This "Best of Hannity" episode reflects on the life and times of Rush Limbaugh from some of the people who knew him best!The Sean Hannity Show is on weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on iHeartRadio and Hannity.com. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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All right, thanks, Scott Shannon, and thanks to all of you.
Thanks for being with us 800-941.
Sean, if you want to be a part of this program, Scott Shannon sent me a couple of notes speaking of him, the great broadcasting genius that he is, talking about the saddest news of the day, the loss of our dear friend, you know, as our friend Jim Gray said, greatest of all time, Rush Limbaugh, losing his battle with cancer.
And, you know, here's a guy, Scott Shannon, and he loves radio.
He's such a good guy.
He, to this day, just an amazing voice himself and creating Morning Zoo radio, taking things to another level.
And he actually just said something so deep and so profound that it just struck me.
Not only did he say it's a sad day for America, he says he changed everything in so many different ways.
We have a lot to talk about as it relates to Rush.
I have my own side of things.
I've been close with his family.
And let me start by saying I know that his wife, Catherine, was the love of his life.
She gave an incredible tribute to him.
And I'm going to play it at the start of Russia's show today.
I know Russia's family.
I haven't had a contract in radio and TV that wasn't done by a good friend of this program, David Limbaugh.
I know how devastated his whole family is today and his beautiful wife, Lisa, and their wonderful kids.
I know that Rush's team, James Golden, Bo Snurdly, as Rush called him, Kathleen Cookie, as Rush called him, Mike Maimone.
It's just a loss.
It's a very deep, profound, irreplaceable icon, broadcasting icon.
He, you know, my friend Neil Bortz always said he was the Babe Ruth of our industry.
And he's right.
But I add to it a little bit.
Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrick, Hank Aaron, and Derek Jeter of our industry.
And he had, he transformed radio.
And I'll go through this story as the program goes through this afternoon.
And he transformed, single-handedly saved AM radio, single-handedly.
Then he went on to save FM radio as broadcasting and podcasting and new media came on the scene.
And no one else would have ever been capable of doing any of this.
All of us that are broadcasters in talk radio, and I would even argue, Rush Limbaugh paved the way for Fox News and even these liberal networks that give strong opinion.
There's no talk radio as we know it, but for him, single-handedly, paving the way, taking the slings and the arrows and every shot, and it made it easier for every single one of us that followed after him.
And just nobody could match it.
And we're all blessed because of it.
It was very simple in some ways, deep and profound in so many others.
The simple is God, faith, family, country.
And for, what, almost 33 years now, since 1988, that has been Rush Limbaugh.
We're going to play President Trump.
He had comments on this earlier today.
The great one, Mark Levin, also close friends with the family and with Rush.
And I just want all of Rush's family to know his wife, Catherine.
I want James Golden.
I want Cookie, Kathleen, and her husband, and all these wonderful Mike Mamon.
I can't mention everybody, Dawn and the whole team over there.
You know, that we love you all.
You're all in our prayers today.
We know you're all suffering.
I'll say this before I play Catherine's statement.
I've seen too much cancer in my life.
Both my parents died from it.
Well, my mom, not so much, but she had stage four breast cancer at one point in her life, double mastectomy, chemotherapy, lost her hair, radiation.
She survived that, but never really fully recovered enough and died pretty young.
And my dad, too, pancreatic cancer.
And I know many people.
My family was in medicine, a lot of my family, my sisters, nurses, et cetera.
So I knew more than I wanted to know.
And they half kill you, although treatments are getting better.
By the way, leukemia is now almost always curable.
And Rush helped raise a ton of money for the Leukemia Society, millions and millions, and donated millions and millions himself.
And the thing that I would want more, if you take only one thing away besides his love of God, family, and this country, and his deep faith, and he had a deep faith.
I know that for a fact.
If you take one thing away is, okay, you pretty much given about a year ago, you maybe have six months to live.
We'll try and make it so you can live as long as possible.
Okay, most of you, I'm sure, have seen the movie The Bucket List, Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson.
It's a great movie.
I don't know how many people have a bucket list.
I don't really have a bucket list.
But Rush's bucket list, his choice was to get through this next treatment, hope for the best, but get back on the air.
Because he wanted to be with all of us.
He wanted to be with all of you and all of the people that listened to him.
And that was his great passion.
That was his great love.
You were his great love on top of his family and his wonderful wife and family.
That was all of you.
His wife Catherine, you know, when he gave the announcement saying that I want to play this part first, that he now understood how Lou Gehrig felt at one point.
It's an amazing comment from somebody.
You know, Lou Gehrig said in his speech, many tell me I got a tough break.
No, I feel like the luckiest man in the world.
It's what Rush said.
The day that Lou Gehrig announced that he had his disease that was forcing him to retire from Major League Baseball, he said to the sold-out Yankee Stadium, today I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
And I didn't understand that.
I mean, here's a guy who had just been diagnosed with the most terminal of terminal diseases.
And I said, this can't be real.
You can't really think he's the luckiest guy in the world.
This is just something that he's saying because it will play well.
I don't mean to be insulting Lou Gehrig.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm just thinking that how in the world, if you're being honest, can you feel like you're the luckiest man on the face of the earth?
Well, when I got my diagnosis and when I began to receive all of the outpouring of love and affection from everywhere in my life,
from so many of you in so many ways and from my family who, man, they have supported me my entire career, even during times it would have been understandable and easy for them to say, Rush, who?
We don't know this guy.
But that never happened.
I mean, I've been totally supported by virtually everybody in my family.
I've been propped up.
I have been defended.
I've been made to look better than I am.
My lovely wife, Catherine, has done so much in that regard.
She has done so much with rushlimbaugh.com and with the charitable efforts that we have engaged in.
And all of it has been to my benefit.
All of it has been for the and yours.
It's the benefit of people who are the recipients of our efforts.
So many people have put me first in all of this.
And I understand now what Lou Gehrig meant.
Because I certainly feel like that.
I feel extremely fortunate and lucky.
Rush wanted to be with all of you.
Here's the love of his life, Catherine, making the announcement at the start of her show today.
Hello, everyone.
I know that I am most certainly not the limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today.
I, like you, very much wish Rush was behind this golden microphone right now, welcoming you to another exceptional three hours of broadcasting.
For over 32 years, Rush has cherished you, his loyal audience, and always looked forward to every single show.
It is with profound sadness I must share with you directly that our beloved Rush, my wonderful husband, passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer.
As so many of you know, losing a loved one is terribly difficult, even more so when that loved one is larger than life.
Rush will forever be the greatest of all time.
Rush was an extraordinary man, a gentle giant, brilliant, quick-witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous, and the hardest working person I know.
Despite being one of the most recognized, powerful people in the world, Rush never let the success change his core or beliefs.
He was polite and respectful to everyone he met.
Even most recently, when he was not feeling well in the hospital, he was so appreciative to every single doctor and nurse and custodian and first responder.
He never wanted to put anyone out and always thanked them profusely for their help.
From today on, there will be a tremendous void in our lives and of course on the radio.
Rush loved our miraculous country beyond measure, an unwavering patriot.
He loved our United States military, our flag, our Constitution, our founding fathers.
He proudly fought and defended conservative values in a way that no one else can.
Rush often stood up and took arrows on his own because he knew it was the right thing to do.
Rush encouraged so many of us to think for ourselves, to learn, and to lead.
He often said it did not matter where you started or what you look like.
As Americans, we all have endless opportunities like nowhere else in the world.
Rush gave us hope that through hard work and determination, we can overcome the obstacles in our lives and be our best.
Many of you started small businesses or pursued personal dreams because Rush gave you the faith that you could.
He made the most complex issues simple to understand while making that level of genius look easy.
It most certainly was anything but easy.
Irreplaceable, remarkable talent.
On behalf of the Limbaugh family, I would personally like to thank each and every one of you who prayed for Rush and inspired him to keep going.
You rallied around Rush and lifted him up when he needed you the most.
I am certain, without a shadow of a doubt, if he could be here today, he would be.
He loved you and he loved this radio program with every part of his being.
Instead, we know our Rush is in heaven, encouraging us in the same way he always did on earth.
Russia's love for our country and belief that our best days are ahead live on eternally.
In Russia's honor, may we all continue Russia's mission in our individual lives and communities.
I know all of you listening are terribly sad.
We all are.
I'm terribly sorry to have to deliver this news to you.
God bless you, Rush, and God bless our country.
Sean Hannity.
Hey there, I'm Mary Katherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So download Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Many of you have a lot to say.
Well, we're going to definitely put some time away for a lot of your calls today in the sad, it's a tragedy.
Irreplaceable.
