As we continue to honor the legacy of a giant of the movement, words tend to fail. On this special episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, we're airing a speech from the late, great Rush Limbaugh—a speech that, until now, has never existed publicly outside the walls of Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago. The great Rush Limbaugh, everybody, like no one has heard before on the airwaves—enjoy. Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Hey everybody, diving back into the archives, I found a speech that Rush Limbaugh gave at the Turning Point USA Lifetime Achievement Award dinner at Mar-a-Lago.
It's never been aired publicly before, so you get to enjoy it right here.
Advertiser-free.
Thanks to those of you that support us at charliekirk.com/slash support.
If you enjoy this podcast and you want to help our team of researchers and editors continue to do what they do, go to charliekirk.com/slash support.
Rush Limbaugh, his speech at Mar-a-Lago.
Enjoy.
Here we go.
Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.
I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
I want to thank Charlie.
He's an incredible guy.
His spirit, his love of this country.
He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
That's why we are here.
Thank you all very much.
Thank you.
I very seldom accept awards because I'm never offered any.
It's the plight.
It's the plight of being conservative in the media today, but this is truly, it is truly an honor.
Charlie asked me a number of weeks ago, and it's really close to the Christmas season.
I wasn't sure I was going to be in town tonight, so I couldn't tell him.
And he kept holding it open, kept holding it open.
And I really can't tell you how honored I am to be here and to accept this and to be recognized.
I'm just a guy on the radio.
When I started this 30 years ago, I never envisioned any of this happening.
What I wanted to become was the best radio guy in the country defined by the largest audience.
Radio was my business.
I loved it.
I believe in it.
And I just wanted to be the best at that.
And I had this great opportunity.
I could be me.
I could be honest.
I could talk about whatever I wanted to talk about.
And there was nobody that could tell me I couldn't.
And so all of this happens.
None of it was planned.
None of it was architected.
It just happened.
And the fact that it's been constantly supported by so many millions of people, I can't tell you how gratifying that it is.
And it is still the happiest three hours of my life, that radio show every day, and prepping for it, having the opportunity to tell people what's right, have the opportunity to tell people what's wrong, have the opportunity to stand up for what you believe in in front of 30 million people, have the opportunity to persuade them.
It is a golden opportunity, and I take it seriously, but it's much different today than when I started.
Things evolve, and hopefully you change and you adapt and you stay current with the times.
But when I first started out, I was trying to be funny and irreverent and sarcastic, and I was.
And a couple of things happened early on that taught me something that I was a DJ for 16 years and didn't really succeed at that.
And the time you hit 30 and you're still telling people about Donnie Osmond records.
So I wanted to get into talk radio, spoken word format, where there was no other reason that people would listen to radio but me.
Not the music, not promotions, not contests, not giveaways.
I wanted to find out if I could be the reason people would listen because I always thought I could, but I was never given the opportunity to do it at various radio stations that I worked at.
And it finally all came together for me in Sacramento, California.
I actually replaced a guy that got fired, Morton Downey Jr., because he told a joke about an ethnic member of the city council out there and wouldn't apologize for it.
So I got the job and the best thing in the world that happened, I was doing 9 a.m. to noon, the radio station hired a new morning team, a couple of guys, Dave and Bob were their names.
And in radio, prime time, back then, it isn't anymore because of me.
But back then, prime time was morning drive, 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.
So they go and hire these Dave and Bob characters and they promptly forgot about me.
I was free to do whatever I wanted to do.
Nobody was watching because they were focusing all their energy on the morning show.
And with no supervision, with nobody telling me I can't do this, and my whole career had been, you can't say that.
You can't do this.
You've got to conform.
I got fired once for using the word therefore too many times.
I wish I had time for that story.
I got reprimanded once for calling a female co-anchor dear.
Look, I've been at the forefront of so much of the left's poison in this country.
And I've had to deal with it.
I've been affected by it.
And I've taken it on and I've swatted it away.
I got fired once for playing under my thumb by the Rolling Stones too many times.
I mean, it's radio, but in Sacramento, all of that changed.
And I finally got to do a radio show the way I wanted to do it.
