RUSH: The objective all along, beginning with Trump-Russia collusion, beginning with all the shenanigans during the campaign, the objective all along — and there are many branches to this primary objective – the primary objective has been to separate Trump voters from Trump. The primary objective has been to convince Trump voters they made a mistake. The primary objective has been to persuade Trump voters that he is a bad guy and is not good for them and not good for the country.

This objective has failed. It has failed royally. And now it is in the backfiring stage. How many days have we had to listen to this same rotgut garbage? People are fed up with it. The Democrats have been on display for three straight weeks now. Their basic problem is Trump didn’t do anything. Trump did not commit a crime. Trump has not engaged in impeachable offenses. They can’t name one. They can’t cite one.

After three years of more money and more investigators and more bias and more abuse of the American bureaucracy than any American can ever remember, they’ve got nothing. They’ve got hearsay, and they have their hate, and they have their rage. But it is precisely because they have nothing that they have failed in their primary objective. They have not persuaded Trump voters they made a mistake. They have in fact cemented Trump voters and glued Trump voters even more solidly to Trump.

They have created Trump supporters out of people who were ambivalent. This is backfiring on them so big, I can’t even describe it to you. And even the Drive-By Media is getting worried now. I told you yesterday that Pelosi would go ahead and allow this vote if all she had was 218 votes. If Nancy Pelosi could follow her desires, she would pull this impeachment off the table. It has been an utter bomb. It’s going in the wrong direction. If she hasn’t, she is going to signal to a bunch of Democrats, “Look. If you gotta vote against impeachment to keep your seat, then I’m gonna free you to do it.”

She cannot hold her caucus. There are too many Democrats that have already announced they are going to vote “no” on this. The bipartisanship in this impeachment is going to be in opposition to it. They threw everything they had. They threw the Drive-By Media being totally devoid of any principles. The Drive-By Media willingly, happily threw away every bit of reputation it had left. The Drive-By Media, the American mainstream media has sullied itself, has soiled itself, and has forever destroyed any credibility that it once had.

That didn’t work. Going all-in all the time to destroy Donald Trump and to break that bridge from Trump voters to Trump has failed. And now what do they do? They use polling data over and over. They used two years of a Mueller investigation with 40 agents, 500 witnesses, $40 million, they couldn’t find a crime. They couldn’t find collusion. They haven’t found anything because Trump didn’t do anything.

They have been reduced to trying to manufacture the illusion of criminal behavior, impeachable behavior, incompetent behavior. They have tried to use what they consider to be Trump’s lack of manners, his ogre-ish personality. None of it has worked. Trump’s approval numbers are higher today than ever. And they are higher today than Barack Obama’s approval numbers at the exact same point in his administration. The polling data run by the Drive-By Media showing support for impeachment is plummeting. For the first time in the Quinnipiac poll yesterday, 51% of registered voters, not even likely, registered voters oppose impeachment.

Mitch McConnell has announced today we’re not even gonna do a trial. We’re gonna move immediately for an acquittal. We’re gonna bypass “not guilty” and we’re gonna move for an acquittal.” And the Drive-By Media is beside itself. And the Democrats in the Senate are now bellyaching, whining and moaning for fairness. They want fairness in the Senate trial, despite denying fairness at every stage of the House proceedings.

Adam Schiff has been exposed to everyone who has paid attention to this as what he is. He is a lying, shameless partisan who is governed by a hate and a superiority complex. Pelosi has been exposed to be what she is. All of these people have let it be known they can’t hide, they’ve chosen not to hide. They’ve thrown away their camouflage. They are strictly motivated by their pure hatred and their anger at having lost the election in 2016.

I don’t know. I’m watching this today and there isn’t anything new in it. In fact, these articles that the Democrats have put forth today are so weak and so baseless and so absent any evidence that many of the Democrats, when it’s their turn to speak — this is the markup for the articles, the whole House vote. The committee vote will be later today, the whole House vote next week.

It’s so weak, it’s so bad that most of the Democrats are just getting all their hate off their chest. They’re talking about Stormy Daniels. They’re talking about Michael Cohen. They’re talking about Avenatti. They’re talking about Kavanaugh. They’re talking about Trump University. It’s all coming out. They just hate the guy ’cause they can’t beat him. They hate the guy because he’s outsmarted them at every turn. This does not happen to them. They don’t get outsmarted like this. They don’t get tricked like this. They don’t get beaten like this. Certainly not with the media on their side 24/7.

