RUSH: So given that this is happening, yesterday I offered Pelosi a way out of this. I gave her a philosophical way out, and that is to say that, while the evidence is overwhelming and we all know that Trump is scum and we know that he attempted to meddle and we know that he attempted to investigate his own opponent, we know, we know, we know, we know, we still have to deal with partisan Republican bigots who happen to run the Senate. And there’s no way that they’re going to join us in agreement that Trump needs to go.
In fact, he’s gonna be acquitted. The last thing in the world we need is for this guilty-as-sin scum Mr. Orange man to be found not guilty in an election year. That’s what she could say in her own way. She could say we’ve got the goods; everybody knows we’ve got the goods. But we’ve got partisan, bigoted Republicans led by the biggest partisan bigot, the Turtle, Mitch McConnell, and there’s no way that they’re going to ever recognize this evidence. And, as such, the president will be acquitted, he will not be convicted. That will be the worst thing possible for this country, she could say.
In support of this, I pointed out, if you start paying attention, you will hear yourselves and other Trump supporters referred to as a cult because this would go right along with Pelosi’s claim that the Republicans are uber, bigoted partisans, unmovable, intractable, cannot be made to see common sense or Trump’s guilt. And the way to cement her claim that the Republicans cannot be moved is to call Trump supporters a cult. And, in so doing, she offers an excuse why they can’t be reached.
Democrats in the media have been trying — folks, this is a crucial thing to remember. One of the objectives for any of these hoaxes to work, for this coup to work, to overturn the election results via the Russia investigation, Russian meddling, for that to work, Trump supporters needed to be convinced to abandon him. And that’s essentially what all of this has been and remains. If they could make some headway in getting you Trump supporters to renounce him, there’s nothing that could stop them.
But guess what? Not only have you not abandoned him, there are more people now supporting Trump than probably even voted for him. So the way Pelosi’s dealing with it, well, of course, it’s a cult. It’s a cult. And what’s a cult? A cult is deranged, lunatic, mind-numbed robots. Right?
So let’s go to the audio sound bites. Here we are, a little montage that we put together, November 8th through this morning of a bunch of Drive-By people: CBS, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, you name it.
EUGENE ROBINSON: It is almost like a Dear Leader situation. It’s like a cult of personality.
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI: It’s a personality cult.
DAN RATHER: President Trump’s support seems cultish. Cults generally don’t end well.
DONNY DEUTSCH: I don’t know what the spell Trump has. We talk a lot about a cult leader.
STEVE MALZBERG: The cult of Donald Trump!
CHRIS HAYES: Cultish devotion.
JOHN BERMAN: Cult-like devotion.
TEZLYN FIGARO: Cult-like politics.
STEVE HASSAN: The destructive cult where people are being fed propaganda.
BRIAN STELTER: The president is using mind control. It is frightening to hear a cult expert say that you see all these signs right now today in American politics.
RUSH: Now, that last guy there, that’s Little Brian Stelter, the media analyst, guru reporter at CNN. “The president is using mind control.” What, are we getting hit by strobe lights during every Trump anticipates? Is that what’s happening? Do you people see flashing strobe lights every time Trump speaks? Is that how they’re controlling our minds? Is that how they’re mesmerizing us? Flashing strobe lights? I haven’t seen ’em, but maybe you have.
I’m not kidding, lil’ Brian Stelter, “Trump is using mind control.” Well, how come it’s not working on you, Brian? How come it’s not working on anybody at CNN? If Trump is this all-powerful figure who is able to mind control his supporters, how come you’re immune? Well, it’s not that. It’s because the Trump cult people are stupid idiots. That’s what they have to constantly believe and enforce, whereas they are the brilliant ones.
I saw — you know, addressed this yesterday too. This falls right in line. I didn’t see it when it happened Sunday. Chris Wallace was interviewing Senator John Kennedy, Louisiana. And Wallace said, “How in the world can you say that? Every civil servant, every member of the intelligence community says that Russia colluded and meddled in the 2016 election.”
Okay. Well, everybody in the intelligence community thinks so. What makes them automatically right? Why do we have to automatically believe? Why are they not ever wrong? Why are they impervious to corruption? Why are they impervious to political bias?