The loss of Rush Limbaugh announced on his program earlier today.
You know, how do you put into words one guy that literally there would be no talk radio as we know it not if not for Rush?
When he started his syndication, they said it couldn't be done in the daytime.
There were less than 200 talk radio stations.
Now there's thousands.
He ended up literally saving AM radio and then later FM radio.
He's also defined conservatism in a way that Kayleigh McInnady tweeted out: you know, I'm a Rush baby, she's younger.
But listening to Rush had an impact that motivated her to get into the field of politics and fight for the beliefs we all have.
We've got a lot to say on the other side.
The president on Rush, Mark Levin on Rush, all coming up.
More of the best of The Sean Hannity Show coming up.
You are listening to the best of The Sean Hannity Show.
When fake news gives you lies, Hannity supplies the truth.
Sean Hannity is on right now.
Glad you're with us, Sean Hannity Show, our toll-free number 800941 Sean.
You want to be a part of this extravaganza.
Joining us now, I've been saying this for a long time.
In my lifetime, three real huge waves of conservatism.
And you might give, might say the Tea Party was certainly in there as well, but it was Reagan.
It was Newt Gingrich in the contract with America.
It was Donald Trump.
What are the similarities?
Well, it was taking on the establishment.
Remember, the establishment hated Ronald Reagan.
Remember the term amiable dunce?
Yeah, that was the Republican establishment types.
So we've always struggled with them.
The first time in 40 years, by ideas and promises that were made and kept, the contract with America, and it was based on ideas and a whole series of videotapes that were created by Newt Gingrich, Renewing American Civilization, and also Donald Trump.
I've been saying this now for two weeks, and I'm not going to stop because I want everybody to know how simple this really is.
What we believe is conservatives is not complicated.
Liberty and freedom is the foundation of all of it on our Constitution.
Then we talk about lower taxes, less bureaucracy.
Nobody cut the bureaucracy more than Donald Trump so businesses can thrive, compete, and flourish, and jobs created, high-paying career jobs like the ones that are being wiped out by Joe Biden.
We want law and order, safety, security in every town and city, school choice, so every kid can get a good education.
We want secure borders.
We want energy independence.
We want health care solutions that bring in the free market, either health savings accounts, healthcare cooperatives.
There's great options that Republicans weren't ready for as they had show votes to repeal and replace Obamacare.
We believe in our Second Amendment, First Amendment.
We want free and fair trade and peace through strength.
It's not that complicated.
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, is with us.
You said last night, and I want you to expand on this if you can.
Great to have you back.
You said last night that if Rush Limbaugh weren't on the air, you're not sure you would have taken control of the House of Representatives in 94.
He was that powerful a force.
I think that's indisputable.
I think the rise of Rush from 1988 to 1994 was so astonishing.
He had so much energy.
He was so different.
You know, he really was, in a sense, the icebreaker who cleared a trail for you and virtually every conservative radio dog post in the country.
And he was really, in some ways, at his first peak in 93-94.
We would travel with him.
He would come and do events.
He talked very positively about what we were doing and how much he supported us.
And he, in a way, the House of Republicans had been this defeated, passive, almost intimidated minority for 40 years.
And Rush helped us get back a sense of pride, first of all, a sense that we could do it.
And you had him on every day, 20-plus million people.
I always try to remind people that Rush's impact was not his audience.
Rush's impact was all the people his audience talked to.
So people would listen to Rush, go to work, and say, hey, did you hear Rush say X or did you hear Rush say what?
And my guess is something like 60 or 70 million people were influenced by Rush in that period.
And I absolutely do not think we could have won the majority without his presence, his energy, and also just his extraordinarily smart understanding of language and of how conservatives could make the case.
He really taught a generation standing on Reagan's shoulders.
And it's no accident that Reagan wrote him after Reagan had left office.
You know, you're now the dominant explanation of conservatism in America.
And I think Reagan had great faith in Russia, a real sense that Rush was fully part of the Reagan revolution.
You know, I think back to my time with you when I first met you in that holiday inn in 1990 in Decatur, Alabama, and you were given a speech.
And we didn't have remote capabilities, technologically speaking, like we do today.
I mean, it was a complicated, what's called a Marty system firing back a signal.
We were, you know, it's basically like two Dixie cups on a string, but we managed to get it on the air.
And then my move to Atlanta, and you always made time to do local radio.
I was a local radio host in a small market in Huntsville, in a bigger market in Atlanta.
And even the day after you became speaker, I walked into this room and we didn't have the presence of cable like we have today.
And it was, you know, ABC and NBC and CBS.
And, you know, some young whippersnapper walks in and I said, hey, Mr. Speaker.
And you turn and you say, hey, what's going on?
You know, you're being nice.
I was emceeing the event the night you became speaker.
And I said, would you mind doing my radio show tomorrow?
And everybody's looking.
The whole, it was like E.F. Hutton speaking.
And, you know, who is this guy, right?
And you say, of course, I'll do it.
And you came on my show the next day.
When you stopped doing for a period early on in your speakership, you know, I said, would you mind?
I have a chance to host a show on CNBC.
Roger Ells had given me the opportunity.
He said, I'll give you the full hour.
And you understood this medium.
You understood before anybody else.
And you wouldn't believe how many senators and congressmen say no to coming on the shows.
And I'm like, why are you even there if you don't want to speak out?
You know, it's interesting, two things.
Jeff Wansley, who had been my staff guy on that particular trip, wrote me this morning.
I had seen us together last night and reminded me that he said, after you left, I turned to him and I said, you know, that guy's going to go somewhere.
I don't remember that.
Boy, you saw something I didn't see myself.
I'll show you that.
I still think, you know, I just haven't been caught yet that somebody's going to realize he doesn't belong here.
No, I'm going to send you Jeff's email because it's a very nice, cute email.
But the other thing, I don't know if you know this, I did my first talk radio stint in the summer of 1960.
Wow.
Wow.
And on WHP in Harrisburg, there was a guy there who had done a local talk show for years and years.
And I'd gone back home since my family was originally from Harrisburg.
And he said, well, why don't you go on down and we'll talk politics?
And so there I was between my junior and senior years in high school doing talk radio.
So I've had a long belief that you reach an amazing number of people.
And I think part of what most guys don't get is, you know, they'll go, and this was one of Trump's great advantages in 2015 and 16.
You know, these guys will go out and they'll raise all this money to put paid commercials on, which are less believed than the actual person in terms of authenticity.
Meanwhile, you could go on a talk show, whether yours or any of the many others that now exist.
You're reaching a huge audience.
You sound authentic.
It didn't cost you a penny.
And these guys just don't, they don't get it.
The same thing was true with C-SPAN when it came on.
I understood instantly that C-SPAN was the House Republicans' method of reaching beyond the areas the Democrats controlled.
And my colleagues would all look at me like, I was nuts.
Why are you going over there and talking to an empty room?
And I'd say to him, you know, there's a quarter million people watching C-SPAN at any given minute.
How far would you travel to speak to 250,000 people?
Well, I travel one building.
And they couldn't get it.
It's still sadly still true.
And Republicans just don't understand the power of the media.
It's mind-numbing to me.
It really is because you're right.
It's an opportunity.
And people want to hear from politicians.
This is where, if you stand up for the people and those simple principles, and you can expand on my list of things, but that is, to me, if you break it down in all its simplicity, what conservatives stand for, that's it.
And we've allowed the left to demonize us and create this false narrative, the playbook, two years, every four years, Republicans are racist, sexists, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.
They want dirty air and water and want to kill grandma.
That's their narrative.
But they're really now the party of elites, coastal elites at this point, aren't they?
They really are.
And you see this over and over again.
A couple of things I'm going to be doing at Gingrich 360.
One is the Oregon Department of Education has now issued mathematics guidelines saying that you shouldn't actually use numbers in mathematics because it's a sign of white supremacy.
And you shouldn't require people to learn the two plus two equals four because that's an imperialistic concept.
And I want to write a piece saying we ought to defund the Oregon Department of Education because it's insane.
The other is there's this proposed pledge to the Navy that is crazy, that would have every person in the Navy pledging to understand in some complex language that nobody understands.
And it's all these left-wing people who are out there, the sort of woke elite, who want to impose on the rest of us their vision of reality.
And I think it's extraordinarily dangerous.
And I think the Biden administration, in that sense, is rapidly on the way to being the most dangerous administration in American history.
Well, I don't doubt that at all.
And I think you're right on so many different fronts.
You know, the void that Rush leaves, he's irreplaceable.
And you know, and you are very close friends with him, and you know, as well as anybody.
And when people are asking me, first, I can't imagine life, any major political moment, and not having his voice.
