Republican lawmakers have been hurling criticisms at President Obama, and now Rush Limbaugh has a new conspiracy theory-style prediction -- that this "lawless" president will simply refuse to leave office when his second term ends in 2017.
Limbaugh first hinted at this idea last month, responding to a report that the Obamas might stay in Washington, D.C. at the end of his second term to allow Sasha to finish high school in the same school. Then Limbaugh suggested that Obama would stay in town to try to stop people from undoing his work, and that the media would treat him like he were still president.
This week, Limbaugh took that prediction to the next level, suggesting that the "lawless" Obama might simply stay in office, too.
"What evidence do we have Obama's leaving?" he asked Tuesday on his radio program. Limbaugh reasons the president's decision to delay parts of the Affordable Care Act is a sign Obama has no regard for law or the Constitution. "The Constitution also says he can't do what he's doing here," Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh also picked up on something Obama said while touring Monticello with the President of France on Monday. While exploring the property, Obama quipped, "That's the good thing. As president, I can do whatever I want."
"People are laughing at it. It's a throwaway line," Limbaugh said on Tuesday's show. "And I agree he may be practicing a little taunting there, but there's always an element of truth, and I guarantee you he looks at the job that way."
"So when you make jokes about Obama having to leave office in 2016, why?" he continued. "If he can willy-nilly change the Constitution."
These comments came as others on the right were ramping up their criticisms of the White House.
On Monday, Florida GOP Rep. Dan Webster compared the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Gestapo. "This is more than just NSA-style, this is more Gestapo-style collection of data on individual citizens who have no clue that this is happening," Webster said.
For Webster, the agency started to help protect the little guy against big banks and fraud is comparable to Hitler's police force.
Fox News pundit Ben Carson made similar Hitler-esque comments in an interview with TeaParty.org published Monday. Carson said administration officials are “acting like Gestapo.”
“I believe we are dealing with an extremely corrupt administration,” he said while talking about a recent audit by the IRS, which Carson insinuated was a reaction to his criticism of the Affordable Care Act at the National Prayer Breakfast in February 2013.
“I’ve always been someone who has been very careful about my finances and the way I take care of my business,” Carson said. “I’ve never undergone this kind of scrutiny before, but then it comes after the prayer breakfast. They’re harassing my family. They’re harassing my colleagues. And they’re not finding anything – so that just makes them dig a little deeper.”
The fiery rhetoric comes as talk of impeaching the president has swirled. Between 2009 and 2012, the number of articles that mentioned both Pres. Obama and impeachment ranged from 76 to 194, according to Lexis-Nexis. In 2013, it shot up to 1035, with support from Repubican Reps. Paul Broun and Steve Stockman.