The things that I cared about, the things I thought people would listen to.
And it was basically just sharing my passions.
I love sharing my passions.
I come up with things that are passionate and I want everybody to know about it.
I want everybody to experience it.
I want everybody to agree or at least think about it.
But I also had this side of me that was featuring irreverent and sarcastic humor.
And it succeeded, but it's something that's not found in the media much.
To be credible when you're discussing issues seriously, forcefully, and to also be credible when you're laughing and making jokes and being irreverent, it's a tough thing to do.
And my radio show was really the only place nationally where that happened.
I'll give you an example.
If Ted Coppel during the Nightline days had come out and opened Nightline with a 10-minute joke monologue, you'd just, what the hell is this?
I don't know what this is.
That's not why I'm watching this.
In the same token, if Johnny Carson had come out and spent 10 minutes really seriously telling you about politics, not while you're there, you turn it off, make you nervous.
I combine both, still do.
And that's what leads to the unpredictability.
And it manifests itself still today.
But as the program has gotten longer, it's got older.
I've matured.
I was in my early 30s when this program started and I just celebrated 30 years back in August.
So you get older, you get older, you become more mature.
Hopefully you learn some things, you make mistakes and learn from them.
But the thing that I found out, and even when I first started this and I was dead set on being the most listened to, there were two things that happened that taught me how serious it was.
If you make a successful politician, a successful media person has to make a connection with the audience.
In fact, when I saw the first Trump rally, I knew that he was going to win the election.
There was nobody in American politics, there still isn't, that has that connection with their voters or with their audience.
When Trump came down the elevator, June 15th, June 16th, 2015, everybody remembers what he said.
Everybody's on TV, this is a joke.
He can't possibly be serious.
Mexican murderers and rapists, this is not somebody serious.
He's just promoting a TV show.
And I said, you wait.
You wait.
And then the campaign goes on and the first polling data comes out and Trump is way ahead, not in the lead, but he's way ahead of a whole lot of people, including Jeb.
And people say, this can't be.
This has got to be, there's something wrong.
No, no, no.
I said, you people don't understand.
Are you watching this?
Are you watching the connection Trump has with these people?
His entire rally, it looks like it's improv, but it isn't.
It's structured.
It was perfectly presented.
It had its sections.
Also had a teleprompter, sometimes using it, sometimes not.
But at some point in every one of those rallies, it might have been for 30 seconds, it might have been for two minutes.
But at some point in those rallies, he would thank people seriously and tell them what an honor it was for him that they were there.
That's all it took.
That connection was made.
That bond was built.
The media did not make Donald Trump, and the media, despite their best efforts, cannot destroy him.
When the media, and this is a very important point, when the media makes you, when you're nothing and the media comes along and starts giving you a bunch of buzz and PR and a bunch of hype, you are a prisoner to it.
And you had better keep doing whatever it is they like, which nobody can do because the media loves to build people up and then chop them off and chop them down.
They can't get rid of Donald Trump.
The media can't.
The Democrats can't.
They've thrown every, one of the reasons why we have such partisanship, the Democrat Party has been able to get rid of every Republican they've wanted to.
And it's been fairly easy.
The Republicans ends up quitting.
One simple allegation.
Oh, no, don't say that about Biota.
And they resign, they quit.
Government shut down.
Everybody panics.
Oh, no, we can't do that.
Not today.
Like Kimberly told you, the House passed 5.
I think it's 5.8 million.
I just had a chance to scan it.
And earlier today, it's another great example.
All kinds of people after the meeting at the White House, where the president told the Republicans, I'm not signing this unless there's border security in it.
So they came out of the White House and says, well, the president's very serious about this, border security, but we're not sure if we're going to be able to get the votes.
And a lot of Republicans have gone home.
I see, you guys, who are you kidding?
Nobody's got the guts to vote against this now, not with President Trump leading the way, putting his career and his presidency on the line.
So I'm not surprised that it passed.
Now it goes over to the Senate where the turtle gets a chance to slow walk this thing.
Well, that's my pet nickname for, it's not, by the way, it's just because he looks like Jiminy Cricket.
That's not because he's slow.