That's like, I can't even imagine it.
And when people ask me, well, what does that mean?
It means that we got to up our game because we just lost our best player.
That's the answer.
Everyone has to up their game.
And I mean that.
The whole team, the whole team has to pull together.
And frankly, I urge everybody to focus on 2022.
Don't get sucked into the news media desire to have us fight a Republican Civil War.
Let's focus on winning the House, winning back the Senate, and on creating and talking through a new generation of solutions based on exactly the list that you laid out, which I think is a very solid list and is at the heart of modern American conservatism.
I think Rush would have endorsed it.
He would want us to take the mantle of the fight, the passion.
And I said yesterday, his bucket, we now know what his bucket list consisted of.
Staying on the air, going through hell, these treatments, and not going on a trip, not climbing Mount Everest or going to Hawaii.
It was to be with his audience.
It's an amazing statement.
By the way, we should take just a minute to remind everybody that Senator Bob Dole has now announced that he also has stage four cancer.
And our prayers should go out for Bob.
I literally just heard this.
Yes.
Sad.
I agree.
Listen, the cancer, the treatments, it's brutal.
It's hell.
We'll take a break.
More with Newt Kingrich on the other side.
We'll get to your calls.
Our friend Jeff Lord checks in as well.
He stands up for what he believes in and what you believe in.
Follow Hannity as he fights the left who are trying to extinguish conservative voices.
There, I'm Mary Katherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So download Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
As we continue, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is with us on this battle with McConnell and Donald Trump.
Now, Republican voters, just in the new poll, rank Trump as the best president in history.
Okay, Ron Johnson, Rip McConnell saying, you don't speak for this conference, the majority of this conference in any way.
McConnell's favorability now is sinking underwater and a free-for-all, you know, down 15 points.
And Senate Majority Leader Schumer's got, well, he fares better than McConnell.
I mean, that speaks volumes.
And President Trump warning, you cannot spend weeks, you know, going on to say that if people follow Mitch, they're going to lose the election.
And that's it.
And Mitch McConnell, you know, I guess thought, well, we can purge the party of Trump, but Republicans are picking Trump by 90% to 10.
So what's Mitch McConnell's game here?
Well, look, I think that he's, they're going to have to have a meeting.
As you know, they meet every Tuesday for lunch.
They're going to have to have a meeting to just talk this thing out.
I initially thought it was going to be a fight, and it can't be a fight.
I mean, you know, in this world, among Republicans, Trump is an elephant.
McConnell is a chipmunk.
Chipmunks can't beat elephants.
It doesn't happen.
And I think, well, I think it's important to understand that the Washington base of the Republican Party, the pre-Trump Republicans who believed in a certain style, a certain approach, et cetera, they are such a tiny minority now of the party that the most they can do is maximize a fight, which guarantees the reelection of Joe Biden.
I think we'll put this down as a as new highlight real classic chipmunks can't beat elephants.
Mr. Speaker, thank you for being with us.
You're the best.
800-94-1 Sean.
Jeff Lord, your call's coming up straight ahead.
When we come back, more of the best of the Sean Hannity Show.
Stay tuned.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hammond.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So download Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
The best of Sean Hannity is on now.
Well we're coming to your city.
Gonna play our guitars and sing you a contra song.
We'll all be as I am higher than the jail I know.
And if you want a little bang in your yin yang, come along.
The Senate judges that the respondent Donald John Trump, former President of the United States, is not guilty as charged in the Article of Impeachment.
But what we saw in that Senate today was a cowardly group of Republicans who apparently have no options because they were afraid to defend their job, respect the institution in which they served.
Freedom is back in style.
Welcome to the revolution.
We're coming to your city.
Going to play our guitars and saying you a conscious song.
Sean Hennedy, the new Sean Hannity show.
The scene's information on breaking news and more bold, inspired solutions for America.
News Roundup and Information Overload.
All right, News Roundup and Information Overload Hour.
Thank you, Scott Shannon.
Scott Shannon writing me earlier today.
You know, we had talked about Rush so many times, Scott and I. Scott is just, you know, he wrote me, it's just a sad day for America, he wrote me.
He goes, he changed everything in so many different ways.
And that's how we're going to spend this half hour in this special tribute that all my team has put together to Rush.
In the final half hour, we'll get to your calls.
We'll have a full show tonight.
Rush will honor Rush.
The president will be calling in former President Trump or President in Exile, Donald Trump, Mark Levin, and others.
But here's our tribute to Rush.
The day that Lou Gehrig announced that he had his disease that was forcing him to retire from Major League Baseball, he said to the sold-out Yankee Stadium, today I feel like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
And I didn't understand that.
I mean, here's a guy who had just been diagnosed with the most terminal of terminal diseases.
And I said, this can't be real.
You can't really think he's the luckiest guy in the world.
This is just something that he's saying.
So many people have put me first in all of this.
And I understand now what Lou Gehrig meant.
Because I certainly feel like that.
I feel extremely fortunate and lucky.
They said, well, what are you best at?
And I said, probably being on the radio.
Well, there's your answer.
Do what you're best at, and you'll at least be happy regardless of how well you do it.
So I decided to give radio one more chance.
I'm sure you've all felt like you weren't going to ever amount to anything, even though you knew you were capable of it.
I felt that way.
The only difference between you and me is that I'm up here and you're out there.
And the only reason I'm up here is because you're out there.
You have rejuvenated my life and you have made me something I never even thought I could be.
And I have just one thing to say to you.
A sincere and heartfelt thank you.
What if Hillary had won in 2016?
Stop and think of that.
There wouldn't be a roaring economy.
There wouldn't have been any tax cuts.
There wouldn't have been any rollback of regulations.
There wouldn't have been any squaring of the deal with NATO.
There wouldn't have been any redone trade deals.
The Obama administration told American people, get used to it.
There's a new American economy and it's flatline or in decline.
America's past.
We didn't really deserve that.
America was founded by a white patriarchy, set itself up for itself.
People discriminated against, but those days are over.
So now the days behind us, we didn't deserve those anyway.
We don't deserve to be a superpower.
So we had a flatline economy.
We were told, Obama's out there in Indiana telling these people their jobs are never coming back.
And somebody in the audience, Mr. Trump says he can bring them.
And Obama says, what's he going to do?
Wave a magic wand.
Look what happened.
We got the jobs back.
It can be done.
They don't even want to make America great.
They resent the whole idea of America becoming great.
They resent the idea of America as a superpower running the world for good.
We're the good guys.
I don't think so.
Rush, I just wanted to congratulate you on 30 years.
This is your favorite president, and I think you are fantastic.
And I heard about it, and today is the big day.
30 years I wanted to call personally and congratulate you.
I am floored.
I thought there was nothing anybody could do to surprise me today.
I've been preparing for anything.
Mr. President.
You're a very special man, Rush, and you have people that love you.
I'm one of them.
But you're a very, very special guy.
What you do for this country, people have no idea how important your voice is.
So I just wanted to personally make this one.
And I said, I'll even dial the number myself if I have to.
But I just want to congratulate you.
30 years in that tough business is incredible.
And you're stronger now than ever before.
Well, I thank you so much.
It's such a thrill to hear from you.
You know, people don't realize what a great achievement 30 years is and that cutthroat business that you happen to be in.
You know, you might not find that because you're so good at what you do, but that is a cutthroat business.
And for you to do this for 30 years is truly an amazing accomplishment.
And there's no voice like it.
And even your friend Hannity agrees with that.
He said, there's nobody like this man.
So I said, oh, gee, I guess I thought you two would be competitive.
He said, nope, he's the dean.
No way.
I called you the dean.
No way.
It was a guest host.
He guest hosted for me when we first started.
No, he's great.
And he's a big, he's a tremendous fan of yours.
They all are.
Everybody is.
So I just want to congratulate you.
30 years of, and just do it for another 30 years.
After that, you can take it easy, okay?
I will do that.
Just stay around as long as you do.
Okay, you have a deal.
30 years ago today, Americans had few options for political commentary.
The news of the day, journalism was decidedly one-sided.
Network news, along with the print media, they were the kings of all information in America.
That all changed 30 years ago, this day, 1988.
It changed forever.
A man from a small town called Cape Gerardo, Missouri, kicked off a brand new national radio program.
It gave a voice to the millions of conservatives in this country that have been ignored, impugned, their values diminished for so long.
In doing so, he started what would now become a new media revolution in this country, one that radically would permanently alter the media landscape in America.
And by the way, pave the way for people like me, the great one Mark Levin, Laura Ingram, and so many others.
Well, tonight we're celebrating 30 years of the Rush Limbaugh Show, the pioneer of conservative talk radio.
That's tonight's mini monologue.