So it’s all coming out. And the American people watching this, the Trump voters who are watching this who are supposed to have been moved by all this, they’re supposed to have been made guilty they voted for Trump. They’re supposed to be doubting their support for Trump. They’re supposed to renounce it. Trump’s rallies are bigger than ever. They’re more raucous than ever. They’re more energetic than ever. They’re more positive than ever.

Trump supporters are more eager and chomping at the bit to go vote to show their support for Trump. And why not? If you’re living in the United States of America today, you’re living life and a potential for a good life unlike you have known. You’re living it. You don’t have to be told. You are living it. You turn on your TV, and because the Drive-By Media is all-in on the Democrats and making their case, what do you see? Whining, moaning, a bunch of spoil brats.

TIME magazine name a 16-year-old as Person of the Year. They wanted to name the whistleblower, but then they figured out they couldn’t name him, so they’ve named him Guardian of the Year. TIME magazine, a new award or new qualification, Guardian of the Year, the whistleblower and the witnesses at Schiff’s and Nadler’s hearings.

They are so clueless, they don’t have any idea how what they are doing is being seen. You have to know how you are seen if you’re in public life, be it in showbiz, entertainment, politics, which is showbiz for the ugly, you have to know. You have to have a sense of how you’re seen. You have to have empathy. Democrats have no empathy.

The Democrats have no concern how they’re seen because they are acting under their authoritarian impulses and they’re simply trying to will what they wish were true to be true. At the end of the day, Trump didn’t do anything. So they have been reduced to having to make it up. And examples of that are on display today. Once I start listing examples, I wouldn’t know where to stop.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Some Democrat — I didn’t catch her name — just said, “And we’re impeaching the president today because he made up his own foreign policy.” What? You mean the guy that won the election? The guy that runs the American foreign policy made up his own foreign policy?

See, he went outside channels. He went outside the interagency group. He did not rely on the bureaucrats. Horowitz is a bureaucrat. These FBI scammers are bureaucrats. And these bureaucrats, all of them unelected, have been thinking they run the show, they run the FBI, they run foreign policy. The American people wanted somebody else. They wanted somebody outside this apparatus. They elected somebody outside this apparatus. The person they elected is actually operating outside the apparatus.

And so the apparatus is coming after him and trying to convince the people that voted for him that they made a mistake. Their problem in doing that, though, they let Trump voters know that they hate them. These people cannot hide their hate for you. They have no idea. I think they do anyway.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: “Rush, what do you mean?” I check the email. “What do you mean? What do you mean some Democrats are –” Right here it is. Washington Post: “House Democrats Brace for Some Defections Among Moderates on Impeachment of Trump.”

Folks, I warned you this was gonna happen yesterday. When that Quinnipiac poll came out, let’s go back and review. I wonder if you all realize how often things I say here are repeated elsewhere in the media. And I wonder how many of you say, “Yeah, yeah, Rush told us that.” It happened all morning in the hearings today. It happened all afternoon in the Senate hearings yesterday. And now here comes the Washington Post with the story.

When that Quinnipiac poll hit yesterday, 51% oppose impeachment, Quinnipiac is the poll of polls for the Democrats. It’s never shown Trump in a good light. Fifty-one percent oppose impeachment, never been that high. When did it happen? In the midst of the Democrat impeachment effort.

And I said then that Pelosi, if she could pull this back, would, but she can’t. She’s too deep, she’s too far in. Her media would revolt against her, as would many in her base because this is about nothing more than the continued expression of hate. It’s all it is. These people have an unquenchable hate. It has to be fed every day. It has to be nourished every day. They can’t go a day without being dominated and governed by their hate. Democrat base voters, the mainstream media, you name it.

Pelosi can’t pull back on impeachment. But believe me, if she could, she would. Three weeks ago I said Pelosi will not do this if all she has is 218 votes, meaning the bare minimum she needs to pass it. I said that’s not gonna be enough. That’s not gonna be enough to sway the American people. It’s gonna be purely party line, she can’t do it.

