RUSH: There’s a guy out there with a book. His name is Brian Rosenwald, and he’s written a book about me, essentially. It’s called Talk Radio’s America. And honestly, it’s been out awhile. He is the first person to write about me and this program and talk radio in general who gets it. He actually earned a PhD studying talk radio. And he wrote about it.

And it’s not a pro-Rush book, it’s not an anti-Rush book. It’s just a factual presentation of the talk radio emergence in 1988 — well, I should say the Rush emergence in 1988 and then what it all meant. And, you know, it’s rooted in how — you know how I say that nobody in Washington understands Trump and how they haven’t even taken the time to understand Trump’s voters. Rosenwald’s point is that nobody’s really taken the time to understand — other than people who listen to it — nobody’s taken the time to understand it.

They just come up with a bunch of cliched criticisms of it and run with ’em. And none of them are accurate, none of them are correct. They’re just standard left-wing criticism talking points that have no basis in understanding. It is a combination of arrogance, know-it-allism, and condescension that prevents people from actually learning who Trump is and who his supporters are, ’cause I think they’re frightened at the prospect.

They don’t want to learn that Trump’s voters are entirely normal and great Americans who make the country work. They don’t want that to even have to factor. They want to remain in the comfort zone where Trump voters are idiots, low-information, hayseeds and hicks, racists, bigots, fascists, and the same thing about the talk radio audience.

So this guy Brian Rosenwald comes along and writes the book about it, and he’s been invited to appear various places. He was on CNN Saturday with Michael Smerconish, who is himself a former talk radio host who got bitten by the TV bug, now at CNN. So he’s got Brian Rosenwald on. The title of the book, Talk Radio’s America. Smerconish says, “You literally earned a PhD studying talk radio. Do you see any signs of the cracks that we’re describing with Drudge and with Fox News thus far in the world of AM radio?”

ROSENWALD: Absolutely not. Talk radio’s king, Rush Limbaugh, said the other day, look, if the Republicans remove him, if the Senate Republicans remove him, it is the end of the Republican Party. Said 90% of the Republicans are still on board, and you can’t do this. And he talks every day about lies, Democratic lies and how Trump did nothing wrong and how they’re out to get him. And he’s not going anywhere. And, as long as his audience isn’t going anywhere, neither will he. And those are sort of the two key pillars of conservative media for Donald Trump are Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh. And those guys are still fully on board.

RUSH: There’s a new title. Conservative pillar. What are you shaking your head at in there? Yeah, he gets it. So few people get it that somebody who gets it — it’s not hard to get! We’re on 15 hours a week! All you have to do is turn it on and listen! There’s no mystery here. There’s no secret decoder ring that you have to have in order to be able to listen. We don’t speak in code. You don’t need some decoder manual or an Enigma machine to translate what’s really being said here.

And yet here’s one guy who’s actually taken the time, he writes about it, “Wow, this guy’s incredible.” He’s the one guy that’s actually trying to understand. The rest of the people don’t want to understand it. They’d rather be able to characterize it. Smerconish, then trying to interrupt with a question, but Rosenwald – well, I was gonna say didn’t let him, but he let him finish. Here’s the question.

SMERCONISH: I think that the leadership for Republican Party stems more from the airwaves than it does from say Mitch McConnell or even the White House. And therefore, if you’re correct and I’m sure that you are, in Rush saying, “Hey, it will be the end of Republican Party,” you know, those are fighting words. That’s really a threat of sorts that he’s laying down a marker with Senate Republicans.

ROSENWALD: Absolutely, yes. I mean, Senate Republicans will understand and Rush is making it clear, if you do this, this is war, you’re declaring war on us and we will declare war on you, and we’re more powerful than you are. We will take your base away and your next primary is going to be ugly. And that was going to keep them in line.

RUSH: All right. Now, I’m just gonna be honest. None of that was in my mind when I warned the Senate Republicans. The end of the party is not even arguable. I’m not throwing down the gauntlet. It would be. If the Republican Party, as represented by enough senators in the Republican Party voted to remove Trump from office, that would be — with 90% approval of Trump in Republican Party voters, that would be the end of the party. Those people who are in 90% support of Trump are not gonna vote for Republicans if they would do that.