It's just, but they don't want to pass it.
This is the thing, folks.
Nobody in that town wants a wall.
Nobody wants border security.
I mean, Trump does and the Republican conservative caucus and that sort of people.
But for the most part, the vast majority of that town doesn't want any part of this.
The Democrats need a permanent underclass.
They need a permanent voter base that cannot speak English and is not going to be taught, that cannot do anything other than menial labor.
They need a never-ending parade of dependent people who can't get by without government or some other kind of assistance.
The greatest success, the threat to the Democrat Party is a mobile, an upwardly mobile middle class.
And so the Republicans have their own reason for wanting open borders and it has to do.
You know, the chief labor and this kind of thing.
But the point is, Donald Trump has this thing.
People on my side, I've had to instruct them about how he does things.
I call it, I call it pacing.
If you remember, remember when the Kavanaugh hears is a great example.
Here comes Christine Ballsey Ford.
You remember Dr. Ford?
She's testifying there.
I'm terrified.
What did this supposedly happen 30 years ago?
And she's still scared to death something's going to come out of the wall and eat her alive.
I still, I, and then, and then he pushed me down.
We all know this is a crock.
We all know what to set up.
Diane Feinstein, who I'm sure Kimberly knows well.
Diane Feinstein set this whole thing up.
What does Trump do?
Trump says, you know, I found her very compelling.
And if we find out that there's anything to this, I'm going to have no problem getting rid of Kavanaugh.
So I had people calling, oh my God, Russia's going to cave.
Oh my God, it's like every other Republican.
They build us up and they can't.
Wait a minute.
This is not what's happening at all.
You've seen this.
Let me remind this.
I call this Trump pacing.
So an issue like this happens, whatever it is.
And the first statement the president makes is to demonstrate open-mindedness, no prejudice, a willingness to listen and comprehend and understand.
But it didn't take, what, five minutes?
And then he unloads on her at one of his rallies.
It shouldn't have surprised anybody that his first statement, well, I found her compelling.
It buys off the media for a while and it gives them, it forces them to acknowledge that Trump is not closed-minded about things and not acting in a prejudicial way.
And it works.
And he's got this down.
He did this today with the wall business.
Let's go back to when this current iteration of this began.
There's this Oval Office meeting.
Trump is in there and Chuck and Nancy.
Chuck and Nancy, you know, like the latest stars of reality TV, Chuck and Nancy.
You know, I went to the George H.W. Bush funeral at the National Cathedral, and I happened to be, I come, I used the restroom.
So I'm in the back of the place at the time Pelosi and her husband walked in.
Oh, it was everything I could do.
And I did.
Madam Speaker-elect, I'm Rush Lindbaugh.
And once those bug eyes pop out, didn't happen, but she was looking around waiting to be noticed.
Notice me, notice me.
Stood about 35 or 40 seconds before finding, trudging off and finding her seat.
So anyway, here, Chuck and Nancy, and the cameras are still there in the Oval Office.
Trump has not kicked the cameras out.
And they're starting to talk about the wall and funding and so forth.
And Nancy hears Trump say, look, I'm going to build the wall.
And if we don't get the wall built, I'm going to shut down the government.
And I'm going to put my name to it, Chuck.
I'll own it.
I'm serious about it.
And Nancy's saying, let's talk about this, Mr. President, after the cameras are gone.
Because the Democrats folks cannot afford to be seen as who they are.
The Democrats, the left, wear a constant mask.
They're constantly camouflaged to deny people learning what they really are, what they really believe.
There was a picture, Chuck of Chuck and Nancy was sitting there and the president is talking to him.
It's a still shot, talking to him very forcibly.
And Chuck is sitting there and he's looking down at his lap.
You remember this picture?
He's looking down at his lap.
You know what the caption in that picture is?
What happened to my manhood?
So they walk, they walk out of there and they think the first thing they do, they go to the cameras and microphones outside the White House and they start spinning their version of what happened.
And they started talking about the president really doesn't know about this.
He's not that experienced.
He doesn't really, he's not sure what he's doing.
We've got it handled.
We're going to take care of it.
