RUSH: All right, ladies and gentlemen, time for a major announcement from me, Rush Limbaugh. As you know, there have been many attacks on my credibility over the course of my 18-plus years behind the Golden EIB Microphone. There have been claims, false claims that I make things up to fit my agenda, that I always get things wrong. You know what the Drive-Bys and the American left continually do, not just with me but a number of people on the right in order to discredit us, because they can’t dispute, they cannot argue with our ideas, and so they attempt to try to discredit us as leaders, spokespeople, and what have you. But I am here today to officially proclaim that I, Rush Limbaugh, am the most correct and accurate media figure in America today on this basis. I have the largest audience of any media figure in the country today in a program of this type, in the Drive-By Media. My audience is larger than the Nightly News. If you combine their Nightly News audiences, you might have an argument there, but this audience is larger than any cable news show.
CALLER: Historic dittos, Rush. Hey, the senior political editor for CBSNews.com was on the Washington Journal this morning, so I called in and asked him if he thought the reason that the network news divisions were losing viewers and laying off employees was because the conservative radio industry that you spawned —
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: — was constantly pointing out that both the network news divisions and the entertainment network news divisions are constantly undermining our political process — and I mean, Rush, he immediately gave you some credit by saying that you were basically the person that was leading the change under the complete change, but then he quickly converted it to try to blow it off with talking points say that basically people can go to whoever they choose to, to get the personality that they trust — and, Rush, I thought the amazing thing was the one thing that this guy never did point out was my premise, underlying premise that the network news divisions and the entertainment news divisions are undermining our political process. He never mentioned that at all.
RUSH: Well, I —
CALLER: Do you have that sound bite?
RUSH: I’ve got it here. In fact, Cookie made it number one on the sound bite roster. Your call, a pure coincidence, provides a perfect opportunity to air this. But, here, we’ll play it. As to him responding to your claim that they’re undermining the political process, one of two things happened. Either he forget that you made the claim and didn’t want to get to it because you so riled him up on the mention of my name that you totally discombobulated him, and I would think that’s probably it. The second reason he might have avoided it is because he just doesn’t agree with you, and on C-SPAN you’re supposed to be polite and dull and boring. So, anyway, here’s the bite, and this is the guy, this is the caller that asked the question. The question — and you’re from Gaithersburg, Maryland. The question was, ‘Do you think the continuous decline in viewership of the major networks’ news divisions and programs is a direct result of Rush Limbaugh successfully spawning an entire conservative talk radio show industry that regularly points out that the news divisions — not just the news divisions, also the network entertainment divisions — are constantly trying to undermine the political process? Do you think that they’re responsible for the fact that you guys are losing viewership and at the same time laying off a lot of employees in your news divisions while at the same time talk radio is flourishing?’
RUSH: The only thing I would disagree with here is it hasn’t in the last five years. It’s been the last 18-1/2 years, and I don’t think I was ‘one of the forerunners.’ I was THE forerunner. But, not a bad answer. Not a bad answer. Yeah, I guess we have to give him a break. He probably only started listening five years ago. But anyway, that was his answer. You remain a little disappointed he didn’t get an answer on the question you asked about distorting the political process?
CALLER: Oh, absolutely. It was like he went right into the talking points, Rush, but, you know, you’ve always stated that your success isn’t dependent on who wins elections. But, Rush, your success is absolutely dependent on whether the mainstream media continues to manipulate the truth in order to undermine our country or whether they decide to tell the truth objectively.
RUSH: Wait a second! Wait just a second. Are you saying to me and this audience, that if the Drive-Bys did a 180 and actually became fair, and actually reported truth and facts, that I would be out of a job?
CALLER: Rush, you would be completely out of a job, and not only am I saying that, Rush. I’m saying that we should be focused on bringing down this enemy within media and not even talking about Democrats and Congress or Democrats and the Senate, because they’re puppets, Rush. You know if the mainstream media was telling the five-sixths of the American age voters the same thing that you and the rest of your conservative talk show hosts are telling the one-sixth of the American age voters then these liberals that are running the country, Rush, wouldn’t be able to be reelected, so why would we talk about them? We shouldn’t talk about them anymore.
RUSH: No, no, now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Up to now you have been a genius. But your last comment — and I appreciate it. Don’t misunderstand. Many people over the course of the 18 and a half years here have attempted to tell me how to do what I do, and what I’m doing wrong. It happens every day. I don’t count them. I get thousands of e-mails from people, and some of those e-mails say, ‘You know what you really ought to start doing?’ and, ‘You need to talk about this more and stop talking about that.’ If I listened to all of this, I would be in a little white coat in a straightjacket in an asylum. I’d be going back and forth on one of those little yellow buses every day because I’d be trying to please everybody. I can’t do that, and I’m the going to stop talking about Democrats in power.