Now, I was not issuing a warning. I will warn you people about incorrect behavior on the phones, and I will warn you people about misunderstanding. But I’m not warning anybody. This is not something that they don’t know. (interruption) Are you telling me that you think there are some Republicans in the Senate who don’t understand this? Are you telling me you think there’s some Republicans in the Senate that think everything would be fine if they voted to remove Trump from office?

(interruption) No, no! Romney’s done a 180! At least publicly. Okay. Yes. Now here you’ve — let me find it, damn it. I’ve got so many stacks here and I don’t remember which one I put the Romney story in so bear with me here as I go through this page by page. Folks, it’s impossible to do this on the computer. It would not speed it up. It’s about Romney has now done a 180. I’ll try to paraphrase the headline — here it is — Mitt Romney — it’s a Breitbart story. “Mitt Romney Rules Out 2020 Run, Says Trump Re-Election Likely.” And it’s from four days ago. It’s on October 10th.

“Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) confirmed Thursday that he will not mount a primary challenge to President Donald Trump, stating that the president will be the Republican presidential nominee and likely win re-election in 2020.” They’re saying that Romney got his orders from me. This story, Romney said this before I issued my so-called warning. First, do we think Romney is being serious, honest here? That’s the first question we have to ask.

I think this is what I would call structuring. This is Romney setting the table as a reluctant candidate if something so unfortunate were to happen. I don’t think Romney wants to be seen as part of the resistance taking him out. I think Romney wants to be seen as somebody hopefully picking up the pieces if he gets taken out while working quietly to take him out.

“Asked whether he has made up his mind whether to support the House Democrats impeachment inquiry against the president, Romney replied, ‘No. I would have to look at the evidence as it’s presented,’ he said.” Mitt, there isn’t going to be any! There hasn’t been any evidence since 2015! There isn’t any evidence now! Schiff doesn’t even have the gonads to do what he’s doing in public! I don’t need to translate that for Rio Lindans. They know, they eat them. So I’m telling you, Senator, that there’s no evidence.

What do mean you are gonna look like the evidence? The Democrats’ evidence, like you didn’t pay your taxes for 10 years, like you put the family dog on the top of the station wagon because you hate animals, like you had a gigantic notebook of the names of women because you’re misogynistic? This is what I don’t understand about these people. Harry Reid runs around and literally destroys Romney’s presidential campaign with lie after lie after lie. And at the end of the day Romney is thinking about siding with that group of people.

And that, folks, is the power of the Washington establishment. The elites, the deep state, administrative state, whatever you want to call it. One more here from Smerconish and the author, Brian Rosenwald, and it is Smerconish leading off.

SMERCONISH: Do you think there is anything that would make Hannity and/or Limbaugh leave Trump? That’s a real easy one for me to respond to. No. What’s next? They are the guys on Fifth Avenue that he was speaking about.

RUSH: All right. You know what that’s about? Trump said, hell, I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and my supporters would stick with me. So now Sean and I are among those who are — is there anything that would make Hannity and/or Limbaugh leave Trump? Yes, there is. There damn well is. If he threw in with the Democrats on a bunch of stuff. I’m not gonna sit here and defend somebody if he did that. If he did what many Republicans have done over the years, this is not a free ride.

This is based on real substance. This is based on a genuine belief that our country is at a crossroads in terms of what it’s gonna be. And Trump is the Last Man Standing. And if he ever threw in with these people, I wouldn’t care why. There’s no way. I would lose all of you! Because you’d be abandoning him before I did! If he threw in with these people that have been trying to destroy him for 10 years?

And I don’t mean on one issue. I mean, if he just did a 180 and decided he’s tired of the criticism and tired of this and that and wanted to end it and for whatever reasons. It’s not automatic. It’s based on substance! It’s not based on personality! So the author doesn’t quite understand everything.

Now, this is a good transition. There’s a piece by my buddy Victor Davis Hanson from the Hoover Institute, from Fox News, from American Greatness. He’s also a guest Lecturer at Hillsdale College. He is an expert on the Peloponnesian wars and that era of ancient Greece. He’s a farmer in California in the Central Valley. A genuine renaissance man. He’s one of the smartest people you’ll ever meet. And his piece runs in American Greatness: “The Strategies of Targeting Trump.”

