RUSH: I want to remind people of something. Donald Trump was elected on election night in 2016. He’s inaugurated in January of 2017. No, this is not about the coup or any of that. Well, it is in a away. Donald Trump hears the Republicans, who never expected him to win, and they’re all excited. They’re all a tizzy. I’ll never forget, in the days after the election, the immediate days after the election, Paul Ryan was on television everywhere describing the greatness of Donald Trump. Oh, my God. We never expected to win this. One man has made this possible.

Ryan never expected to be speaker. Ryan never expected the Republicans to win the House. It was the last thing any of these Republicans were planning on. And one of the important things about that is they weren’t prepared to do the work of leadership. And Trump winning was, oh, no, God, we’re gonna have to do this, meaning, lead, meaning run the House. Meaning, oh, my God, I thought we were gonna be in the minority, not gonna have to do anything, and they thought that their out would be they’re in the minority, they can’t stop the Democrats. That’s what they thought.

Then, after it settles in that Trump has won and that Ryan is speaker and that the Republicans run the committees, Trump really launches an agenda rapidly. He hits the floor running, folks. I’ll never forget this. He hit the floor running. He was intent on showing the voters that their votes had been worth it. He wanted to get rid, for example, of Obamacare. He wanted to end it. And he began to try to implement policies that would do just that. He ran into a problem. He got no help from the Republicans in Congress.

Kathryn and I were invited to dinner with the president and Mick Mulvaney and Vice President Pence and some others in March. I think the date was March 21st, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, this date was the date of a very important vote on canceling, withdrawing Obamacare. And the vote didn’t look like it was going Trump’s way. Steve Bannon and one other guy who were acting as the congressional liaisons were bopping their head into the room every so often to report to the president on the progress up on the Hill.

And I remember the president, “You tell them if they’re not gonna push ahead with this, that I’m through helping ’em any other way they need it.” I said, “I am privy to some big stuff going on here.” Anyway, the evening ends. Vice President Pence, his wife Karen walk us out. We get in the car, we head to the airport, come back home. And then I study, you know, the next month the Trump agenda’s halted.

Nothing is happening in the Trump agenda. And I’m asking myself, why? Because the people that elected Trump are in euphoria. My God, we actually have a chance to repeal Obamacare. That’s what Trump’s signature issue was. It was many things. It was building the wall, all of this stuff. And he wasn’t getting any help. I finally found out why, folks. They believed the Russian collusion story, the Republicans did. They believed it. For a time that entire summer they believed that Trump had colluded. All they do is read the Washington Post and New York Times. They believed it. It infuriated me when I found out this was why they were not helping.

They didn’t want to help Trump pass anything that they thought wasn’t gonna survive because he was gonna be frog-marched out of the White House as a criminal. Not all of them, don’t misunderstand. Not all of them. There were enough Republicans and in leadership that believed Trump had actually colluded with the Russians and may have taken action to steal the election.

You remember talking about this, Mr. Snerdley? This infuriated me. Trump’s own party believing stuff. Well, anyway, the point is that’s why repealing and replacing Obamacare didn’t get done when we had the votes to do it. Because the Republicans didn’t think Trump was gonna survive one of the most incompetent political calculations ever made in my lifetime.

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RUSH: Here is Brian in Commerce, Georgia. Great to have you, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hey, Rush. Mega dittos, and mega prayers, my friend.

RUSH: Thank you very much.

CALLER: I’m a former civics teacher. Not only is this an important election for obvious reasons, but it’s also one because this is a full election cycle: President, Congress, Senate, state legislatures. But it only comes every 20 years when it’s associated with a census year. And we need to realize that next year, there gonna be a lot of state legislators that are gonna be redrawing districts. Like here in Georgia, we’re probably gonna pick up a district. New York’s probably gonna lose a district. California hopefully loses five districts. You know, whatever.

RUSH: Right. That’s exactly right.

CALLER: They’re gonna be redrawing those for the next 10 years. So even if people don’t want to vote for a president per se or if they’re in a swing state that —

RUSH: Oh, yeah. This is a good point. This is an excellent, excellent point, folks. Even if you don’t care to render an opinion on Plugs or the Bad Orange Man, there’s a whole bunch of other reasons why you do need to get out there and vote Republican.