RUSH: Rebecca, Albuquerque, New Mexico, great to have you, Open Line Friday. You’re next. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for having me on.
RUSH: Yes, ma’am.
CALLER: How are you?
RUSH: I’m great. I’m great. Thank you.
CALLER: Good. Well, I just want to get straight to the point. You know, I’ve been listening to you for nearly 10 years now. I’m 19 years old, and I recognize that every news outlet is biased and carries a mob mentality. And I know that your show is a news outlet that I know I can get the truth from, and I wanted to ask you if you’d ever consider creating a news service in competition with Fox.
CALLER: Yes. That.
RUSH: No, I haven’t. I have way, way back, not in any recent times, I had at one time considered providing a radio news service for our affiliate stations that would be EIB news at the top of the hour for five or six minutes.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: We toyed with that. The answer to this is I focus almost exclusively on this, and it takes everything I’ve got to do this for three hours every day as well as I can. And it satisfies me.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: It satisfies me like nothing in life ever satisfied. So the desire for more I don’t have. But I need you to hang on here, Rebecca. Don’t go away. Hang on through the break.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to Rebecca in Albuquerque. I have a little bit more time to answer your question, and I’m gonna treat your question seriously ’cause I think you mean it seriously.
CALLER: Yes, I do. (giggles)
RUSH: And you know, it’s a fascinating thing for me to watch. I’m into my 29th year of this, and I don’t mean to harp on that, but it does equal a lot of years of experience.
CALLER: Mmm-hmm.
RUSH: And I think back when the program first started in ’88, and it launched, and it was huge, and it was growing fast, and here came the television show offers, and I did one for four years. And then it is book offers. And I did two of those. And I grabbed at every opportunity I could, because I could, and because the opportunities were being offered, the chances were there. And in all of this I never lost focus on what was causing it all to happen, and that was this show.
I never lost focus on that, never lost sight of it. I’ve never, like some people are, been embarrassed to be in radio. I love radio! I think radio, done right, can have more influence and have a greater connection with people and be more deeply meaningful than another medium like TV, which is on all the time and you’re paying attention to it half the time. A good radio show will captivate you, and it’s active listening. It’s not in the background.
And that’s how much I put into it. And I’m watching people who are younger, who are just starting out go through the same process. They get their show and that launches a book and maybe for TV people launches a radio show, and you do it. You grab every opportunity that comes your way, because you never know when it’ll come again. And because I grabbed those opportunities and I had the opportunity to engage in all of my chances, I was able to reaffirm how much I love this. And I just decided — since it’s so rewarding and so fulfilling — that I devote everything I’ve got to it.
And so I don’t want any more. I don’t have a desire to dominate in another medium or to go elsewhere. I’m perfectly happy and rewarded and fulfilled where I am. Now, I know your question is about more than that. Your question is, “Rush, do you think maybe you could provide additional ammunition, additional service by expanding and taking what you do and making a news network?” I’m very flattered, by the way, at your question about that. But look, if there were 10 more of me that I could put on the air 24/7 on TV for a week, I would do it.
CALLER: I’d love that.
RUSH: (laughing) And if I could delegate myself to somebody else and then sit there and manage it, I would do it, but I haven’t found that yet.
CALLER: Yeah. Well, the reason I ask is we just… My whole family and I listen to you, and we just love hearing you, and hearing the truth, ’cause it really is… The media is just so full of lies, and I feel like your show is really the only one that —
RUSH: I know. It’s frustrating. It’s all the same.
RUSH: It’s homogenous. It’s all the same, and it’s all the same ignorance. It’s the same blindness.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: It’s the same prejudice, it’s the same bias, no matter where you go with it. New York Times —
CALLER: No.
RUSH: — CBS, it’s the same thing everywhere.
CALLER: Yeah. Oh, and in school, too. I go to the University of New Mexico, and it’s definitely there.
RUSH: Yeah, that, too.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: The professors —
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: — the teachers, the faculty, it’s all the same, and it doesn’t inspire anything. It just makes you mad.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: It doesn’t inspire critical thinking. It doesn’t inspire the desire to learn. I know. I know how frustrating it is. You know, I’m a little selfish, too. In one sense, Rebecca, I have my three hours here, and I have my microphone here, and I can come here every day and tell people what a pack of lies the rest of the media is — and at the end of that, I’m satisfied. You know, you don’t have a microphone like I do, and you don’t have three hours to tell people what you think, so I understand your frustration. And you want somebody like me who’s got the opportunity to make it even bigger.
CALLER: Yeah. That’s exactly it.
RUSH: I get it. I really do. And, look, I don’t foreclose anything, but I have to. You asked me the question and I’m not gonna sit here and say, “Yeah, you know what, Rebecca? I was just thinking about that last night. Wouldn’t it be cool?” I don’t want to mislead you. There’s no future in that. But I don’t foreclose anything coming along, but it isn’t there right now. Now, before you go, everybody today gets their choice of an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus. You don’t have take it. If you have a phone you like, that’s fine. If you want to gift it to anybody, I mean, it’s yours if you want it. You just need to tell me.
CALLER: Yes! I would love that. (giggles) Thank you.
RUSH: Okay. So which one? Do you know the difference in the two?
CALLER: No. I know one has like two cameras or something but I don’t know.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: And it’s got two cameras, genuine telephoto — optical photo. It’s not digital. It’s an actual optical two times telephoto. It therefore has more camera features. It also has battery life that’s a day and a half. Sometimes I get three days on my phone without having to charge it. It will be down to 10%, but I can get three days with mine.
CALLER: Oh, that’d be nice! (chuckles)
RUSH: Now, I don’t make phone calls, which eats up a lot of battery, but you can easily get a full day or day and a half, depending on how you use the phone. But they’re both beautiful. It’s just a matter of preference, and if you don’t mind using two hands to use the phone — and if you wear tight jeans, you can’t put the big one in your back pocket. That would be cool.
CALLER: (giggling)
RUSH: If you wear mom jeans like Obama, no problem.
CALLER: Oh-ho! (giggling) You know what? I’ll do the Plus.
RUSH: There you go. A wise choice. Who’s your carrier?
CALLER: I have Verizon.
RUSH: Verizon. Cool. Do you have a color preference? It better be black.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: In Verizon… Well, no wait a minute. In the Plus all I’ve got is the two versions of black. But they’re beautiful, they’re both beautiful. You just tell me you want shiny black or matte block on the back.
RUSH: Well, which one do I prefer? The shiny because it’s still really hard to get. If you ordered one today, it’d be a month before you’d get it.
CALLER: All right, I’ll do the shiny black.
RUSH: Okay, hang… It’s gonna come without a SIM card. It’s totally unlocked. It’ll work on any carrier. It’s a world phone. It will work on any carrier. What kind of…? Do you have a cell phone now?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: What kind?
CALLER: It’s a 4S, I think.
RUSH: 4S. SIM card will not fit.
CALLER: Yeah, she doesn’t —
RUSH: You’ll have to take this to Verizon and have the number moved to the new phone.
CALLER: Okay. Will do.
RUSH: Take the box, tell ’em it’s a gift, and it’s unlocked from the factory, and they’ll set you up. They’ll love seeing you, okay?
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: Now, hang on so We can get the address. You’ll have it FedEx Saturday delivery tomorrow.