And they think, they think Trump is toast when the votes in the Senate and the votes in the House don't have any money for the walls.
And when you hear wall, they border security, because it's what this really is.
And there has to be some.
We can't go on.
We're going to lose America as founded if this is not fixed and solved.
And Donald Trump is the only person willing to even try.
We can't.
We really are.
I said this introducing him in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
Thank God he is willing to put up with this abuse.
You know, there's not a single, there's not a single elected official in that town.
There's not a single member of the FBI leadership.
There isn't a single member at the Rod Rosenstein DOJ.
There isn't a single person that could put up for half a day what Donald Trump gets in a week.
They couldn't tolerate it.
They'd be begging, suing for peace.
They'd be crying.
It's unfair.
I've never seen anything like this.
It's worse than what Richard Nixon got.
And President Trump gets up every day, goes to work, and continues to implement this agenda.
And I'm telling you, we need to be as grateful as we can.
And he needs to know how grateful we are.
Encouragement is so important.
There's a guy in this audience tonight.
His name is Byron Thomas.
And Byron is who introduced me to Charlie Kirk.
And by the way, I don't care where I go.
There's Charlie Kirk.
I was in the restroom at McDonald's.
There's Charlie Kirk.
I'm at the White House at Christmas reception on Monday.
I look up.
There's Charlie Kirk.
Everywhere I go now, there's Charlie.
I'm getting ready to play golf on Saturday morning at the Everglades Club Reddit.
In the front door walks Charlie Kirk.
And he's in there with Byron Thomas.
And Byron introduces us.
And I, and I, is it, is it, by, let me tell you what Byron does, though.
By the way, there's no bigger heart.
There's no more forceful commitment to what we all believe than Byron Thomas.
He lives it.
He raises his kids by it.
He promotes it.
But what he does, every time I see Byron Thomas, he tells me, and don't misunderstand this.
This is not an ego thing.
Byron Thomas starts quoting to me things he's heard me say on the radio.
He starts telling me how important I am.
He starts telling me how great it is.
He starts telling me, don't stop.
He continues every, I mean, every time, once a week, Byron Thomas, Timmy, this is important.
I've been doing this 30 years.
30 years goes by, you know, it's a long time.
You get into routines.
But Byron Thomas treats me like he just discovered me.
I don't mean this to be, I mean, I can't help being funny.
It's a natural thing.
The point is, it's encouraging things I now take for granted that I'm great, that I'm popular.
He reminds me every day that he sees me.
And it's worthwhile encouraging.
I used to do commencement speeches back when conservatives were invited to do them, which is a long time ago.
And when I did my first commencement speech, I was in my early 30s.
And so I got it there, and I'm telling you students, everybody at every other university in the country today, every commencement speaker is looking at the audience like I'm looking at you and saying, you are the future.
Let me tell you something, you're not.
You got to go through me to get where you're going.
The world is not just going to open up and welcome you.
I'm 30 years old there.
Now I'm 67.
Now when I look at people that age, guess what?
They are the future.
And it's important that they be encouraged.
I don't know how many of you here tonight are actual participants in Turning Point.
I know there's a lot of donors and parents here, but boy, it is so important to encourage each other, especially as surrounded as it appears that we are, to have all of the mainstream media aligned against us.
And not just us personally, aligned against what we believe in, aligned and arrayed against our founding.
There is pressure every day on people who are young and who are conservative.
And it is the most powerful pressure you can imagine, peer pressure.
It's mocking, it's laughing at, it's making fun.
And there aren't many people who want to put up with it.
Life shouldn't, nobody is raised wanting to be disliked.
Nobody is raised wanting to be hated.
We all want to be loved.
And because of that, we all change who we are now and then.
We figure out what somebody wants us to be.
We try to be it because we want their approval.
We want their love.
We want to be liked.
We don't even have that chance for the people that we're up against.
They're predisposed to hate us because they are the bigots and they're the people who are prejudiced.
They're the people who have no idea who we really are and that we have to face it.
But the young people today that are part of Turning Point or any other youthful organization that is conservative are under immense pressure.
Look at what's going on at college campuses.