Now, Mr. Hanson is at his wits’ end with Never Trumpers as we all are. You talk about something making no intellectual sense, but it makes emotional sense, but it doesn’t make any intellectual sense, the Never Trumpers. Victor Davis Hanson believes Trump is on the cusp of a massive, massive landslide win, and he doesn’t understand why so many on the Republican side seem to be so defeatist about this.

And I’ve told him, “It’s the media, Victor. They can’t escape it. The media paints the picture. That’s their world if they live in Washington.” I think the permanent state of Republicans in Washington is defeatism. I’m talking about the mental attitude. The permanent state is fatalism, the permanent state is we don’t have a chance, we don’t have a prayer, it’s been their life, they are the minority. Even when they win elections, they are the minority in social structure, popularity, where they live.

So the headline: “The Strategies of Targeting Trump.” And let me give you some pull quotes from the piece. Again, it’s at American Greatness, and, as always, we will link to it at RushLimbaugh.com to make it easier for you to find it.

“We are headed,” writes Mr. Hanson, “for a train wreck. No one knows for certain which outcome is most likely. Will Trump be so beaten down by the ordeal that he will say and do things that will add to the momentum to convict him? Will there be such chaos and disruption that Trump ‘fatigue’ will ensue, and he and those who support him will be blamed for the mess? Will the voter go into a fetal position and just scream, ‘I can’t take this anymore! Make it all just go away!’?

“Or more likely,” writes Mr. Hanson, see, that opening kind of hooked you, “Oh, no, even Victor Davis Hanson is getting… No, folks, no. “Or more likely, will impeachment backfire? Will the jump-the-shark travesty finally confirm that the last three years have been an unhinged, evidence-free Democratic effort to destroy the elected president? Will there be hell to pay for the Democrats for their bias and partisanship that took the country through yet another miasma? They may well earn a Trump landslide and 2020 losses in the Senate and House.”

Another pull quote. “Democrats know they can impeach Trump. And they believe they can easily peel off at least a few Republican votes in the Senate to join them. Yet once the circus is on, who knows what will turn up—the impeachment equivalent of a Christine Blasey Ford, a hot-rodder like Michael Avenatti, victims like Nathan Phillips, or Jussie Smollett?

“Don’t laugh, such theatrics will air all sorts of anti-Trump professional hysterias as a parade of witnesses from Stormy Daniels, to tax lawyers, to psychiatrists, to Anthony Scaramucci/Omarosa performance artists, to legal talking heads like Jeffery Toobin, to wizened ‘sages’ such as Colin Powell and Andrew Card can all be wheeled in to provide both low farce and sanctimonious establishment pieties.

“Under such pressures, who knows exactly how long 14 Senators can hold out? Sinking poll averages each day can presage bleak 2020 scenarios and stampede up-for-reelection senators. Maybe the depressive spectacle can help tank the economy and bring back Recession!”

He’s outlining here everything the Democrats are hoping for, everything they plan on doing. If it means destroying the country in order to get rid of Trump they’ll do it, and his question is, are you up for what might happen?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to the phones we go to Bozeman, Montana. John, great to have you, sir, on the EIB Network. Hi.

CALLER: Hi. Landline dittos.

RUSH: I appreciate the landline dittos, by the way. Easier for me to comprehend.

CALLER: Rush, I used to think that the endless lies and stories against Trump were an attempt to get the suburban female vote to just throw their hands up in the air and say there’s too many issues with this guy. But I think it’s been simplified, and the Democrat game plan now is Harry Reid 10.0. You just tell lies like he told lies about Romney’s tax returns, and the rationale afterwards is, “We won, didn’t we?” And so all lies are usable and —

RUSH: Right. It’s my illusion theory. That’s exactly right. They’re creating this ongoing illusion like these videos, the video from the Knob Creek Gun Range that audiences have been told is from Syria. The video of Trump supposedly doing violent things to his opponents, which nobody has seen, the campaign has nothing to do with, it was a plant at a Trump rally at Doral in Florida.

Like the stories throughout the media today, there may be as many as 14 more whistleblowers. It doesn’t matter how many there are. They do not know anything more than what’s in the transcript of the call. So it is a massive illusion being created. Your first theory is not wrong. Whether the target is suburban women, I think that’s a bit too in the weeds, but the effort to convince a number of people that Trump is just so filthy, so dirty that we don’t even have time to list all the things.