions, the investigation will not end. The objective is to stop this. The objective is to end this. And firing the prosecutor and firing his staff — well, I don’t know if that would be included in firing Mueller. If he’s gotta fire Mueller, he’s gotta fire the 16 people that work for him, fire Rosenstein, these people are gonna be replaced.

It’s like in the NFL, somebody gets injured, next man up. It would not stop the investigation no matter what. And in addition, there would be the media cacophony that you refer to. I mean, it would be a shrill — it might be worth doing just to see that, just to see the media in unison completely, totally lose it. But they would lose it in giddiness and happiness, because they believe it would be the end of Trump. Because they believe it will cause his supporters to begin to doubt him, that he is trying to hide something.

Trump supporters want Trump to win this. Trump supporters want Trump to beat this back and humiliate all these fakers trying to run him out of office with bogus charges. And simply firing the people at present running the investigation is not gonna stop the investigation.

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RUSH: We go to Danville, New Jersey. Alan, you’re next. It’s great to have you here. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Good afternoon, Rush. How are you?

RUSH: Fine. Thanks.

CALLER: I just was wondering what your opinion would be if an option for Trump with the Mueller investigation is to order, either Mueller directly or through the DOJ, order them to produce a full findings report within say three to five days. And depending what those findings show, then order the investigation to be closed down. I mean, at the very least maybe it could give him public cover to, you know, really lean on them to do something, ’cause if the findings come out and show really nothing after this amount of time, I’m wondering what you would think of that as opposed to just directly try to fire people.

RUSH: Well, first place, I don’t know that such a demand would have any force behind it. The president says, “You’ve got five days, Mueller, to produce everything you’ve learned.” I think Rosenstein would step in and say, “Wait a minute, Mr. President. You don’t tell this man what to do. I do. You are being investigated by this guy, Mr. President. You can’t tell him to put up or shut up. I do that. And I’m not gonna do that, Mr. President. I’m telling you to shut up.” I don’t know what would permit the president to tell this guy, “You got five days to show me what you’ve got.” Even if it was five days show me what you got in my lawyer’s office, you got five days or else, what gives him the power to do that?

CALLER: Ultimately if he has the power to fire Mueller, and I understood that he could actually order the DOJ to reword the special counsel regulations to allow him to directly fire being ultimately he’s the head of the DOJ, if he has that ability, you would think, if anything, he has the ability, you know, to order something like that and then it gives him cover to whoever — whoever’s in the DOJ, you order —

RUSH: Wait. Is this something that you read somewhere, somebody suggesting Trump could do this?

CALLER: I saw something online. I was just doing it out of curiosity, say can Trump, you know, or the president fire special counsel directly. And there was some person giving some information out there that’s saying technically, no, ’cause according to the special counsel, the CFR, they cited the number, but they said however technically they can’t do it directly but, you know, he could order them, the DOJ, to change the regs, being that apparently it seems like these regs are totally under the executive branch. I mean, if Trump’s totally controlling the executive branch —

RUSH: But, see, the regs are already in violation. Mueller’s appointment was in violation of the regs. Regulations require there be a crime. And whoever the appoints the special counsel has to appoint him to that crime. There’s no crime here that was elucidated by Rosenstein, who appointed ’cause Sessions had recused.

So now we’ve got this August 2nd memo from Rosenstein going backwards, oh, by the way, I did send him a memo, I sent memo, and I told him to do this or that. Strictly a CYA.

If targets of investigations, because they’re presidents and run the executive branch, could tell any investigator you got five days to put up or shut up or else, then it would have happened long ago. Presidents don’t have the power to shut these down. That’s why I say firing Mueller — and, by the way, what he’s talking about, the president can’t call Mueller and say you’re gone.

He’s gotta have Rosenstein do it. If Rosenstein refused, he’d fire Rosenstein. And then whoever replaced Rosenstein would have to do it. If that guy refused to do it, Trump would fire him until he found somebody that would fire Mueller. The argument is does Trump have the authority to call Mueller up or to write him directly and say, “You’re canned, buddy.”

