RUSH: This is Brian in Livonia, Michigan. Great to have you. And thank you for waiting. I appreciate it. Hello.

CALLER: Yeah. Thanks for taking my call, Rush. Love you. I’ve been listening since 1991.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.

CALLER: You’re the only one that gives me hope out there right now, but I keep listening to your show since the apocalypse happened, keep listening to your show day after day —

RUSH: Which is the apocalypse?

CALLER: (laughing).

RUSH: ‘Cause a bunch of things could qualify.

CALLER: Well, we’ll say mid-March since the shutdown business started.

RUSH: Okay. Coronavirus.

CALLER: Coronavirus, correct. That apocalypse. And I’ve been waiting to hear some recognition from you, especially in the last few weeks, that Trump is as much to blame for the economic collapse and the shutdown as Fauci and the Scarf Queen.

RUSH: So, you’re wondering why Trump went along with the people who told him you gotta shut it down, because you think he should have known that they are actually not on his team. That they come from the bureaucratic realm and you think that because he went along with it that he can’t blame others for whatever economic destruction, damage that’s happened, he’s culpable, he did it, he shut it down, you want somebody to acknowledge this and say it, right?

CALLER: Yes. I would say that’s not my specific thrust. I wouldn’t blame him so much from maybe mid-March to maybe even mid-April.

RUSH: What is the specific thrust?

CALLER: Well, he went after Brian Kemp in Georgia. He tweeted maybe Friday or Saturday comparing their numbers and criticizing what Sweden’s been doing and —

RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Now, why do you think he went after Brian Kemp? And did you note how he did it?

RUSH: Well, I’ve heard articles trying to explain why he did it, that there’s some kind of background between him and Kemp, but that’s not —

RUSH: No. It has nothing to do with Kemp. It has to do with Birx and Fauci.

RUSH: Well, yes. I don’t know if it —

RUSH: Do not doubt me. (crosstalk)

CALLER: — Trump.

RUSH: Do not doubt me. And in a way that should tick you off, by the way.

CALLER: Yeah. I’m not sure I understand your point, Rush.

RUSH: Okay. You’ve got a situation where the first thing he says, Kemp’s gonna open up, he’s all in favor of it, right? He’s applauding Kemp for opening up. Then Fauci and Birx come along and of course the rest of the media and the rest of the bureaucratic health establishment, “Oh, my God. Oh, this is horrible, oh, this is bad.” Trump then changes his tune on Kemp. But while he changes his tune on Kemp, he says, “But I’m not gonna tell him he can’t. If he wants to do it, he can do it. But I got tell you, I’m really upset with Brian Kemp, I’m really upset.

Wait a minute. A week ago you were singing Kemp’s praises. You loved Kemp. So what can explain this? The fact is he did not order Kemp to reverse. He let Kemp continue on with his plan to open up the state, to end the lockdown there. But he went out of his way — and don’t forget the time frame. This is after this stupid kerfuffle about wanting to inject people with Clorox. So it was about Trump demonstrating to these jackals that — wrong word — demonstrating to these people that are judging him every day up there on the task force, the health people, that he’s so the same page with ’em.

CALLER: But, now, Trump going after Kemp is going to give support to any other governor that wants to keep things shut down. And I also wanted to bring in that Trump is signaling openness to bailing out the states, and that’s taking the pressure off. And I would except New York, New Jersey from this, but that’s taking the pressure off on —

RUSH: Always pay attention to when everything’s said and done, what Trump has done and not what he says in the process. Look. Hang on, if you want, ’cause we can condition this. You’ve opened a lot of things here that really do need to be discussed. I would love to, but I gotta take some breaks here. It will be a while. If you want to hang on, feel free. If not, I’ll continue myself.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to go back to Brian in Livonia, Michigan. ‘Cause I promised I’d come back to you and you wanted to think about this a little bit further. And so you were gonna nail the premise, what you’re really concerned with where Trump is concerned, and the kind of criticism you think that he deserves. You mentioned that he sent a signal he might bail out some states, that that’s not a good thing to do. That was one example you gave.

CALLER: Well, you yourself have said before that Fauci goes on these various shows and just kills every hope that —

RUSH: Every day, whenever there’s good news here comes Fauci or somebody to pour water on it. No. There’s no question about that.

CALLER: Right. And Fauci is only clothed with the authority that Trump allows him to have. You know, he’s only out there to the extent that I would assume that Trump is allowing or failing to prevent —

RUSH: I get your point.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: Let me see if I can build on it. So you think — don’t misunderstand the tone of my voice — I’m not being critical or judgmental here. I’m just trying to understand.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: You think that Trump ought not allow Fauci to do things which contradict him or to pour cold water where Trump thinks things are going well. He just shouldn’t allow, he’s got control over Fauci, Fauci is in the executive branch, Trump is the executive branch, and you wonder why Trump is kind of deferring to this guy when it’s apparent to some people that Fauci’s best interests do not align with Trump’s.

CALLER: Yeah. I think that’s a fair summation. I would say Fauci, if there’s one message at the press conference, which I know have been stopped, but just going back to the daily press conferences —

RUSH: Right. The briefing.

CALLER: Which I miss, by the way, ’cause Trump does sound hopeful, and it’s kind of like you, it’s one of the few things that makes me feel good in a day, which is kind of sad to say, I suppose. But, yeah, the president’s charged with message discipline of all of his administration.

RUSH: Here’s the thing Trump knows. And I’m jumping in only because I’ve got a time crunch here. The president knows that in terms of public opinion Fauci probably has a higher approval rating than any human being on the planet, short of the legacy of Mother Teresa. It probably is something that Trump has decided it doesn’t make sense to go to war with or to have a battle with.

So you’ll notice that Fauci’s not as visible lately. He’s not showing up at every briefing or very many of them. Trump is not letting him testify to the House where there’s a bunch of Trump-hating demons. He’s gonna let Fauci testify over the Senate, Senate hearings and so forth. I think he’s doing what he thinks is safe. But even if you wanted to, there is no way you’re gonna succeed, nobody is. And I say all this is hypothetical. If anybody wanted to try to portray Fauci as a problem, the problem, nobody’s gonna have any success at that. It isn’t gonna work. And so it’s probably a battle that if you want to see, you’re not gonna see it take place.