Speaker 1: The great Russia Limbaugh has passed on. It is a
Speaker 1: pleasure to talk to an old friend of ours and
Speaker 1: one of Russia's oldest and best friends, Tom Sullivan. It's
Speaker 1: extra large because four hours simply enough, this is armstrong
Speaker 1: and getty extra large. Well, you can hardly overstate how
Speaker 1: big a deal Rush Limbaugh was for um. The world
Speaker 1: of talk radio, which we make are living in and
Speaker 1: Tom Sullivan makes it was living in. Maybe you've heard
Speaker 1: Tom Sullivan over the years. I've seen him on Fox
Speaker 1: Business or someplace like that. Tom Sullivan, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, guys. Hi. How good to talk to you
Speaker 1: on a sad day, but good to talk to you.
Speaker 1: It is sad, and it's worth mentioning that Russia Limball
Speaker 1: was not only a colleague of years and somebody you
Speaker 1: admired like us, but he was a good friend of
Speaker 1: yours for a long time. I I say this too.
Speaker 1: I told my my children, you know, if you have
Speaker 1: you have three friends in your lifetime. I mean like
Speaker 1: real friends. I know a lot of people, you guys
Speaker 1: know a lot of people, but I mean a friend
Speaker 1: that you can talk to about anything and share your
Speaker 1: deepest thoughts. Um, that was Rush, and he was one
Speaker 1: of I would count him one of three people in
Speaker 1: my lifetime that I was that close to. And we
Speaker 1: even though we worked together many years ago, we always
Speaker 1: stayed in touch when he would be in my area,
Speaker 1: stayed at our at Mark our home, and I would
Speaker 1: stay we would stayed at his home in Florida, and
Speaker 1: he was the best man at my wedding. I mean
Speaker 1: we we're very, very close. And um people asked, they said, oh,
Speaker 1: you you must talk to the Rush about about politics
Speaker 1: and about Democrats and Republicans. No, no, actually no, we
Speaker 1: never ever talked about topics that we would talk about
Speaker 1: on radio. We talked as friends about things that friends
Speaker 1: talked to each other about, but we never talked about
Speaker 1: you know, politics or the president or anything else like that,
Speaker 1: which is I guess why we stayed friends so unique
Speaker 1: that we get to talk to somebody who actually knew
Speaker 1: Rush personally then, because um, we're on the radio business.
Speaker 1: And what made him what he is? What was his
Speaker 1: unique skill that made him maybe the biggest star in
Speaker 1: the history of radio, certainly arguably the biggest you know
Speaker 1: presence in the history of radio, going all the way
Speaker 1: back to the twenties. I don't think anybody's ever been
Speaker 1: bigger than Rush Limbaugh. Since you knew him personally and professionally,
Speaker 1: what unique skill did he have that allowed him to
Speaker 1: pull that off? Here's how I got into talk radio,
Speaker 1: and I'll maybe try to answer that question with this.
Speaker 1: So he got his gig in New York and he
Speaker 1: told me. He told me about his negotiations. He was
Speaker 1: talking with this guy Ed McLoughlin and talking about New
Speaker 1: York and he says, I'm really interested in doing it.
Speaker 1: So we were at lunch and I said to him,
Speaker 1: after the deal was announced and he was moving to
Speaker 1: New York, and they asked me because when he first
Speaker 1: went to New York, his show was two hours, and
Speaker 1: so they asked me to fill in for that third
Speaker 1: hour and to to fill that spot. And I said
Speaker 1: to him, I said, Rush, I said, at the time,
Speaker 1: I was doing business reports. I'm a financial guy. And
Speaker 1: I said to him, I says, so what what do
Speaker 1: I do? What? What's what's the trick, what's the technique,
Speaker 1: what's the And he he said to me, he says, listen,
Speaker 1: he says, just be yourself. He said, just be yourself.
Speaker 1: He says, if you even though you're doing at the time,
Speaker 1: I was doing a local show. He says, always do
Speaker 1: things from the standpoint of a national audience, so that
Speaker 1: you're always talking about issues that affect our country and
Speaker 1: the topics of the country, and don't matter who's listening,
Speaker 1: they will have some relationship with you. That's all he
Speaker 1: told me. He says, he says, you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: figure it out on your own, and I hope you do.
Speaker 1: Good luck, and I'm out of here. And so he
Speaker 1: left that I figured it out to some extent. But um,
Speaker 1: I can't answer that question because his connection with his
Speaker 1: audience is you guys have your following. I have my following,
Speaker 1: but nobody has a following like Rush. There was a connection,
Speaker 1: a relationship with his audience that was genuine and from
Speaker 1: his heart, and he uh, it was unique. I don't
Speaker 1: know how this is the problem. How do you find
Speaker 1: you know? People are How about the who's the next?
Speaker 1: Look at? There isn't That was? That was He was
Speaker 1: one of a kind, one of the Tom Tom. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about before he was nationally syndicated,
Speaker 1: because he worked with him in Sacramento, California, the same
Speaker 1: newsroom or our careers started. Um, he was so funny
Speaker 1: and so irreverent in the early part of his career.