When did it happen? When did the Drive-By Media start automatically believing the intelligence community? They used to hate them. I can point out example after example where the intelligence community has been embarrassingly wrong. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So where is this requirement that everybody just not even question the intelligence community. Why, when they say it, it’s gospel.
I’m sorry. No. There’s too much evidence of the intelligence community being wrong. And there’s all kinds of evidence starting with John Brennan and James Clapper that they’re a bunch of partisan bigots themselves. But this is all part of portraying them as brilliant and open-minded and nonjudgmental.
But you Trump people, you’re just a bunch of stupid idiots who Trump can mind control because you’re nothing more than a cult. This morning on Fox & Friends Emily Compagno asked former Bernie Sanders national campaign staffer Tezlyn Figaro about a Washington Post article calling Obama a conservative. Compagno says, “Former President Obama is a conservative says the Washington Post? What in the world is this?”
FIGARO: If Barack Obama’s a conservative, then Rush Limbaugh is a liberal. Shame on the Washington Post for pushing that foolishness and promoting that. It’s that type of tribal politics that people are sick of, cult-like politics to say that if you support any conservative position then, oh, you must be a conservative. That’s ridiculous.
But me personally, it is the reason why it has moved me away from the party and many others have now become independents. To say that, you know, agreeing with some of the policies that conservatives have like being pro-business, me being a small business owner, doesn’t mean that I am a conservative. So it’s absolutely ridiculous.
RUSH: But you notice here — hey, I love conservative policies, but don’t call me a conservative. Doesn’t mean I’m a conservative just because I agree with some conservative things. Don’t call me a conservative. Why not? What’s wrong with that? Oh, it’s bad branding. Conservative equals racist, sexist bigoted homophobe to the left. Can’t do that. And notice the use of cult-like even in this answer.
Last night Doug Schoen was on Fox News. Shannon Bream spoke with Jenna Ellis, campaign senior legal adviser, and Doug Schoen about my comments about the Democrats using the word “cult” now to describe Trump supporters.
ELLIS: The use of the word now of “cult” to talk about the president as a cult leader, his followers as cult members. You may have noticed it, we caught it showing up in all kinds of places. This is how Rush Limbaugh is reacting to the use of that word.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Pelosi and the Democrats are putting this out that Trump supporters are a cult, meaning they’re unmovable, they are inflexible, and members of cults are obviously what else? Fools. They’re idiots. They’re stupid. And so Pelosi and her buddies are spreading this notion that Trump supporters are a cult.
RUSH: Remember the reason they’re doing this is to present possibly an excuse for not going through with impeachment because we’re dealing with a cult. We can’t possibly get these people to see reason. These people are gonna acquit the president, be a horrible thing. I’m firmly of the belief that they’re starting this cult — it’s multipurposed, by the way, but one of the purposes is to give them an out in the unlikelihood that they decide not to follow through on impeachment. Here’s how Jenna Ellis responded.
ELLIS: It sounds like rest of the fake news got another memo to use this as a keyword. It’s an attempt to bully all of Trump’s supporters, to ostracize us and stigmatize us into having this chilling effect on our voice in the public square. And, you know, this is absolutely ridiculous. By the way, they’re the ones that had tears streaming down when Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected. They’re the ones screaming at the sky. They’re the ones who are having these just gnashing of teeth. I mean, this is just ridiculous.
RUSH: And here’s Doug Schoen, I want to quickly get him in next.
SCHOEN: It certainly could. Look, Shannon, I find this really inadvisable and really inappropriate. I know what they’re alluding to. Trump’s comment that he could, you know, walk on Fifth Avenue, shoot someone and people would still support him. But to use this kind of language as a descriptive term is, I think, harmful to our democracy when we’re so polarized. I think we need to fewer deplorables, fewer cults, and more cooperation.
RUSH: Doug Schoen, former Clinton pollster and all that thinking, yeah, they called us deplorables, now they’re saying we’re a cult. And he thinks it needs to stop. I’m just pointing this out, folks, that this is what’s going on.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me squeeze another exciting phone call in at this moment. This is Joe in Columbus, New Jersey. Hello, sir. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
RUSH: Good, sir.