But regardless of any of this, even if Mueller got three days or five days to put up or shut up, the investigation is not going to end until the Department of Justice special counsel ends it. And there’s nobody that can make him end it, other than Rosenstein, who, after a while can say, “Look, man, we’ve got nothing here.” Or, “You’ve got this, time to wrap this up.” But this thing could go on for four years! Theoretically. All they’ve gotta do is keep finding new things to look into.

It’s wide open. Nobody expects it to go four years ’cause the objective is to kill Trump with the midterm elections here in November, which will then lead to the Democrats controlling and then impeaching. Filing articles of impeachment. And at that point, whether they get a conviction of Trump in the Senate or not, irrelevant. Trump is paralyzed after having been impeached. And that is the theory.

They would love to find evidence that they could show him and say, “Mr. President, we gotcha here and the best thing you could do is resign. If you resign we’ll let you go, we’ll drop any pursuit, no charges,” although I don’t think these people, if they ever found something, I don’t think they would ever drop the charges. I think they’re not gonna stop until they destroy this guy.

They’re now looking into his business practices and so forth, that’s what all of this is about. That’s why Mueller and these clowns are gonna have to be defeated. And this is not about the court of public opinion. You want Trump to force this guy on put up or shut up in three to five days ’cause you want the public to see that Mueller doesn’t have anything and then you would think that would pressure Mueller to stop.

Nothing’s gonna pressure Mueller. The public doesn’t matter a hill of beans in this! The public vote for a president these people are trying to overturn and throw out of office! The public doesn’t matter! They never do! These people don’t care about you! They don’t care about the public in terms of your opinion and reflecting it in either policy or governance.

I fear we’re not far away from these people figuring out elections are a waste of time, particularly if the Republicans are never gonna win any again. We’ve already got people talking about a second civil war that’s underway now, a bunch of libs and saying the objective is simply eliminate the Republican Party. Now, I didn’t get into this yesterday, but there’s no way they’re gonna be able to do that, but they think they can, they think they can make it happen simply by demanding it.

But I listen to these Obama people talk about all the work they did to gather all of this Facebook data to try to get all of these votes for Obama. And I was thinking, isn’t this a lot of work for people who really don’t believe in democracy? They’d rather have an authoritarian leading. I’m telling you, it offended Hillary Clinton she even had to run for election.

Hillary Clinton thought she’d be anointed. She thought she was going to be the equivalent of anointed. She thought she was gonna win in a landslide. I guarantee you, to a lot of these people elections are a big pain in the rear. If they could make them unnecessary, they would do it. Now, some of the data people, they thrive on all this. They love getting the data, manipulating the data, stealing the data, using it and all that. But the people that run for office would really rather not have to, I’m sure.

We’re talking way down the road, but I don’t discount that as an objective that the left ultimately has. If there is no opposition, then why have elections? If you succeed in eventually nullifying the Republican Party conservative movement, why have elections? But then again they’ll never be able to do that. I didn’t discuss that yesterday ’cause it didn’t get there, but they’ll never be able to win, even if they think they’ve started the second civil war, they would never be able to win it, except they don’t know that yet.

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RUSH: Douglas in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call, Rush. I’ve got a quick question. Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russian investigation, and now that that investigation is gone far afield from Russia, why can’t Trump ask Sessions to step back in, unrecuse himself, and get control of the Justice Department again since the investigation in Russia is all over, essentially?

RUSH: Well, you know what? It’s a great question, and I’m gonna just tell you honestly, I don’t know. I would assume by now that if Sessions could end his recusal and move back into this thing, he would. But then again, could he assert control over Mueller? No, because the Mueller investigation could at any time veer back to anything to do with Russia, such as does Michael Cohen watch Russian television in his hotel room?

Ah, ah, there’s Russia, there’s Russia, Sessions, you gotta leave. Rosenstein runs this investigation. Even if Session recuses, he can’t reassume control of the investigation even if Mueller has finished with the Russian aspect, which nobody knows is the case. I understand your frustration. You’re wondering why doesn’t Sessions do something here to help his guy, and I don’t have your answer today.