Speaker 1: I think people who have latched on the last ten
Speaker 1: fifteen years don't know that it was I don't think
Speaker 1: people understand that. I don't think he ever did politics
Speaker 1: when he was in Sacramento. Really he did a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of funny topics that were hilarious. And
Speaker 1: he has a committed side to him that is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But he was so he was. Yes, he was extremely funny,
Speaker 1: very entertaining. He's an entertainer first and foremost, and you
Speaker 1: and to me, I believe that you've got to entertain
Speaker 1: and inform in order to succeed in this business. And
Speaker 1: and he did. But his entertainment side, he was also,
Speaker 1: of course massive information guy. But I mean he introduced things. Um,
Speaker 1: he first started. It was October of and this new
Speaker 1: guy came to down He replaced more Downey Jr. Who
Speaker 1: had told an ethnic joke on the air and got fired.
Speaker 1: And so the consultant guy by the name of Norm
Speaker 1: was the guy who brought him the Sacramento from Kansas City.
Speaker 1: And so here's this new guy and he comes in
Speaker 1: and he sits down. He's doing his radio show. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, if you can find tapes of
Speaker 1: the first three months of Russia's radio show, it was
Speaker 1: kind of boring. He would do things about, well, Russia
Speaker 1: is doing this, the Soviet Union and the Chinese says,
Speaker 1: and I thought, oh boy, I don't know if this
Speaker 1: guy's gonna make it, because he was following there were
Speaker 1: a lot of people who were mad about Morton Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Who was outrageous getting fired, and they did not like
Speaker 1: this new guy. So along comes a little town north
Speaker 1: of Sacramento. Yuba City had some problem with people smoking
Speaker 1: in their library, and they banned smoking in their libraries.
Speaker 1: This one smoking was let hit and so he came
Speaker 1: on and started having a show, and he said, I
Speaker 1: have to tell you there's we are having a no
Speaker 1: smoking section here and we are banning anybody from Uba
Speaker 1: City that is a smoker. You cannot call this program.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious the way he was able to deliver
Speaker 1: that thing. And from there on end came the sticks
Speaker 1: that he did that were Slim Whitman records playing backwards
Speaker 1: where the devil was in them, and he it was
Speaker 1: it was be on he was so creative and so funny,
Speaker 1: So he really did not do politics until he got
Speaker 1: on the national stage. That's really interesting. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: I knew he did more you know, bits and irreverence
Speaker 1: stuff early on when he was a local host, but
Speaker 1: I assumed he was still politically driven to start with,
Speaker 1: but not at all. So what made him decide to
Speaker 1: make the switch. Did this station he went to New
Speaker 1: York so they know we want more politics? Or did
Speaker 1: he just since that was The Times or something? I
Speaker 1: think it was The Times, and he was He was
Speaker 1: a massive hit instantly in New York, and there were
Speaker 1: people like Bill Buckley, Uh, there was Henry Kissinger, other
Speaker 1: people that were big deals in New York at the time,
Speaker 1: embraced him, and he kind of got introduced on a
Speaker 1: first hand basis to some of the big political leaders
Speaker 1: uh in New York and in our country. I think
Speaker 1: that was all it was. He the talent was always there.
Speaker 1: He just it wasn't really something that came up in
Speaker 1: local conversation, but it did on a national basis, you know,
Speaker 1: Tom last question from me, anyway, we all try to
Speaker 1: be ourselves. I think anybody who's ever been successful in
Speaker 1: this business is to a large measure themselves on the
Speaker 1: air because you have to, and people smell jive from
Speaker 1: a million miles away. On the other hand, there's there's
Speaker 1: part of you that maybe doesn't come out on the air.
Speaker 1: How would you describe Russia Limball the human being to
Speaker 1: listeners who just know him through the air? Um, I've
Speaker 1: told people this and they look at me like I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: Um Rush was I can't believe I'm saying. Was Um
Speaker 1: a extremely polite Midwest son of the Midwest, son of
Speaker 1: Missouri Cape Girardo, over overly polite and also very generous,
Speaker 1: just a kind man that Um. The bravado on the
Speaker 1: air was bravado, but his beliefs were I mean, he
Speaker 1: didn't make up his beliefs. He believed everything he said,
Speaker 1: but he said it with more bravado. I think for
Speaker 1: production values more than anything else. But what a kind,
Speaker 1: polite man he was, and anybody who ever really got
Speaker 1: to meet him off the air saw it instantly. It's
Speaker 1: just over the top politeness and kind and generous, a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and non friends, and amazing what he had. Well, Tom,
Speaker 1: we we appreciate you coming on because you know we
Speaker 1: realize it's a it's a personal loss for you. It's
Speaker 1: not just talking about a celebrity like it is for
Speaker 1: a lot of us talking heads. But appreciate you taking
Speaker 1: the time today, Jack, good to talk to you. Likewise,
Speaker 1: extra large