30 years ago today, August 1st, 1988, the Rush Limbaugh Show kicked off nationally on 56 radio stations around the country.
The show was radically different from anything else on the airwaves at the time.
Now, for decades, all Americans, look, we were force-fed.
We got our information, commentary, news from the decidedly one-sided, left-wing-leaning, traditional mainstream media.
But with a very clear, funny, fun, refreshing, informative, conservative perspective, while Rush filled what was a desperately needed void in the country, and he gave voice to millions of us.
Now, Rush has syndicated nationally on more than 600 of America's best radio stations, heard by more than 27 million people every week.
And as it turns out, well, time flies when you're kind of like spearheading an entire movement and an entire new genre of media.
Take a look.
They said, well, what are you best at?
And I said, probably being on the radio.
Well, there's your answer.
Do what you're best at, and you'll at least be happy, regardless of how well you do it.
So I decided to give radio one more chance.
I'm sure you've all felt like you weren't going to ever amount to anything, even though you knew you were capable of it.
I felt that way.
The only difference between you and me is that I'm up here and you're out there.
And the only reason I'm up here is because you're out there.
You have rejuvenated my life and you have made me something I never even thought I could be.
And I have just one thing to say to you: a sincere and heartfelt thank you.
And media was forever changed.
Now, here's the question I want to throw out tonight.
What would America be like without Rush, without talk radio, but without Rush on the air for the last 30 years?
Without a doubt, he has now had a massive impact, decade after decade, year in and year out.
The Doctor of Democracy is the single most influential voice in the early 90s, holding the corrupt Clintons accountable, playing a vital role in the historic Republican midterm resurgence.
Newt Gingrich coming to power in 1994.
Now, he pushed for America's tough response after 3,000 of our fellow Americans were slaughtered on 9-11, 2001.
He was a leading voice for the Tea Party movement in 2010.
He was one of the only people that were warning against Obama's radical left-wing ideology and agenda, rightly predicting that those policies would fail.
And recently, he has been a steadfast, powerful voice for what is the working Trump agenda, the conservative agenda.
And you see the dividends every day.
Take a look.
Donald Trump is like anybody else would be.
He won the presidency.
He won the presidency against all odds.
He resents deeply this idea that anybody helped him, particularly the Russians.
You people in the media are nuts if you think Donald Trump is going to go along with this.
That's not who he is.
There are Republicans and Democrats, but it's basically people who are pro-government, pro-Washington, who think government Washington is the center of the world.
They'll give occasional mentions of these things that you mentioned, these policies, to placate voters.
But going back to an original question you had here, they don't want Trump to succeed.
On today, the 30th anniversary of his syndication, well, he got a call from a pretty special surprise guest.
Let's listen in.
Rush, I just wanted to congratulate you on 30 years.
This is your favorite president, and I think you are fantastic.
And I heard about it, and today is the big day.
30 years.
I wanted to call personally and congratulate you.
I am floored.
I thought there was nothing anybody could do to surprise me today.
I've been preparing for anything.
Mr. President.
You're a very special man, Rush, and you have people that love you.
I'm one of them.
But you're a very, very special guy.
What you do for this country, people have no idea how important your voice is.
So I just wanted to personally make this one.
And I said, I'll even dial the number myself if I have to.
But I just want to congratulate you.
30 years in that tough business is incredible.
And you're stronger now than ever before.
Well, I thank you so much.
It's such a thrill to hear from you.
My friend Neil Bortz, also a talk show, has once referred to Rush as the babe Ruth of talk radio.
He was right.
And during his call with Rush today, the president also brought up how often I call him the dean of talk radio.
Watch this.
You know, people don't realize what a great achievement 30 years is and that cutthroat business that you happen to be in.
You know, you might not find that because you're so good at what you do, but it is a cutthroat business.
And for you to do this for 30 years is truly an amazing accomplishment.
And there's no voice like it.
And even your friend Hannity agrees with that.
He said, there's nobody like this man.
So I said, oh, gee, I guess I thought you two would be competitive.
He said, nope, he's the dean.
Don't worry.
I told you the dean.
No way, it was a guest host.
He guest hosted for me when we first started.
No, he's great.
And he's a big, he's a tremendous fan of yours.
They all are.
Everybody is.
So I just want to congratulate you.
30 years of, and just do it for another 30 years.
After that, you can take it easy, okay?
I will do that.
Just stay around as long as you do.
Okay, you have a deal.
That's a pretty good deal.
But you know what?
It is a competitive business, but people like myself, the great one, Mark Levin, Laura Ingram, and most people that work in talk radio, we all understand that he forged a path for all of us.
Here's the big question, though.
I personally, you think back of the last 30 years, think about America today without Russia's voice, that booming conservative voice for 30 years, his unwavering commitment to conservative ideology, philosophy, frankly, his wonderful, warm sense of humor, his outrageous humor, his steadfast love of country.
He's literally given this country insightful commentary decade after decade, and it has changed the media landscape in this country forever.
As he, he led the way, forging a path.
Like earlier pioneers like Jerry Williams and Barry Farber, Bob Grant, all these guys, some outrageous, controversial, some not.
We get to do what we do today because he single-handedly opened up a whole new marketplace.
He had the courage of his convictions.
He paved the way for a new media and a political revolution.
And the fact, for example, you're watching me right now is in part because of these great pioneers courageously forging that path.
He had the audacity to stand up versus the status quo.
He took a lot of heat.
He stood for honest, conservative, great American values.
They have tried again and again to take him down.
And they take it just like they try to take Mark, Laura, me down whenever they can.
But here we are.
We're blessed and we're better off as a country.
The media has some diversity because of his life's work.
So Rush, on behalf of me, Mark, Laura, conservatives, everywhere, millions of us, thank you.
Hey, look, before we wrap up today, I have to take just a brief moment here to extend sincere thanks to Sean Hannity.
I was told you're going to want to watch Sean's monologue tonight.
I got a note from somebody working on his staff.
You're going to want to watch this tonight.
So I turned it and I was floored.
I was, did you all see it last night?
I honestly, it was so strange.
I've never, I don't want to make too big, but I've never had any, well, I've never had all that stuff ever said about me or this program.
It just was over the top, exceptionally well done.
Well, I was dabbing at my eyes when this was going on because it was so heartfelt the way Sean spoke of this program and of me and our friendship.
And I will always remember it.
Was, well, I don't know how else to say it.
It was unlike anything that has ever been said in ways of describing this program and me.
And when you're not accustomed, I imagine that people on the left are accustomed to that kind of treatment all the time, and it becomes something that they expect and don't appreciate.
But man, for me, people on our side are like, I'll never get anything like that.
And I just have to.
And I sent Sean a note privately.
I thanked him, but I wanted to acknowledge it here on the program today, too, because it was just great and deeply meaningful.
All right, we'll take a quick break.
Final half hour, your calls.
When did you first hear Rush?
Your thoughts on his passing next.
Uncovering evil and defending the truth.
I will come back on the other side and your reaction.
We'll take your calls.
Final half hour of the program.
Hannity tonight will have President Trump, Mark Levin, our tribute, special tribute to Rush, all coming up next.
When we come back, more of the best of The Sean Hannity Show.
Stay tuned.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Ham.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass, you're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson.
And I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
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This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 till the top of the hour, 800-941, Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
You know, I purposely have stayed off social media.
I always do.
I don't have email anymore.
And I just asked my team, my staff here, let me guess the media is vicious as always.
And the answer was yes.
And this is just, this is who they are.
At the end of the day, we know who Rush is.
They don't define Rush Limbaugh's career.
They never understood conservatism ever.
They don't want to.
All they know is smear, lies, slander, besmirchment, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack.
And we know the real Rush Limbaugh, the patriot, a person that loved God, family, and country.
Why does so many millions, tens of millions of Americans, if you add over the generations that grew up and then became prominent conservatives, in part, in large part, in many cases, because of Rush.
So I'm ignoring that noise.
I want to take a lot of your calls.
I know how so many of you feel about today.
And I just wanted to give you all a chance to talk about this incredible, most talented, greatest of all time broadcasting legend.
We're going to start with our dear friend Don and Lake Ron Konkama, who I know loved Rush all these years.
And we've been friends for many years too.
Very much so.
I had been to a couple of his fundraisers in the city.
And when I heard his wife, Catherine's voice come over the radio and announce his passing, I was numb.
And I'm still numb, and I'm going to be numb for a little while.
But I will miss his strength and his optimism, Sean, his drive to keep pushing forward.
I remember on October 8th, 2001, he announced he was going deaf.
Didn't stop him.
He pushed forward.
He had addiction to painkillers.
Didn't stop him.