CALLER: I told your screener I was disgusted, but, you know, I’m immune now because this is just an extension of us being called deplorables three years ago.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: But if Trump and his supporters are a cult, then Camelot was Jonestown Guyana and the Kennedys were Jimmy Jones.
RUSH: Hey, what about when Obama was elected all the school kids being assembled in school auditoriums to sing songs to Dear Leader?
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: “We love Obama. Obama is great. We love Obama, the one and only.” I mean, we got pummeled with that crap.
CALLER: Look how they wanted to reelect Franklin Roosevelt for a third term. Was that a cult or the beginning of a cult?
RUSH: Yeah, exactly. Of course, what we’re doing here is artfully and cleverly pointing out the deep hypocrisy of these glittering jewels of colossal ignorance. The unfortunate thing, it doesn’t stick to them, but here’s the thing. They think that the people they’re insulting are not hearing this?
They openly have been insulting Trump voters for three and a half years and counting — well, hell, five years if you count the campaign, five years and counting. They wonder why they’re not able to drive a wedge between Trump and his voters when all they do is insult them? And now Trump is using mind control, invisible strobe lights subconsciously gluing you to Donald Trump and his hair, and you don’t even know it.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right. Stand by audio sound bite number 7. I’m gonna get back to the phones.
We’re going to Philadelphia. This is Sean. I’m glad you called, and welcome. Great to have you here today.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. I had a theory along the lines of your theory. I want to see what you thought of it, ’cause I agree. I think Nancy knows she overstepped the mark. She wants to get out of this, and I have a theory how she might try to thread the needle. And it’s this. She knows she has to bring the impeachment up for a vote. I agree that she’s gonna do that, because if she doesn’t her crazies would just revolt on her personally. So I think she might bring it up for a vote, but behind the scenes she might quietly encourage the moderates who want to vote against impeachment to go ahead and do so, and therefore it’ll fail. And then after it fails, you know, she’ll probably do —
RUSH: Now, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Could you define “fail.” You mean she will not get — she needs 218. You’re saying she won’t get 218?
CALLER: I think that’s a way she could get out of it, by intentionally rigging it so she only gets 217 —
RUSH: Wait a second. She runs the House of Representatives. She just caused a Detroit congresswoman to flip. If she can’t get 218, they will throw her out of there. She can’t do this by failing to marshal the troops. If your theory is she’d only get 217 and blame it on the moderates in Trump districts, “We tried, we tried but we couldn’t do it,” she would get ripped for bringing it to a vote. You never bring to a vote when you’re gonna lose it. You just don’t. Rule number one.
CALLER: Yeah, but Boehner did that against Cruz or — that was done against Cruz. I think this might be — because she knows if it goes to the Senate it’s gonna be bad for her party and I think she’s too much of a leader to know that. I think she knows Schiff failed. She was pushed into this, I think, and Schiff promised her, “Hey, I can get the goods in this investigation,” and he didn’t. And she knows this is gonna reelect Trump. I mean, that’s what I believe. I used to be afraid of impeachment. Now, bring it on. I think the Senate trial will be a great thing. I think she wants to avoid that. This could be a way she could do it.
RUSH: Were you at one time, you said you used to be opposed to impeachment, were you afraid that there might be 20 Republicans in the Senate at one time that would in fact vote for conviction? Did you fear that at one time?
CALLER: No. No. I feared the taint of it on Trump. I thought they were just gonna try to do this to taint him. I mean, you’d have the Romneys of the Senate, he would get some votes. But, no, I didn’t think he would get removed. I thought it was a taint. And now I think actually the benefits outweigh the negative taint. I think we’ve been silenced for so long, this will be like one big infomercial of everything, all these things that have happened, especially with the Mueller investigation, will finally get this stuff out that the press has been holding back.
RUSH: And just so I’m not confused, which stuff is that?
CALLER: Well, I think a lot of the stuff with — well, first off, with the Bidens, I think that’s not directly related to Mueller, but I think the corruption of the left needs to come out there, where people need to see that, that they’ve been covering up for that. You know, they keep saying —
RUSH: Wait. You think a trial in the Senate would be good because it would expose whatever Barr and Durham are investigating? We could expose the hoax of the Mueller investigation, we could expose the hoax of the intelligence community, the FBI and MI5 trying to railroad Trump’s election? Is that what you mean, expose?