It's absurd, this stupid snowflake stuff where you can't even speak your mind.
You can't even think.
It takes fortitude and it takes guts to stay committed to what you believe and to stay true to the way you've been raised by parents.
And so anytime there is a chance to encourage people, like Byron does to me, I know that sounded funny, but it works.
Encouragement always works.
No matter how much you think somebody already knows about themselves, no matter how much you think people are secure, encouraging them with your kids, it's a little bit different because you can't go overboard doing it.
But outside your family, encouraging people is one of the, especially during these times, because it creates confidence and assuredness.
And believe me, there's no substitute for confidence.
There's no substitute in confidence in who you are, confidence in what you believe.
It is confidence and your heart that allows you to persuade, that allows you to engage people.
It's confidence that says you don't need a teleprompter.
It's confidence that says you don't need notes.
It's confidence and passion.
And there are people trying to shake and destroy this out of all of us, and especially our young people.
And this is one of the things that's so wonderful about Turning Point is that it is allowing for these people who instinctively know right from wrong, they instinctively know our value system and our value base to get together and have it validated from person to person rather than mocked and laughed and made fun of.
And this is making all of these people stronger, these young people, it's making them stronger, it's giving them confidence, and it's happening at the grassroots, which is another thing that's crucially important.
And we have the opportunity to start sneaking up on people with this demographic because it's largely ignored or laughed at and made fun of.
So congrats, Charlie, for what you're doing.
And I hope you continue to have interest in it and your passion in it doesn't wane because there's no substitute for that.
Now, I mentioned earlier that there's some things that I had learned during the course of my program.
And these things, by the way, have helped me to understand the success that President Trump has with his rallies and how they worked.
I used to do miniature versions of them myself when the show was new.
We started with 56 little radio stations.
The audience, all 56 combined, you could put in a thimble.
But it's what we had to start with.
And so when we get a new station, I would go there on a Saturday and do a public appearance, stand it back an hour and a half, and draw large crowds.
And I would do these things that I saw.
One of the reasons I just glommed on, because it brought me back to 1988, 89, 90.
It's exactly what I did.
And I understood it.
I understood the bond under establishing it and building it.
But what I learned is, as time went on, that people believed me.
And I wasn't saying things that weren't true, but there were one thing that happened that really drove this home.
This is in early, late 89, early 90s, and there were constant debates over the defense budget, as there always are.
And I was growing weary of leftists calling me with their stupid philosophy on things.
If you didn't serve, you can't talk about it.
And you didn't serve, you got no right.
Who do you think?
And you know, this is the way to cancel free speech for people.
If you didn't do something, then you can't weigh in about it.
You can't opine.
It was just their way of shutting people up.
One day, I got so fed up with this.
And remember, I had established a reputation as a great satirist with poignant parody.
So I told one clown on the floor, I said, you know what, sir, I want to come clean on something.
Well, look, I never get to see myself on TV.
I told this guy, I said, sir, you know what?
You have a point.
I came from a small town, sir, very prominent family, small town.
My family ran the town.
I told my dad in 1969, Dad, I don't want to go to Vietnam.
I have no desire.
Fine, son.
And he went down to the draft board and he wrote him a $3,000 check and I got a four-if.
I'm saying this on the air.
The last thing I said on that, see, some of you even think it's true.
This is what I'm trying to, you're what?
God, did he really?
No, I was being, I was, I was, I was being satirical and cynical with this guy because I'd been fed up with it.
And it was the last of the last words I spoke that day on the radio.
So I finished the show and I'm thinking, man, this is great.
People are going to think that was just brilliant.
I got home and the phone rings and it's my dad and I got a string of profanity like I had never heard from.
What the hell did you do?
Because everybody, he said, son, they believe you.
They trust you.
Other members of the family had a council meeting, whether or not to publicly throw me overboard.
It was a big controversy at the time.
I had to fix it the next time I was on the air.
But that was one of the first lessons in how if you have a bond with people, if you have credibility, people will believe it.
And by the way, it wasn't just critics, leftists, and so on.
People in the audience believed it and it gave me a real problem.
I mean, it was something that had to be corrected again with credibility.