At the time, the thinking was that she had 235 votes. At the time the thinking was that the 30 or 31 moderate Democrats who were elected in the 2018 midterms that come from Trump districts, the thinking was that the case was solid enough that they could go ahead and vote for impeachment and not imperil themselves.

Then the hearings began, and it became obvious that they had nothing. It became obvious all they had was hearsay and academics testifying what they thought a rotten guy Donald Trump is. A bunch of bureaucrats who were not even on the phone call. The transcript of the phone call shows nothing there. The whistleblower came and went before anybody ever heard from him or saw him. They had nothing.

Those 31 moderates began to get nervous and got more and more nervous as the hearings went on and on ’cause the case was not made, despite the media’s bias in analyzing it, reporting it, the case was not made. Then the impeachment number 51%, I will guarantee you the Democrat internal polls are showing this as well. The desire for impeachment is plummeting the more this goes on.

So when the number hit yesterday, I told you, I guessed, educated guess, that Pelosi’s gonna release some of these moderates and that if all she gets is 218 she’ll take it because she can’t pull back. She cannot cancel this. She can’t even delay it. She might try to delay it on the basis that McConnell here demanding an immediate acquittal, moving through an immediate acquittal is gonna deny her side fairness. She could pull it on the basis of the way McConnell says he’s gonna deal with this.

It’s an outside chance. I’m not predicting it. I’m just telling you, don’t be surprised, because McConnell has said (paraphrasing), “I’m not even gonna have the trial. I’m gonna go for summary judgment. I’m gonna pull guilty or not guilty right on the first day. We’re not even gonna get a guilty verdict. We’re gonna dismiss this.”

Well, Pelosi could say, “You know what? Senator McConnell is denying us the fairness, he’s denying the minority fairness,” which would be a laugh, given how they have abandoned fairness on their side. But she could. She’s always been able, if she wanted to, she has always been able to cancel this on the basis of the partisanship and mean-spiritedness and the bigotry and the racism and the sexism and all that of the Republicans.

But I still think she’s too deep now. And the Washington Post story makes the case. “House Democratic leaders are bracing for some defections among a group of moderate Democrats in swing districts who are concerned a vote to impeach President Trump could cost them their seats in November.

“Lawmakers and senior aides are privately predicting they will lose more than the two Democrats who opposed the impeachment inquiry rules package in late September. … Two senior Democratic aides said the total could be as many as a half-dozen, while a third said the number could be higher.

“Several moderates have privately pined for other options, including a censure vote they know they’re unlikely to get. Others have even considered what one moderate called ‘splitting the baby’: backing one article of impeachment but not the other to try to show independence from the party.”

In other words, they’ll vote for one but not the other to show independence in the party. Because these moderates think if they go all-in with their own party, that they’re dead at the ballot box. So she’s got the votes to impeach but here come defections, meaning bipartisanship will be a part of impeachment, but it will be bipartisan support against it.

And if it’s six now or more, it’s only going to get worse because Trump didn’t do anything. And, folks, despite all the noise and all the hate and all of the energy the Democrats have mustered, this has been about one thing. It’s been about trying to break the bond of Trump supporters to Trump. The exact opposite has happened. In fact, you probably will find Democrats openly complaining about it on TV now.

If you watch enough TV, my guess is that some Democrats will start openly complaining about how Trump voters just will not turn on the guy. “We’ve given everything we got. I mean, we impeached, we had the Mueller investigation, had the Russia investigation, all this, had Stormy Daniels, NBC tape, we had Steele dossier, we can’t –” They’re gonna start complaining about it because they went into this thinking it’d be a slam dunk.

I mean, take out a Republican? That’s easy. That’s Democrat 101. Call up your buddies in the media and get the process started. The list of Republicans destroyed this way is long. Here’s an audio sound bite to demonstrate for you the utter frustration and the hatred and the scattershot approach and the general feeling that Trump shouldn’t be president just because we don’t like the guy. Steve Cohen, Democrat from Tennessee. This is during the debate today on the markup, the House Judiciary Committee on the two articles of impeachment.