He beat it.
He took time off the radio.
He beat it and he pushed forward.
The many times that the left tried to go after his advertisers have him kicked off the radio.
His whole career.
They tried to do that.
His entire career, they've tried to silence him, and they failed.
Yep.
And then you had to love Dan Spake's sale during the 90s.
I remember that.
That's a fond memory.
It's incredible to see that thing grow and grow and grow.
And then his charities.
He was a biggest, staunch supporter of the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
In fact, this morning I was moving shirts around in my closet.
I found this Betsy Ross shirt that I had bought.
Also, his Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation, his Towers, Tunnels of Towers Foundation.
All these things are just, say, Rush Limbaugh, you know?
And I'm glad that I'm not sure.
I know for a fact he's donated millions and millions of dollars.
I know of individual cases of his incredible generosity.
Yeah.
I know the same guy you're describing, Don.
And, you know, it's, you know, you just don't get the great talent that just comes along every day.
Yeah, it was so heartfelt.
It was so from the heart.
He was just, you had to tune in to hear what Rush had to say.
I was talking to Bo Snerdley today, and I said, I don't, when he went, when he lost his hearing, and we all have hearing loss on radio if you've been at it any length of time, but when he went completely deaf.
Yeah.
And how he was able, I could tell you right now, I would not be able to accomplish that.
It is task impossible.
Yeah.
As a broadcaster, hearing is instrumental.
And he did it.
Yeah, I was in his presence when he, well, I was in his presence in New York when he demonstrated how that cochlear implant worked.
It was just an amazing, amazing medical breakthrough for him and for us.
Well, and it worked for him.
And you know what?
Like I've often said this, nobody gets through this life without facing challenges, difficulties, problems.
You know, we're all going to get hit.
Nothing's going to hit as hard as life itself, as Rocky says to his son, right?
That's right.
But it ain't a matter of how hard you can get that you get hit.
It's a matter of how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward and keep moving forward.
And we owe it to Rush.
This was his life's work.
We'll never match his talent.
We'll never match his voice.
It'll forever be sorely missed.
But we'll do our best because that's what he'd want us to do.
He didn't have to stay on the radio for the last year.
That's where he wanted to be.
He wanted to be with us.
He wanted to be with his incredible audience.
Many in this audience, the people that really make the country great.
I guess he could have flown off to Europe, other countries, had a bucket list.
No, his bucket list was what he did every day.
And that's where he chose to be.
And if he could have been there today, he would have been there.
And he wanted to be there, I'm sure, in these final weeks as he was struggling.
I was getting nervous because he had been off the air for a while.
Don, thank you, my friend.
Thanks for sharing all that.
Appreciate it.
MJ Florida, thank you for checking in.
Hey, well, Semper 5, Sean.
I thought of you immediately, you and Mark, the great one, immediately.
And I happened to catch you earlier on the television.
And it's the three of you, such great, big men, but with such powerful, wonderful voices, but the softest and kindest hearts.
And you say your staff noticed on media, social media, I don't have social media, but for the left to become unhinged and awful and terrible, it just shows what a great and wonderful person Rush was and what a huge difference he made because he was so funny and so humorous.
It killed them.
It killed them.
And he will just always be remembered.
And I have a stray cat outside and I didn't have a name for him.
And I just named him LRL, Little Rush Limbaugh.
And that's the name of my cat because such a big, tough man like Rush had such a heart for cats and his little pumpkin who passed away.
And your other guest, Don, mentioned about the United States Marine Corps and law enforcement.
You know, those are the two big things in my life, Marine Corps and law enforcement, and everything and just the giving that he did and the quiet giving.
And most people aren't very quiet about giving, but such a quiet giver, but a loud force to be reckoned with.
And he will just be so missed.
And it was so wonderful hearing your voice and Mark Levin's voice and others today.
And just, you know, just keep up the good fight.
And you, you know what, Sean, you are such a bold and tough guy.
You don't take any crap.
But one thing is when you were, when you speak about Rush and even Mark, you're so humble.
And people say, Sean Hannan, you humble?
When it comes to admiring greatness and knowing that where you got, you know, your start and how you just gave him compliments and stuff, that is so humble of you, Sean.
And I just thank you and others for continuing on the fight.
MJ, I am truly grateful.
You know, that's how I feel.
All of us in this industry owe him a debt of gratitude.
All of us.
And, you know, I remember scared to death filling in for him.
I was talking about it earlier the first time I filled in for him.
And then the golden EIB microphone dropped.
That was not the best moment of my life because it really is gold.
Your Alec Baldwin moment.
It was rough.
Literally, the microphone fell off the stand, and I'm like, I have my head down on the desk trying to finish the opening monologue.
I'm sweating profusely, about to have a full-on panic attack.
And Rush, in just rush fashion, comes back from the day off or vacation.
I don't remember exactly when, and goes, Sean Hannity dented the golden EIB mic.
And I'm like, oh, I'm doomed.
I am so doomed.
He never let you forget it.
No, you know, but it was just Rush.
It was his humor, I mean, and multiple layers of it.
And it was so funny.
You know, people would come to New York.
He would tell this story and they'd be, you know, looking for the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan.
And, you know, MJ, there never was an EIB building in Midtown Manhattan.
The building was whatever building he was broadcasting from, which I think at the time was Tupen Plaza, where I had worked for many years myself.
And I remember when I would fill in for him, MJ, and I just, and it was such an opportunity that he gave me, and he was generous about everything.
And I loved all the people that would fill in for him.
Walter Williams, Jim Kerr back in the early days, Tony Snow filled in for him.
All the great, I don't want to miss some people's names here.
I'll forget some, and there's so many good ones.
Mark Belling recently and others.
And I'm not purposely excluding anybody, but I always knew when there was a fill-in and I wanted to listen, I'd be, oh, where's Rush?
Why is he on vacation?
And I knew when I would fill in that the audience was going, oh, where's Rush?
I want to hear him.
And so I always took it as a huge responsibility and just to just not to chase everybody away in the meantime.
But, you know, God bless him.
I mean, you know, I believe in an afterlife.
I believe in a heavenly father.
I believe in heaven.
And I believe that's where Rush is.
I know he was a strong Christian.
And I know his faith got stronger later in his life.
And he was even talking about it on the air.
And, you know, none of us are going to live forever.
And he lived his life to the fullest, and he lived it the way he wanted to live it.
And when he got this diagnosis, he stayed where he wanted to be on the air with us.
And we're blessed because of it.
Absolutely.
Thanks, MJ.
He was retired, but he stayed in there for us.
Stayed in it.
And let me tell you, those chemo treatments knock you on your ass and then some.
They half kill you to try and save you.
And they were able to keep him alive longer than the original diagnosis.
That part he's already disclosed.
That's all true.
Thank you, MJ.
Don in Iowa.
Hey, Don, how are you?
Hi.
Hi, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
Thank you for calling.
No, it's kind of tough.
I've been listening to you since you were a guest host on the on the Rush Limbaugh show.
I've been listening to Rush since, I don't know, 89, 90, when I didn't even like him because he was boastful and braggadocious and loud and in your face.
And it turned out that he was just always sure of what he was saying.
And, you know, confidence is from the Latin.
That's a good point, you know, with deity.
But go ahead.
No, when I heard his wife come on the radio, my eyes immediately welled up because, you know, it was just so tough.
And Semper Fi, to MJ, yourself, and to Catherine and Rush because, you know, always faithful.
And it's just so important.
I started listening to Sean Hannity because of Rush, watching Hannity and Combs because of Rush.
Rush, and I'll tell you, it's going to be tough without Rush.
You're going to carry on and you're going to do a great job, but it's not going to be the same.
You know what?
Look, he's irreplaceable.
Nobody can replace him.
You can't replace Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Mickey Mantle and Derek Jeter.
You just can't.
But we'll all, you know, but I know, I know this.
I know he'd want us to fight for everything he fought for in his life.
And that is this great country and the cause of liberty and the cause of freedom.
It was his passion.
This country was his passion.
And he was always optimistic about our future.
And we recently had some discussions about it.
But Don in Iowa, God bless you, my friend.
Thank you so much for listening to us and being with us every day.
We all have, you know, a lot of work to do.
All of us combined.
We've got a big void here.
800-941-SHAWN, our number.
The president, Mark Levin, on Hannity tonight.
Hey there, I'm Mary Catherine Hamm.
And I'm Carol Markowitz.
We've been in political media for a long time.
Long enough to know that it's gotten, well, a little insane.
That's why we started Normally, a podcast for people who are over the hysteria and just want clarity.
We talk about the issues that actually matter to the country without panic, without yelling, and with a healthy dose of humor.