It was another example.
This is a little bit more fun.
A news story came across the wire.
There were still wires in these days, that an Ohio minister had discovered a satanic message in the Mr. Ed TV show theme song.
And media reported this, and they said, when the minister played the song backwards is when he heard the satanic message.
Now, I could have dealt with that as I just did with you here and just say it like that, but I have always had a working philosophy, demonstrate absurdity, illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
So at the time this was happening, the left had this thing called a great peace march.
They were marching from California to Washington.
When they got to Washington, they were going to simulate what happens when a nuclear bomb goes on.
They're going to do a die-in.
And so we were tracking them, and I had an update theme for, as they were making their trek across the country, Slim Whitman's Una Paloma Blanca, the song I was using.
So I decided that I would discover a satanic message in Slim Whitman's Una Paloma Blanca.
Now, this little bit went on for a full week.
I'm not going to take a week to tell you about it.
I went into the production room and we put the record on tape, reel-to-reel tape.
That's the only way there's no turntable, please, backwards.
You can't do that.
So we got it playing backwards.
And I had a guy turn on a voice analyzer synthesizer.
And I recorded a track that played in this song.
Only you could hear it playing backwards, put it in there two times.
I went on the radio the next day, said, ladies and gentlemen, I don't know if I can continue today.
I have made a discovery, thanks to this minister in Ohio.
I have discovered that I may be being used as a tool by the devil.
And I'm devastated by what I've learned.
And I don't know if I can continue.
If I have been possessed by the devil, I don't know that I can sit here and continue to do this show.
So naturally, the audience, what did you do?
What are you talking?
I'm not going to tell you.
It's so horrible.
I can't.
It's bad enough that I learned.
You have been exposed to it.
You don't know it, but I have found out about it.
I can't continue to do this knowing that you could likewise become poisoned by this.
No, what did you do?
I'm just reeling them in, folks.
Reeling them in.
So, three days of this goes by, and I finally act like, okay, I'm now under pressure from station management to let you know what I have discovered.
I have said that I will do this under protest.
I do not want to subject you to this.
I have no desire, but I'm being forced to do it.
I discovered because of this Ohio minister that when I played Slim Whitman's Una Paloma Blama blocka song backwards, there is a satanic message in it too.
The devil is everywhere.
So I'm having so much fun with it.
So I give big countdown.
Here it comes, getting ready to do this.
And I start the song playing.
Now, I don't know if you've heard Una Paloma Blanca.
Slim Whitman yodels.
And to hear this song backwards is hilarious in and of itself.
But play it backwards.
And the message that I recorded through the synthesizer was very simple.
Be azumba.
Yes, it's me, the old devil himself, lurking right here in the Slim Whitman record grooves.
Tell me, where'd you get a turntable that plays backwards like this?
Well, I got to be going way down the line.
If you know what I mean, I'll be chatting with you.
And it played it a couple more times.
And when it was over, I told the audience, this is why I don't think I can continue.
Now, I'm thinking while the song is playing and I'm executing what I think is the finale of the bit, I'm thinking they're thinking this is the smartest.
This is the greatest thing you've ever heard.
Johnny Carson's going to call.
Want me to be on the tonight show?
This is stunning.
This was so creative.
And it's not what happened.
People were calling the switchboard of the radio station asking if they should burn their Slim Whitman record.
Folks, they believed it.
I'm not, they believed it.
I'm sitting there.
I'm stunned because now I've got a problem.
They believed it.
And the station has a problem with me.
What are you going to do?
I said, no, we can milk this in another way.
And it played out for another week.
And one funny call, you know, a guy calls it, I don't think this is it.
You're making all this up.
You know, there ain't no way you can do this.
I have that record.
I have a record.
Now, my turntable don't play backwards, but I put it on there and I've been spinning it, but it ain't no satanic messages.
I had to think fast.
I said, sir, does your turntable have disgronificator circuitry?
What?
I said, yes, disgronificator.
So if it wasn't, this is a special circuitry that only received, it splits the highs out, splits the lows out, and boosts the mid-range, which is where satanic messages lurk.
I don't think I don't.