COHEN: When he said, “I need a favor, though” he was talking about getting dirt on the Bidens. Michael Cohen told us the president doesn’t come out and say exactly what he wants. He speaks in code. That’s the president’s code. Michael Cohen knows it and Michael Cohen is in prison now. Michael Cohen, who is in prison because he facilitated the payments to Ms. Daniels and the payments to Ms. McDougal. You talk about abuse of power? Abuse of power is having a charitable foundation and taking advantage of the charities and using the money for your own purposes and having to pay a $2 million fine and not being allowed to be on a board ever again because you don’t have the character to be over a charitable foundation. Abuse of power is ripping off people with Trump University and paying $25 million dollars.

RUSH: None of that is in the articles of impeachment. None of it. And now he’s quoting Michael Cohen, who he acknowledges is in jail for, among other things, lying. Michael Cohen made the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. Abuse of power, the president speaks in code. He was talking about getting dirt on the Bidens. We didn’t need dirt on the Bidens. Biden provided the dirt. Biden copped to the interference. We just played you the audio of Biden bragging about it.

What Trump was saying, are you gonna get to the bottom of this? Are you gonna investigate it? There’s another thing, too, that Trump was actually soliciting help from Zelensky on getting to the bottom of what happened to him in the Russia collusion case, because Ukraine was involved in that no matter what these people try to rewrite history as saying, Ukraine was involved in it.

There have been seven Drive-By news stories detailing it and even a Ukraine court found Ukrainians guilty of colluding in the 2016 American election. And they are sitting here even today at their little committee in utter denial of that. They keep harping on “Trump said ‘do me a favor, do me a favor.’” Nope, no, he didn’t say “Do me a favor.” He said, “Do us a favor,” talking about, “hey, do us in the United States, do us a favor.”

By the way, it’s a Trump manner of speaking that he has used his whole life. I’ll be playing golf with Trump and some aide will come up or some member of the staff at the club will come up, “Do me a favor. Go tell that guy…” “Do me a favor” is like saying “hey,” to him. “Do me a favor” is not soliciting a bribe. It’s almost a way that he bridges a conversation with people.

Some people say, “Hey, do me a favor. Go get me a Diet Coke. Hey, do me a favor and run down to that guy down and tell him I’ll see him a 4 o’clock. Do me a favor.” It’s a speech pattern with Trump. And they’re trying to make that an impeachable offense.

Anyway, the American people are seeing all this because this is now going for three straight weeks. There isn’t anything new in it. They don’t have anything, and what is obviously surfacing now is their pure, abject hatred. And it’s not infectious, folks. It’s not drawing people to them. It’s driving people away.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We’re gonna start with Dan in Sonoma, California. Hi, Dan. Welcome. Great to have you with us today.

CALLER: Rush, thanks very much. I agree with you that Pelosi was pushed into this, because she resisted impeachment for the longest time. But that begs the question, if she was pushed into it, by who? I want names. If you discover the name of the person or persons that pushed her into this very destructive situation, you’ll find out who runs the Democrat Party.

RUSH: Well, okay, do you have a list of people you think might be at the top of that list, forcing Pelosi to do this?

CALLER: I think Cortez is not on that list. She’s simply not that smart —

RUSH: Obviously Cortez isn’t on the list. It has nothing to do with her brains or not, which are hard to find.

CALLER: Soros is a name that’s often bandied about.

RUSH: A-ha. This is what I wanted. So George Soros may be behind this?

CALLER: He’s probably one, but there’s probably other people in the shadows that we will never see, never hear, but they have tremendous power. And yes, it sounds conspiratorial, but again, Pelosi was pushed into this, and I’d like to find out who.

RUSH: Well, I don’t think this is complicated. In the first place, I actually reject what we were told that Pelosi never wanted to do this. I think that was all part of the plan. I think she’s been chomping at the bit to do this since election night 2016. They all have been. The idea that Pelosi was trying to put on the brakes, the idea Pelosi had to try to tame the out-of-control members of her asylum, I think that was all PR.

I think it was all for our benefit, all designed to make us think that somebody reasonable is prowling around over there, that there’s an adult over there. And then the game was to make it look like she could no longer hold out because the evidence was so overwhelming. The Democrats are the daily execution of a soap opera script that they write.