CALLER: I mean expose with that and every other negative against the left that the press has been covering for. I think we should bring in the whistleblower. I think we should expose, you know, these reported ties from the whistleblower to Schiff’s office. I think we should bring it all out. Everything that’s been tamped down.
RUSH: Look, I agree totally with that, but let me ask you, where have you seen any evidence that any Republican is inclined to do that? I mean, Lindsey Graham has been promising to bring hell down on these people ever since the Kavanaugh hearings. He hasn’t even convened one hearing on that fiasco yet. He hasn’t even endeavored to find out what really happened with that. We’re not even talking about Trump and impeachment on that.
CALLER: Well, I agree. But I think that even if McConnell and them try to tell the president, “Hey, no, you’re not gonna be able to,” I think that’s an instance when the president should just finally come out all Twitter guns blazing and go after McConnell and the Romneys and say, “You know what? I want a fair trial. Now my own party is not doing it.” I think if he would ever turn on them and bring it out for the base, that’s the time to do it. Say, “Oh, they wouldn’t let me have a fair hearing in the House, and now you’re doing it to me.” I think if he said that, they would let him have any witness he wanted. Just personally that’s what I think.
RUSH: All right. So what I’m hearing from you, you are actually voicing what your long-held desires are, and you are under the impression that Pelosi is aware this could all happen, which is why she won’t want it to ’cause she’s afraid all this that you’ve just said you want to hear, she’s afraid Republicans might do it if it gets to a trial, so she’s not gonna let it happen. Is that ultimately your theory?
CALLER: That plus I think she knows this will reelect Trump. I believe if they vote to impeach him, that is as sure as guarantee he’s reelected. And that’s just me out in the world talking to people. I mean, everybody is enraged about this. It’s not seen anywhere else in the press except your show.
RUSH: I think they believe he’s already reelected. See, I think impeachment is an effort to stop that. I think they already think he can’t be beaten. I think they’re already aware of it. I think any honest appraiser on the left knows they don’t have a candidate that can beat Trump. And now Obama entering the fray — the news being reported about Obama kind of backs all of that up.
Why did Bloomberg get in? Bloomberg got in. He doesn’t think any of these clowns can win and he thinks the only guy that’s got a chance to win is Biden. Biden doesn’t have a chance, so he’s gonna get in as the Biden, as the moderate, as the guy who can finally take out Trump ’cause he doesn’t think any of these guys can win. And now with the amount of money he’s got versus them he’s telling himself they don’t have a prayer, they never did.
But back to your original theory while I have you here. You think that — and don’t infer an accusatory tone here in my voice. There’s no wrong answer. I’m just trying to understand your point. You think that Pelosi might actually engineer a vote that loses because she knows how devastating going forward with this lack of any impeachable offense is?
CALLER: Yes. I do think that’s a possibility.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: And to avoid personal blame from her crazies, ’cause then she can say, “I brought it up for a vote. Don’t blame me. Blame these moderates.”
RUSH: Yeah, but see, that means that she would be literally trying to get her deranged, wacko base to blame her own party for failing to — believe me, if that happens, then the Democrats are in far worse shape, both mentally, psychologically, and actually than we imagine. ‘Cause I’m here to tell you, Sean, there is no way in the history of major legislative bodies that you even call the vote if you’re gonna lose it. Not on something like this where you’ve got your left-wing base already convinced — I mean listen to Schiff. They’ve got the goods, they’ve had the goods since before the Mueller investigation.
That left-wing bunch of crazies literally believes Trump is as guilty of everything they’ve heard him accused of for three years. And for Pelosi to fail to get a vote on impeachment after these rigged hearings, she’d be signing her own death warrant, political death warrant, to not be able — when she’s got a 235-member caucus and only needs 218 votes and can’t. The truth is that she doesn’t want to do this with 218. The truth is she doesn’t even want to do it with 220. That’s not enough.
She’s not gonna get any Republicans. So she needs as many Democrats as she can get. If this passes with 218 to 220 votes, it’s dead, because it appears to be exactly what it is, nothing but a full-fledged partisan effort that can’t even amass total Democrat support. And the reason we’re all talking here about maybe she’s looking for a way out is not that she can’t get to 218. It’s that she can’t get to 230, that she can’t get to 220.
