Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, this um this day has been uh
Speaker 1: one of the most difficult days in recent memory for me,
Speaker 1: because I've known this moment was coming in the program today.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you all know by now. I really
Speaker 1: don't like talking about myself and I don't like making
Speaker 1: things about me other than in the usual satirical, periodic
Speaker 1: joking way. I like this program to be about you
Speaker 1: and the things that mattered all of us. And I've
Speaker 1: I've I've mentioned to you that this program is in
Speaker 1: this job is what has provided me the greatest satisfaction
Speaker 1: and happiness that I've ever experienced, more than I ever
Speaker 1: thought that I would experience. So I have to tell
Speaker 1: you something today, but I wish I didn't have to
Speaker 1: tell you. And it's it's a struggle for me because
Speaker 1: I I had to inform my staff earlier. Today I
Speaker 1: can't escape even though telling people are telling me it's
Speaker 1: it's not the way to look at it. I can't
Speaker 1: help but feel that I'm letting everybody down with this.
Speaker 1: With this, this was a day that I will never forget.
Speaker 1: Certainly none of us who have worked with Russia Land
Speaker 1: Law will I ever forget. I was on my way
Speaker 1: to work when I got the call there was going
Speaker 1: to be a meeting, and instantly butterflies in the stomach.
Speaker 1: We never have meetings. Maybe two over the last US
Speaker 1: thirty years, maybe two Rush wants to meet with the staff.
Speaker 1: We knew. I knew something was wrong something. Whether you
Speaker 1: listened every day, you are at the E I B
Speaker 1: Network and the Russia Limpball program heard on over six
Speaker 1: hundred great radio stations where every now and then nation's
Speaker 1: leading radio talk show, the most eagerly intersepted program in
Speaker 1: America are the stories you've never heard from the people
Speaker 1: behind the scenes who knew him best and loved him most.
Speaker 1: Rushman Ball having more funds to the human being, it
Speaker 1: could be allowed to hear Rush Limbaugh, the man behind
Speaker 1: the Golden e IP microphone, hosted by James Golden, The
Speaker 1: Tunnel to Towers Foundation has been supporting America's heroes since
Speaker 1: nine eleven, on America's darkest day, so many people gave
Speaker 1: their lives for us. The foundation carries forward a legacy
Speaker 1: of courage and heroism by honoring first responder and military heroes,
Speaker 1: great Americans who protect our communities and our freedom, and
Speaker 1: they're willing to die for you and me. When these
Speaker 1: heroes are killed in the line of duty and young
Speaker 1: children are left behind, Tunnel to Towers pays off their
Speaker 1: mortgage to lift the financial burden and bring these families
Speaker 1: much needed stability. For catastrophically injured veterans and first responders,
Speaker 1: Tunnel to Towers builds mortgage free smart homes. It gives
Speaker 1: them back their independence. America's heroes and their families need
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Speaker 1: do good in their honor. Donate eleven dollars a month
Speaker 1: by going to t to t dot org. That's t
Speaker 1: the number two t dot org. You are the most
Speaker 1: generous audience there is and we thank you for your support.
Speaker 1: So I get to work and we go back to
Speaker 1: the media room, which is in the back of the
Speaker 1: Southern Command complex. This was an all hands meeting and
Speaker 1: later talking to everyone, we all knew something was wrong. Rush.
Speaker 1: His demeanor was normal. You couldn't see any anxiety. He
Speaker 1: started off the conversation. The first few words normal, I
Speaker 1: asked you all to come today, something to that effect,
Speaker 1: and quickly we learned the truth. The upshot is that
Speaker 1: I have been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, advanced lung cancer,
Speaker 1: and it was confirmed, got a second opinion, the second
Speaker 1: depinion and verified what was on the first opinion that
Speaker 1: it was indeed advanced, and then Rush being Rushed apologized
Speaker 1: to us. He said, I'm sorry I let you down,
Speaker 1: and I let out an involuntary, involuntary scream. No, you
Speaker 1: can't apologize to us, because I was mortified that he
Speaker 1: would actually in this what had to be the worst
Speaker 1: moment of our broadcast lives together as a team, as
Speaker 1: a as a group of people. He was apologizing to
Speaker 1: us on what had to be the worst, one of
Speaker 1: the worst days of his life. And he said that, um,
Speaker 1: he was obviously gonna seek treatment, seek the best treatment
Speaker 1: that there was for it. And whatever else he told
Speaker 1: us in that meeting, I don't remember because I just
Speaker 1: felt numb. It's in shock, and I didn't know quite
Speaker 1: what else to think. Then Rush being Rush thanked everybody
Speaker 1: for coming together and turned and walked down that hallway
Speaker 1: back into his broadcast studio. I wish I didn't have
Speaker 1: to tell you this, and I thought about not telling anybody.
Speaker 1: I thought about trying to do this without anybody knowing
Speaker 1: because I don't like making things about me, but there
Speaker 1: are going to be days that I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be able to be here because I'm undergoing treatment or
Speaker 1: I m hm, reacting to treat I walked down that
Speaker 1: hall after him and opened the door and went into
Speaker 1: his his studio. He was standing, and I went over
Speaker 1: to him and gave him a hug, and I told
Speaker 1: him that I loved him and that everything was gonna
Speaker 1: be okay, and that um I felt confident in it.
Speaker 1: What what I have not revealed publicly until now was
Speaker 1: that I had just finished my own boat with cancer.
