But then, the “Access Hollywood” smear dropped. And Rush told listeners that he did something he hadn’t done up to that point — he reached out to the campaign:

….[T]he only thing that scared me about the Access Hollywood video bit was that the campaign people around Trump would have him deal with it the wrong way….Whatever I had to say or think about the campaign, I said it here. But I knew who the people were and knew how to reach ’em. So I fired off emails.

I said, ‘Whatever you do, do not apologize for this! Whatever you do, do not express regret for this at all — and I’ll tell you why. This is an October Surprise.

[…]

I said, ‘If you people in the Trump camp, if you hang tough, this is not gonna hurt you. You can win this thing. You can triumph over this thing.’ I firmly believed it. I really believed the American people are fed up with these October Surprises. They’re fed up with this stuff.”

He warned Trump’s advisors that the only thing that could break the “bond” their candidate had with his supporter was one thing: Trump himself.

“The media couldn’t do it. The Democrats couldn’t do it. We’ve been there, done that. I’ve said all this countless times. And I said, ‘This is not going to constitute breaking the bond, as long as he doesn’t go all wishy-washy and apologize.’ And he didn’t.”

Rush added that three members of the campaign responded to his missives, and thanked him for his sage advice. We should all be grateful that he had the insight to give it, too.