And look again at this congresswoman from Michigan who announced over the weekend she’s not gonna vote for it, and then they got hold of her and they took her out to the woodshed. She changed her opinion in a couple of hours. That has to tell Pelosi that that woman is not alone. There are all kinds of Democrats, moderates — and this woman is not a moderate — all kinds of people don’t believe a case has been made here.
So Pelosi does not have, as we sit here today, she does not have a committed caucus that matches anywhere the deranged lunacy of her voting base. And that remains her challenge. She’s got to satisfy ’em if they have any hope of ousting Trump in an election. But I think all of this is based on the fact — there’s many things driving this, but one of them is that they already think he’s gonna get reelected. Incumbency is a very powerful thing. It’s counts for so much with the American people. It’s really, really hard.
What Bill Clinton did ousting George Bush, George H. W. Bush in 1992, there were so many things that had to happen for that to happen, and one of them was for Bush to go against the number one pledge of his campaign, “Read my lips: No new taxes.” Then he ignored Perot. And in the process he made it look like he wasn’t taking any of these opponents seriously. And that translated into maybe he doesn’t really care.
Then you had this young and vigorous Clinton out there screwing everything that walks, and that was appealing to a lot of people. Young, energetic, women are craving this guy, he’s out there, and he’s got Gore and they’re out there jogging five miles to every campaign appearance wearing these little short shorts and stuff, and George W. Bush didn’t have a prayer.
That’s so rare for a first term president to be turned out. They thought they had George W. Bush beat with John F-ing Kerry, and he didn’t come close in 2004. It’s a really tough thing to do. And when you look at the strength of this country, the economy, the jobs, the stock market, you look at every marker that politics traditionally has looked at to determine the health of the country, it’s so far up and above over what it was with Obama, people are living it. And you’ll note, the Democrats aren’t even running on any of that. They’re not telling people “Yeah, we know it’s good, but we can do better.” They’re not even running on that.
They’re running on a socialist agenda claiming that all this stuff is unreal and unsupported. They gotta give it away to you for it to be real. They’re not even running on that. They’re running on how Trump is a reprobate. I think Pelosi regrets letting Schiff get started with this ’cause Schiff didn’t produce anything. I cannot tell you – I’ll tell you one more time — I cannot tell you how Trump releasing the transcript of his phone call with Zelensky blew up 95% of their grand plan.
If he hadn’t released transcript, they could have characterized that phone call as worse than anything Nixon did: cover-up, they could have called it obstruction, the whistleblower would have mattered. As it is, the whistleblower is as irrelevant as somebody you haven’t heard of in this whole thing. Every time the Democrats have been feeling their oats and decide to go public, it ends up collapsing on ’em. Mueller collapsed when he testified. Anyway, I appreciate the call, Sean.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Say, I just saw Brenda Lawrence’s full statement, the African-American that recanted. You know, she was on the podcast over the weekend saying she opposed this impeachment vote on Trump. It’s an election year. It’s not necessary so close to an election — then and she recanted, and she said (paraphrased), “You know, I — I’ve changed my mind,” ’cause somebody got to her. She said, “I — I now see the value.” But you know what she ended with?
She ended with, “I am very troubled that the Republicans in the Senate will find him not guilty and the whole thing will not have been worth it,” or some such thing. I’m telling you, folks, do not doubt me. The fact that he’s gonna be acquitted in the Senate is bugging them. I totally agree they want the black mark that the word “impeachment” attached to Trump makes, and they want to be able to run around saying, “Trump was impeached!
“He’s only the third president in history to be impeached.” They want to try to make a came out of that. That’s been the modus operandi from the get-go. But they can’t. What are they gonna do when the Senate says, “not guilty”? It’s the equivalent of Mueller saying, “No collusion.” “Not guilty.” “Still, he’s impeached! We still impeached him!”
“Okay. Fine. Run on that.” The fact that she said, “I’m still troubled by the fact that the Senate will find him not guilty…” This woman’s pretty smart. That, I think, is one of the real reasons that she announced in the podcast over the weekend to pull back from this — and even though they made her recant, she still got that point in, in her restatement.