We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do take the truth seriously.
So if you're into common sense, sanity, and some occasional sass.
You're our kind of people.
Catch new episodes of Normally every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app.
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.
I'm Ben Ferguson, and I'm Ted Cruz.
Three times a week, we do our podcast, Verdict with Ted Cruz.
Nationwide, we have millions of listeners.
Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we break down the news and bring you behind the scenes inside the White House, inside the Senate, inside the United States Supreme Court.
And we cover the stories that you're not getting anywhere else.
We arm you with the facts to be able to know and advocate for the truth with your friends and family.
So down with Verdict with Ted Cruz now, wherever you get your podcasts.
You're on the Sean Hannity Show, a place where free speech and the First Amendment are still alive and well.
Liberalism is a failed ideology.
Get your dose of independence and liberty every weekday right here with Sean.
Sean Hannity.
With the charitable efforts
that we have engaged in.
And all of it has been to my benefit.
All of it has been for thes.
It's the benefit of people who are the recipients of our efforts.
So many people have put me first in all of this.
And I understand now what Lou Gehrig meant because I certainly feel like that.
I feel extremely fortunate and lucky.
All right, that's going to wrap things up for today.
I believe in our afterlife.
I believe that we're created by one God and one of his good and faithful servants has returned home.
Rush, Godspeed.
We'll miss you always.
Never forget you.
Appreciate all you've done for us.
Former President Trump, Mark Levin, tonight at 9 Hannity Fox News Channel.
And to all of his audience, our love, prayers are with you always as well.
We'll see you tonight.
More of the best of The Sean Hannity Show coming up.
The best of Sean Hannity is on now.
Well, we're coming to your city.
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Before I introduce a dear friend of the show and a personal friend, our friend Dan Bongino, he has his website, bongino.com, which is going up gangbusters.
And they had a great article on Rush, and it was the 20 greatest quotes of Rush Limbaugh.
And I can't read it, but some are very long, so I won't read the long ones.
They're all great.
And you can go to danbongino.com and get the link.
We'll even link it up on our website.
For government to give, it must first take away.
Think of that.
The people that make this country work, the people who pay on their mortgages, the people getting up and going to work and striving in this recession to not participate in it, they're not the enemy.
They're the people you hire.
They're the people that are going to give you a job.
Another one.
Now, what's the left's worldview in general?
What is it?
If you had to attach not a philosophy, but an attitude to the leftist worldview, It's one of pessimism and darkness and sadness.
They're never happy, are they?
They're always angry about something.
No matter what they get, they're always angry.
He went on to say, liberals always exempt themselves from the rules they impose on others.
It's like Congress.
They pass bills, but they're not subject to their own bills, right?
They have their own health care system, not Obamacare.
Liberals measure compassion by how many people are given welfare.
Conservatives measure compassion by how many people no longer need it.
It's been said by a lot of people, but it's worth repeating.
He said, I'm not opposed to the protection of animals, but the best way to do that is to make sure some human being owns them.
You know that drives animal rights activists nuts.
You know why there's a Second Amendment?
In case the government fails to follow the first one.
By the way, that was taken right out of our founders.
I know you're not allowed to quote them today.
What about feeling sorry for those who pay taxes?
Those are the people that no one ever feels sorry for.
They're asked to give and give and give and give until they have no more to give.
And when they say enough, they're called selfish.
Bongino.com.
Dan, Sarah, welcome back to the program.
Yeah, good to talk to you, Sean.
I know you're pretty banged up over this, man.
You and Rush were just, you talk about them all.
I used to still talk about them all the time.
You know, whether it's private or public conversations, your reverence for him was something to behold.
I said last night in your show, even when you and I would chat, you know, kind of offline, and when it came to Rush, you know, sometimes we would talk about radio, but you wouldn't even talk about it.
You're like, you know what?
I could tell you, it just, you can't fathom a world without Rush because you've been enmeshed in it for so long.
And I said on my show this morning, think about this, right?
And I'm probably being generous with these mile markers.
Within the last two decades, right, you couldn't drive 25 miles or more anywhere in America without between 12 and 9 o'clock at night hitting either you, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levitt.
Like that, think about that.
That's really amazing.
Like you could turn on a radio anywhere in America and drive probably closer to 15 miles, and you would get a signal anywhere where you could hear you three guys.
And I know you always attributed that to Rush.
I mean, he, you know, he, like I said on your show again last night, I hate to repeat it, but it's so true.
It's not that he was the best player in the game.
It's that he was the best player in the game for decades.
He was the number one player in the game.
And then he invented the darn game.
The whole conservative.
You know, it's such a great way to put it.
You know, when you really think through this, and I told the story about the AM band, and it was headed, you know, for extinction in many industry experts' minds.
And then along came Rush, and what started at less than 200 radio stations when that were formatting for talk radio, it grew to 4,000.
It's the most listened to format in radio.
And then if you really extend it out and you listen to, well, you can listen to streaming on any host website or station website, then you can take it out a little further and you can even look at the options of satellite radio.
Then you can take it out a little bit further and where you have had phenomenal success in podcasting.
And that's another way that people get to hear even more voices.
And I like the idea of more voices.
You know, Rush always understood this isn't a zero-sum game, that his success was somehow predicated on somebody else's failure.
Just the opposite.
He actually championed the success of people like you and myself and Mark and others.
I mean, yeah, and we all benefited from the trailblazing of Rush Limbaugh and the path that he forged.
Yeah, you know, it was really an amazing kind of phone game chain of information.
You know, you'd have kind of new guys to the field and the space like me.
You know, I've only been doing this for about five years.
And, you know, I'd.
Yeah, I'm just a former New York City cop.
I'm just, you know, former Secret Service agent.
I wasn't doing anything important before this.
Go ahead.
I was bored.
I was bored hanging around my house, figuring I'd do a podcast.
So, you know, I, of course, you know, met you through Fox and radio.
And as we got to be friendly, I'd call you for advice because, you know, you're one of those guys who's dominated two spaces.
That's very rare, TV and radio.
Just the fact.
I mean, it's, I know you don't, you're uncomfortable with praise, but it's just true.
I hate it.
I was just about to say, all right, enough about me.
Let's move on.
Yeah, you hate that.
I know you hate it, but it's just true.
And, but it's interesting because even though you and your own right have had a very successful radio show, every time we would ask, I'd ask you for advice about the audio product, whether it's digital, terrestrial, I'm on terrestrial, not nearly as many markets as you, but you would always say, you know, like some form of the iteration of it would be something like, well, what would Rush say?
Right?
You would always go back to what Rush told you or what Rush was thinking or what you think Rush would be thinking.
And I'm telling you, I'd scratch my head.
I'd be like, man, he really, really like holds Rush in such unbelievably high regard.
It's, I'm not sure.
I'm not making this up because I'm on his show.
This is the truth.
Sean actually said all the time, what would Rush say?
Here's what Rush told me.
You would say, hey, here's another one.
Remember, you did those 20 quotes.
Here's the best Sean Hannity quotes about Rush Limbaugh.
Rush told me once, Rush is thinking.
I think Rush would be thinking.
I'll check with Rush.
Hold on, Rush told me once.
You know, one time Rush told me this.
I mean, you said that so much.
And it really, Levin's the same way.
And it really spoke to, I mean, really, put your success aside for a minute, like a guy in your position now that you constantly go back and we're paying tribute to this guy speaks to the greatness of this guy.
I mean, this is a huge hole, Sean.
This is like the equivalent of like a terrestrial radio black hole.
I mean, who fills that spot?
Who fills that spot?
Rush Limbaugh.
The answer is you can't.
You can't replace Pey Bruce.
You can't replace Mickey Mantle.
You can't replace Guerrent.
You can't replace Derek Jeter.
You just can't.
I mean, and you know, I will say this, and I want to move on to a couple of things.
Now, we're all blessed.
And my answer is, all right, we lost our best player, up our game, up our game.
So I'm telling everybody, up your game.
And you've been doing so phenomenally well.
And first thing I want to address, you yourself, and you've been public about it, or I'd never bring it up.
You had your own cancer battle, and you've just finished your treatments.
And if any part of this you want me to not talk about, stop me immediately.
And you are feeling great.
I think you have today another test, if my memory serves me well.
Or it was yesterday, rather.
And you were supposed to call me.
You supposed to text me and you didn't.
I'm not going to ask you to tell me on the air.
I'm just hoping it's all good news.
No, it was.
But I will tell you on the air because I just found out, actually.
So I took an MRI yesterday and I just got, you know, it takes a while for them to read it.
And, you know, it looks like I've got some mass in my lungs.
So, you know, it's just hard to constantly deal with this.