So the point of all this is, is that here I think that I am impressing everybody with my creative ability, but a lot of people, not a lot of people got it too, don't miss it, but a lot of people believed it.
And since these two things happened, I've had a, and it's a long time ago, but I do not monkey around now with things that I passionately believe in my heart.
I still try to have humor, you know, mocking and making fun of the left, but I too benefit from this connection with my, and my audience is now approaching 27 million people over the course of a week, 27 million unique people.
It's humongous.
And I do not toy with them in this way.
I don't, you know, I was 30 years, 35 years old then.
I'm 67 today.
So I'm not, my humor has different expressions anyway, but you grow older and you grow more mature.
But the idea that people are listening closely and have this bond, and believe what I say, is something that I give service to each and every day.
And I have, folks, I have to tell you, it is the greatest blessing that I have ever had is to have the opportunity I do each and every day.
I have yet to take it for granted.
If you would have told me 30 years ago when I'm just starting this, if you would have told me then that everything that's happened was going to happen and that I hit 65, I would have said to you, well, by now, maybe I'll be doing three days a week, slowly fading away.
Just exact opposite.
I am probably working harder in terms of more hours than I ever have.
You know why?
Because it used to be I could prepare a three-hour radio show with five newspapers.
Then the internet comes along and it's not possible.
There is so much to learn.
There's so much to learn and remember, so much that you have to be able to have an instant recall.
There's so much more competition.
When I started my show, I was it.
You had the back in, this is, it seems strange even to think about, 1988, three networks, the Washington Post, New York Times, that was it.
CNN was only just starting and they were the only cable news network and they were nowhere near like they are today.
It was a genuine news network.
I mean, they had their leftist slants.
It was nothing like it is today.
And then my radio show starts and it's it.
And contrary to the media said, my audience, which are mind numb robots that don't know anything, and they follow whatever I say, it's not that at all.
There were people who thought like me, they just never had anywhere in the media to validate it.
So anyway, the show picks up and other radio stations started doing their own talk shows and Fox News starts in 1997.
And now look what we have.
We have this burgeoning new media and thank God for it.
Think where we would be if there was no way to respond to the New York Times, Washington Post, or CNN.
It's frightening, but it's also led to the fact that there's just far more competition than there's ever been.
So I spend more waking hours today doing what I call prep.
It's not really prep.
It's just absorbing.
It's just learning.
And I've benefited greatly from the fact that I haven't grown tired of it.
I have not reached a flat line.
I still am as energized by this, maybe more so today than I've ever been.
And it's that way every day.
And you know why?
It's because of the expectations of the audience.
I know what they are.
They expect way up here every day.
And I feel compelled.
I can't, a number of days I go home thinking that I have blown it.
I feel bad.
I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get to.
It was great.
I didn't get to it.
I'm the only one that knows it, but I still think that I let everybody down.
I will, if I make a mistake, if I do something not as well as I could think I could have done it, I'll take it home with me.
But the saving grace is there's always tomorrow.
I can go in tomorrow and fix it.
I can go in tomorrow and apologize or do whatever I want to make it work.
And that opportunity is something that I'm blessed and I never take it for granted.
I look forward to it each and every day.
And I wish everybody could experience.
I've met people I would have never otherwise met.
I've had the opportunity.
Charlie Kirk in the White House.
I mean, who is going to see Charlie Kirk in the White House?
That's a special moment for that to happen.
And you know what else about that?
Charlie, When I had to go, he said, Yeah, which way are you going out?
I said, Well, I came in the West.
I'll take care of it.
He calls some guy named Avi.
He said, Avi, come get Rush.
Rush needs to leave.
Five minutes, Avi's there.
Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
He just doesn't have the ego to tell you that.
Anyway, Charlie, thank you very much.
I'm sorry to be long-winded here, but I...
I really, folks, thank you so much for everything.
It's a Christmas season.
I get very sentimental at Christmas, more so than Thanks for giving.
You've meant so much to me.
You've made my life so meaningful.
I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Thank you very much.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Get involved with Turning Point USA, TPUSA.com, and support us if you can at charliekirk.com slash support.