The Drive-Bys are what they are. We know that there’s a symbiotic relationship, that they are accomplices in the same game with the same objective. The Drive-Bys, they have a certain amount of power, but they do not have total power of getting people elected, otherwise Republicans would never win elections anywhere. But now you have circumstances where the Democrats are in power in Washington, in both the House and the Senate. Slim margins in both, but it changes the way they behave and it changes the things that happen. It’s changed the way Republicans deal with them and interact. I can’t ignore them, and I’m not going to ignore them. But I really want to nevertheless, despite all that, thank you for your call to C-SPAN. By the way, the guy from CBS.com’s name was Vaughn Ververs. I just want to thank you for your question and tell you I appreciate it, because it means a lot to me that you have this on your mind and a lot of other people do and you get a chance to confront the Drive-Bys on places like C-SPAN with it. You make me proud. I thank you so much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Gina in Laurel, Maryland. Great to have you with us.
CALLER: Thank you, Rush. Mega military dittos to you.
RUSH: I appreciate that. Thanks much.
CALLER: My mother, I love her deeply, but she’s an ultra-Long Island liberal, and she actually would vote for Hillary just because she is a woman.
RUSH: Yeah, there’s some women like that, but there are quite a few woman who are going to vote against her for the same reason. She’s got a lot of negatives out there. Her disapproval numbers are high. We went through the polling data on this last week or maybe it was the week before, but don’t make the assumption. You’re talking about Long Island. You’re talking about Northeast Coast, Manhattan, New York crowd, of course they’re going to vote for Hillary without question simply because she is a woman. That’s a given.
CALLER: Definitely. Definitely. She actually mentioned in a conversation we had, that she would vote for Condi Rice as well.
RUSH: Just because she’s a woman?
CALLER: Just because she’s a woman.
RUSH: Well, then what the hell does that tell you?
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: You name one thing those two women have in common.
CALLER: No. She wouldn’t tell me why, either. (Laughing.)
RUSH: They both don’t even wear dresses.
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: Well, of course she didn’t tell you why because she can’t.
CALLER: No.
RUSH: She just thinks because she’s a woman. Well, how did you turn out to be not like your mom?
CALLER: I don’t know. I definitely was a Democrat by default for a while. I’ve only been listening to your show for about a year and you’ve turned me into a very conservative Republican.
RUSH: How did you find the show?
CALLER: I found the show. I listened to WTOP, and I just found the show by default, honestly.
RUSH: But I’m not on WTOP. I’m on WMAL.
CALLER: Oh, WMAL, that’s what I meant. WMAL. I’m sorry.
RUSH: Okay. All right.
CALLER: The other one is my traffic channel. (Laughing.) She hates you, pretty much.
RUSH: Yeah, but she probably can’t tell you why.
CALLER: No. She’s never listened to your show. I try to get her to, but she won’t.
RUSH: That would be fun. Just tell her this. Does she believe in global warming?
CALLER: Oh, of course. Yes.
RUSH: All right. Well, tell her — and make it a point to do this. Next time you talk to her, say, ‘Have you listened to Rush yet?’ ‘No, no! I wouldn’t do that.’
CALLER: (chuckles)
RUSH: ‘Rush is the most authoritative media figure in the country,’ and she’ll freak out, and she’ll say, ‘How do you know?’ ‘Well, by consensus. The consensus of the American people. He has got the largest audience and you don’t have the largest audience on anything unless people agree.’
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: And just use that consensus. ‘Mom, it’s just like the ‘consensus’ of scientists who say we’ve got global warming. A consensus of the American people claim Rush is right, and he’s the most listened to. He’s the best.’
CALLER: Right. I agree.
RUSH: Just see what she says. It will probably go over her head.
CALLER: I will. I will definitely do that.
RUSH: Give it a shot, and report back.
CALLER: I will. I also to want give a shout out to my grandparents. I know they listen to you every day in upstate New York, the Coughlins. They’ve been listening to you for a very long time.
RUSH: Oh, except for your family, it’s a family affair.
CALLER: I know. Well, she’s devastated, she has three children in the military, so…
RUSH: No wonder.
CALLER: (Laughing.)
RUSH: No wonder. (laughing) She’s devastated she has three —
CALLER: No, she’s proud of us, but I think down inside she doesn’t know what happened.
RUSH: I hope so. You had to be joking.
CALLER: Definitely. I’m a future Rush listener here, a crumb cruncher.
CALLER: She is definitely a Rush baby.
RUSH: Well, how old is the Rush baby?
CALLER: She’s 20 months.
RUSH: Twenty months.
CALLER: Yep, running around.
RUSH: Around the radio a lot?
CALLER: Definitely. Yeah.
RUSH: The kid’s going to surprise you.
CALLER: Yeah, I hope so.
RUSH: Mark my words. Gina, thanks for the call, I appreciate it.