We don't know what it is yet, but I'm going to send it out to MD Anderson, have them look at it too.
But it was big enough that, you know, it's not the kind of thing you want to hear.
And, you know, that's why the Rush story to me, outside of the fact that he, I mean, literally changed my life, I wouldn't, I would have never met you if it wasn't for Rush Limbaugh ever.
Because I wouldn't be a conservative if it wasn't for Rush.
That's why his story, you know, and the whole cancer thing, I mean, I thought I was done.
I was hoping to get a couple weeks apiece, and I didn't even get that before I'm back to the athlete.
So, you know, the batter with.
Now I know why you didn't text me and you didn't have an answer.
I mean, but you started with stage one lymphoma, Dan, right?
Yeah, and that's what's so strange because I'm having a lot of breathing problems when I work out and stuff.
And that's the only reason I went back in.
And, you know, they found some stuff on a PET scan.
And they said, oh, maybe it's a little pneumonia.
you know, give you some antibiotics.
That was a month ago.
And then I went in yesterday for this MRI and he's like, well, this is a pneumonia, you know, so I don't know what it is.
You know, he's a, he's a tech, the guy.
He doesn't want to give you any medical advice, but he's like, it definitely shouldn't be there.
So I don't know.
It could be nothing.
And, you know, I'm just a hypochondriac at this point.
But that.
No, you're not a hypochondriac.
Listen, I was so hopeful that I know you had finished your recent treatments and you had your last one.
And I'm just praying that this is not the bad.
There are other growths that are not what it could be.
And I hope we know soon.
It sounds like you got it early because you got this early treatment.
I'm hoping.
Did they say that they believe it's contained?
Well, you know, I don't know.
They don't know yet.
So I'll probably have to go for another pet.
You know, like when Rush said that time on his show when he first, the first few weeks, when he revealed he had cancer and he said that this line, it really hit home because when he said that, I knew I had cancer, but I didn't know what kind or how aggressive or what staging.
And he said, you know, we all know we're doomed, right?
We all know we have an expiration date.
That's obvious.
But Rush said something to the effect of, but when you start to figure out what that date is, like everything changes.
And I knew exactly what he was saying because that's what I started getting really obviously frightened and terrified about.
I was like, you know, is this really serious?
I mean, am I going to, what do I got?
20 years, five years?
I don't know.
I mean, I had a friend in the Secret Service who got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and, you know, sadly passed in three months.
And you start thinking all these crazy things.
And, you know, I think I'll be okay.
I mean, I'm a pretty healthy guy and I'm ready for these kind of fights.
All our love and prayers as you go through this.
And we're hoping for the most innocuous diagnosis and the most phenomenal prognosis.
You know, look, don't take this the wrong way.
If you start getting sick and dying on me, I'm going to kill you first.
Don't tell me that.
You're just a dear friend, and we love you.
I know everybody on this program loves you, and everybody's going to be praying for you now hearing this.
And you're being so open and I did not expect that answer, Dan.
I didn't.
And I've been talking to you regularly about your treatments.
I'm a little taken back by it, to be honest.
And I'm, you know, I want that answer sooner than later.
Oh, I was too.
And I didn't, you know, you got a job to do.
And I just, I'm telling you, I just found out about half an hour ago.
So I just, you know, it's just a lot to take.
So that's why I'm so emotional on Fox and Friends this morning, too, about Rush.
I was waiting, eagerly waiting to get the news, you know, and, you know, all I wanted to hear was it was nothing, you know, and I didn't hear that.
And I'm just praying for that call one day where they say, oh, don't worry, it's just a beast thing or a scratch.
And I'm yet to get that call.
So it's just disappointing.
Well, we'll hopefully do because they did a phenomenal job.
I know some of the people that worked on your case and the treatment, they were very aggressive in treating the lymphoma.
It was caught very, very early.
And that's the thing.
You know what?
Biggest thing that with all cancers, and some are far worse than others, leukemias and Hodgkins' disease.
Uh, you know, it's almost completely curable, especially in lymphoma when it's caught early.
I know somebody that's had lymphoma 26 years that also had a spot on the lung, and it ended up with one lobe being removed, but everything has been fine now for years, and it's just scary times.
Um, stay right there, quick break.
We'll come back more with Dan Bongino and our thoughts and prayers now as he's now hopefully getting the diagnosis that this is all done.
Uh, 800-941-Sean, our number, your calls on the other side of things.
Quick break, right back, we'll continue.
John Kerry, making America Green, one Learjet liberal flight at a time.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Sean Hannity is on right now.
We continue with Dan Bongino.
Bongino.com is the website where they had these quotes of Rush.
We're all praying for you.
I can't let you go without asking about Parlor.
And I know people want that free speech forum.
If you could just give us a slight quick update.
Yeah, so we're back up.
I mean, obviously, they did a lot of damage on the way out.
So you have to go to parlor.com to log on.
But yeah, I mean, it's slow.
It's running slow, but it's running.
We've had some ups and downs over the last few days, but I can't emphasize to your audience enough.
You know, listen, I'm not asking for anybody's excuses or any nonsense.
It should run great, but they did a lot of damage on the way out, these companies to us.
They really did.
And it's been, as you well know, from me giving you like the scoops of that, it is like, it's been a real mess trying to get it back up.
I mean, we jumped through hoops and back.
We need healthy alternatives.
You know, I used to always say we need to become the media.
We need to become social media now.
And we need our own platforms because obviously we're not wanted elsewhere if you're a conservative.
All right.
Dan Bongino, we love you.
We're praying for a quick, speedy, well, first for a great diagnosis.
That would be something called benign.
And I know you've been through a lot of tough days and weeks recently.
And we want you back.
We want you healthy.
We want you around for a long, long period of time.
And we love you, and we're all praying for you.
Thanks, Buddy.
And I really appreciate that.
Likewise, thanks a lot.
All right.
Quick break, right back.
You are listening to the best of the Sean Hannity Show.
And stay tuned.
More memorable moments, interesting guests, and a lot of fun coming up next.
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This is the Sean Hannity Show.
All right, 25 to the top of the hour, 800-941 Sean.
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We're now joined by our friend Jeff Lord, former Reagan administration official.
He's got his own podcast, The Word of the Lord.
Some people take that the wrong way.
Sort of like Rush saying, with talent on loan from God, you know, the way he would say it, and have my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair, all that stuff.
He joins us.
Also, he was a dear friend of Rush and even communicated with him very recently.
We lost a dear friend.
One thing I will tell you about Jeff Lord is that, you know, there's not many people in media at all that will ever defend any of us that are conservative on the radio.
One guy that always, always, always has been there to help is Jeff Lord, who himself then became a victim of the cancel culture over at Fake News CNN.
Anyway, sir, welcome back to the program.
You know, we lost our best player on the field by far.
And I just keep telling everybody we all have to, as spokes in a one-wheel, up our game.
Rush, we want that.
You're absolutely right.
I mean, it's now in our hands, and, you know, life moves on.
But I did want to tell you this funny story the last time I had a communication for him from him.
I was listening to him one day, and he was talking about, we both watched Brett Baer's special report at night.
And Brett occasionally has on Harold Ford, the former Tennessee congressman who's in the financial business now in New York.
And Harold was on one night, and behind him in his apartment, which I later learned may not have been his, but there was a portrait of Chairman Mao.
Well, Rush picked up on this and was talking about this on air and what this means about the leftist mindset and all of this kind of thing.
And he was laughing about it.
And I thought, well, you know, interesting story, funny because I'd seen the same thing.
Well, the next time Harold was on, I'm watching this.
And, oh, he's not in front of the Mao portrait anymore.
He's in the kitchen.
Well, see, the power of Rush right there.
He just got rid of the Mao.
I was sitting there.
Didn't Harold Ford Jr.
say, no, no, no, I'm running the house.
It's furnished or something?
Yes.
Yes, he did.
Well, I was so amused by this that I shot off a note to Rush.
It was treatment week.
And I thought, God, if anybody needs a little cheering up and a laugh, it's him.
Well, the next morning, I wake up and there's an answer.
It's January 27th.
And he says, I saw that, Jeffrey.
He was in his kitchen in front of the stove faucet you would use to fill a pot of pasta, pasta, or some such.
White brick background.
We forced him to move his laptop to his stovetop.
Oh, good grief.
That's hilarious.
You know, there's just nobody like him.
You know, you think of, you know, the unique take that Rush would have on anything.
This is how nuts things are.
Democrats have introduced a resolution to permanently ban Trump from ever stepping foot on Capitol grounds.
You have a lawmaker putting forward a bill out in California that would block the Trump name from even being put on a park bench.
I mean, this is how nuts people are.
You have another bill that would ban any president that's been impeached twice from being buried at Arlington.
You've got House Democrats, on the other hand, hiring a social justice activist who called looting a vital form of social protest.
House Democrats hiring that.
Our friend David Schoen, canceled by a law school, he's a civil rights attorney.
And then you got fake news, CNN, and MSDNC paying this left-wing activist, this guy, John Sullivan from Black Lives Matter, 70 grand.
This is the guy charged in the Capitol riots, getting a check from fake news, CNN, and MSDNC.
You know, Sean, this is a serious, serious problem that we have here.
And, you know, this began with those of you on air, with Rush, with you, with later Tucker and Laura, etc.
And now it's graduated to taking Fox off cable and all of this kind of thing and all of these things that you just mentioned.
It all comes from the same thing.
It's intolerance of diversity, intellectual diversity, and it's fascism, flat out.
And, you know, that was the charge that I had raised when writing about you when they were going after you in 2017.
And I said, you know, let's be plain here.
This is fascism, American fascism.
And, you know, God bless you.
By the way, an establishment figure extraordinaire, Jonah Goldberg, wrote the book with the name Liberal Fascism.
Liberal fascism.
I guess he wouldn't say it today.
He probably would think his own language is over the top.
Yeah, a publisher might cancel him.
This is a real problem.
And the best way that I can figure out how to fight this is, you know, your show, the other shows, you know, columns, podcasts, et cetera.
But we cannot let this kind of thing go on here.
I mean, this is just unacceptable when they canceled, what was it, Senator Hawley's book contract with Simon ⁇ Schuster, David Schoen's problem.
You know, this kind of thing began in a way in college campuses, and it's now spread.
And, you know, we've got a real fight on our hands.
And I'm, among other things, aside from missing Rush on a personal level, I'm really sorry he's not here for this because he got this to his core.
You know, and he taught so many now generations of us.
And, you know, it's funny to me because if you listen to the left, you listen to liberals, they claim that they have a monopoly of compassion for minorities in America.
And Republicans, they are racist.
Well, it's interesting because there are now amnesty policies, which they have now unveiled, and it is amnesty.
It's everything we said it would be.
Even Joe threatening on the Second Amendment, he's threatening to even use executive orders, something Kamala Harris had said.
And I listen, that's going to be, so we have 17 million people, 19 million people out of work with the pandemic.
So we don't have those jobs.
With the stroke of a pen, we're losing high-paying career jobs all over the energy sector and those support businesses that will go under as a result also.
And now we're going to have all these illegal immigrants come into the country.
It's going to drive wages down to next to nothing.
And when they fire these guys that are working on the pipeline and in energy jobs, again, $100,000 a year and a lot more, depending on what their skill level is and the time they've worked in the industry.
Well, just we want you to get another union job.
Well, what other union job?
Where's that going to come from?
Right.
Sean, I remember in the past when you were making a move to help people get jobs out in, was it North Dakota or?
North Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma.
We were working with all these energy companies.
It changed people's lives.
It was an amazing moment.
Exactly.
And the point is, Sean, you couldn't do that if the jobs were no longer there.
And when they're going to crush these jobs and blithely say, as John Kerry said, well, let them build solar panels.
I mean, this is mind-boggling insensitivity, and it's going to do and is doing right now real damage to some people.
They lose a good-paying job like this, and all the dominoes in terms of sending their kids to schools and just getting food on the table are going to fall.
And all because of this, you know, unbelievable, arrogant elitism here that these people have.
I'll tell you, these are amazing times.
And now is the time, now that the second shift show charade is over and the impeachment madness is now officially over.
Now maybe we'll pay attention to what Biden's doing with amnesty.
Now maybe we'll pay attention.
His student loan forgiveness.
Who's going to pay the 50 grand per student?
Now we'll look at his not only open border policies, the end of energy independence in the country, the high taxes that are coming, ruling by executive fiat, ignoring an entire branch of government, and that being the legislative branch.
And maybe people begin to understand that, yeah, this is real.
And this is extraordinarily radical, the most radical agenda any major party ever ran on, and now it's being implemented.
Well, that's right.
And the way they're going to come to understand this is one, from the practical effect, like all these guys out there on the Keystone pipeline who are now out of work.
But they're going to understand it through conservative media because we're the ones who are going to put the spotlight on all of these different things to do just as Rush did, to help educate people, to help enlighten.
I was going through, I have a copy that came not long ago of his last Limbaugh letter that I subscribed to.
And the very back of it, he has a whole section there on I am a reporter.
And he talks about the liberal media bias, and he made it his mission to report the facts and context, et cetera.
Well, that ball is now in our hands.
So on we go.
It's funny.
I'll tell you an ongoing conversation he and I have been having.
This is over the last number of months.
And it's about the future of the country.
And he, I don't know, I think it's because I'm raised Irish Catholic.
I really believe that.
You're always waiting for the next whatever to blow up on your head.
And superstitious.
I have no idea.
But he had a far more optimistic belief that America will overcome all of this.
What I'm afraid of and what I'm concerned with, and these are long texts that we're sending back and forth.
I think you get to the point of no return that you can't undo socialism without major, massive, huge disruption and the painful transition that would accompanying it, would be accompanying it.
And he acknowledged that, yeah, at some point it becomes that difficult.
But on the other hand, I think we can all argue that Donald Trump turned things around much more quickly than anyone ever thought with record low unemployment for every demographic in the country.
You take COVID out of the equation for the 2020 election.
I can make you an argument Donald Trump could have won 45 states.
Yeah, yeah, I agree totally.
Well, the one thing is, Sean, if I learned anything from working for President Reagan, I mean, he knew in his gut that the Soviet Union, if pushed, would collapse in on itself.
And I think that's what's going to have with this kind of thing.
What we've seen in Texas with all the frozen windmill things.
I mean, how dumb.
It's a disaster.
And Rick Perry is right.
They don't want to get on the federal grid system.
Texas is the only state that has their independence.
But Jeff, you're a good man.
We love you.
And thank you as always for all you do and being with us.
And his podcast is the word of the, by the way, it's very Russian.
It's very limbaugh-like.
The word of the Lord, Jeffrey Lord.
Anyway, thank you, sir.
Great American.
800-941 Sean, if you want to be a part of the program.
Next, our final roundup and information overload.
This is Roundup Information Overload
HOUR coming up next.
Next hour, it's going to be Dan Bongino.
End your calls.
We've got time for a call here.
Let's say hi to Tyler.
He's in the great state of Missouri.
Missouri, obviously, morning for our friend Rush.
Thanks, Tyler, for calling.
Glad you joined us.
Most certainly, Sean, under better circumstances would have been nice.
But I go back with Rush Limbaugh to 1994.
I had just gotten back into radio after maybe 10 months' absence or whatever it was.
And a regional radio group from Rush's hometown had bought our station and some others in the area.
And they kind of, you know, in our case, we were playing some old music, country music or some pop from the 60s, 70s, 80s.
And next thing you know, by 93 and certainly in 94, you've got Barry Farber and Rush Limbaugh and Paul Harvey and all those guys on this format.
But even more importantly, I was kind of feeling my way into politics at that time more so than even before.
And I would sit in the control room rather than sitting at my own desk.
And I'd try to do as much of my own work in there when I was probably 23 years old and gobbling up these programs, particularly Limbaugh at the time.
And you think about how he just transformed that industry.
I no longer work in it, but I did for a number of years.
And, you know, he became bigger than Paul Harvey.
And I like to, and to the family, I'm sure they'll get it.
He was even cooler than Wolfman Jack on a side note because he was such a music fan.
Yeah, you know what?
You're one of my old-time radio buddies.
It's like when I talk to Scott Shannon, Annity, Shannon.
I'm like, you know, and this is the guy that created Morning Zoo Radio.
I mean, there's so many great, amazing broadcasters.
You mentioned Paul Harvey.
Good day.
I mean, phenomenal people.
I had a chance to meet Paul Harvey only once.
And I know his son.
His son is a great guy, Paul Harvey Jr.
And I met him at one of the Radio Hall of Fame indunctions, and it was in Chicago.
And he's just such a gracious man.
We're so blessed to be in this industry.
Are you still in it at all, Tyler, or no?
No, I got out about 13 years ago and just doing my small business pursuits.
I always enjoyed my time in it.
And Rush was a good person.
You understand the constraints of time.
I could talk to my radio friends all day.
You know what?
He's taught us all a lot.
Tyler, he's been a rock star and sorely, sorely missed.
Thank you, my friend.
God bless you.
I wish I had more time.
I apologize for that.
News roundup information.
Overload, Dan Bongino.
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