Speaker 1: I had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and it was
Speaker 1: typical of Rush, and the organization Craig Julie Talbot, who
Speaker 1: runs Premier Networks, and Brian Johnson and our engineers on
Speaker 1: the West Coast did extraordinary things to allow me to
Speaker 1: continue working in Maryland, where I moved to for almost
Speaker 1: half a year while I was being treated. No one
Speaker 1: knew because I kept working in My work days were
Speaker 1: kind of normal. I had my treatment early in the
Speaker 1: morning and would just go to work. And so I
Speaker 1: said to myself, well, you know, Russia's gonna beat this.
Speaker 1: Russia can beat anything. I had the feeling that Russia
Speaker 1: was invincible, but at the same time that word advanced, advanced,
Speaker 1: that was a bothersome word. Um, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: And you know me, I'm the mayor of Realville. So
Speaker 1: this has happened, and my intention is to come here
Speaker 1: every day I can and to do this program as
Speaker 1: normally and as competently and as expertly as I do
Speaker 1: each and every day, because that is the source of
Speaker 1: my greatest satisfaction professionally, um personally, I've had so much
Speaker 1: support from family and friends during this that it's it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's been tremendous. Shortly after that, it was showtime.
Speaker 1: Along comes the theme to the show. Rush opens the
Speaker 1: show I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell anything was wrong,
Speaker 1: typical day show open, strong Rushed, leading off with stories
Speaker 1: of the day. During the next two hours and forty
Speaker 1: five minutes, the show proceeds along like any day on
Speaker 1: the Russian Bulls Show, Rush cracking jokes, Rush being funny,
Speaker 1: Rush going through a detailed analysis of the news. All
Speaker 1: of us, four of us are in the control room
Speaker 1: at that point. Dawn is the officials demographer. She's taking
Speaker 1: in Real time transcribing what Russia is saying and what
Speaker 1: the callers are saying, what the sound bites are. Brian
Speaker 1: Johnson is there. We have a video monitor of our
Speaker 1: New York crew, Mike Mamone in the studio in New York.
Speaker 1: It's a normal day. All of us are trying to
Speaker 1: keep composure. We just kept looking at each other and
Speaker 1: trying not to cry and trying not to just just
Speaker 1: just hold on. You know, Rush is on. We have
Speaker 1: to we have to give our usual to Rush. We
Speaker 1: have to look and and and be engaged in the show.
Speaker 1: He can't look in there and see us crying. He
Speaker 1: can't look in there and see us upset. We have
Speaker 1: to have when when when something's funny, yeah, we we're
Speaker 1: gonna react with the laughter and the smiles. And when
Speaker 1: he's you know, talking about a news story that's particularly interesting,
Speaker 1: We're we're there. I'm screening calls as usual, Dawn's doing
Speaker 1: her job as usual. Brian is all of us are
Speaker 1: doing our jobs. But we have this dread. Dread we
Speaker 1: know it's coming. After the forty three break little Inside Radio,
Speaker 1: there Rush comes back, and that's when he told you
Speaker 1: the media, the rest of the world what was going on,
Speaker 1: and it sounded just is horrific to us hearing it
Speaker 1: again as it did that morning. And I told the
Speaker 1: staff today that I have a deeply personal relationship with
Speaker 1: God that I do not proselytize about, but I do,
Speaker 1: and I have been working that relationship tremendously. Um, which
Speaker 1: I do regularly anyway, but I've I've been focused on
Speaker 1: intensely for the past couple of weeks. I know there
Speaker 1: are many of you in this audience who have experienced this,
Speaker 1: who are going through it yourselves at the same time,
Speaker 1: I am, at the moment experiencing zero symptoms other than
Speaker 1: I don't look. I don't want to get too detailed
Speaker 1: in this. What what led to shortness of breath that
Speaker 1: I thought might have been asthma or um. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm sixty and I could have been my heart. My
Speaker 1: heart's in great shape, taking away fine, squeezing and pumping great.
Speaker 1: It was not that it was a pulimentary problem involving malignancy.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be gone the next couple of
Speaker 1: days as we figure out the treatment, uh course of action,
Speaker 1: and have further testing done. But as I said, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna be here as often as I can.
Speaker 1: And as is the case with everybody who finds themselves
Speaker 1: in a circumstance, you just want to You want to
Speaker 1: push your head and try to keep everything as normal
Speaker 1: as you can, which is something that I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to do. But at least now we didn't have
Speaker 1: to pretend to feel anything other than extreme anxiety, sadness, hopefulness,
Speaker 1: being prayerful, trying to do our best to give what
Speaker 1: little we can to rush during those moments. Within five
Speaker 1: or six minutes of the announcement, the first breaking news
Speaker 1: story shows up on television, and we knew from there
Speaker 1: the life was never going to be the same, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't. Over the years, a lot of people have
Speaker 1: been very nice telling me how much this program is
Speaker 1: meant to them. But whatever that is, it pales in
Speaker 1: comparison to what you all have meant to me. And
Speaker 1: I can't I can't describe this, but I know you're
Speaker 1: there every day, I can see you. It's it's strange
Speaker 1: how I but I know you're there. I know you're
Speaker 1: there in great numbers, and I know that you understand
Speaker 1: everything I say. The rest of the world may not
Speaker 1: when they hear it express a different way, but I
Speaker 1: know that you do. You've been one of the greatest
Speaker 1: sources of confidence that I've had in my life. So
Speaker 1: I hope I will be talking about this as little
Speaker 1: as necessary in the coming days. But we've got a
Speaker 1: great bunch of doctors, a great team assembled. We're at
Speaker 1: full speed ahead on this and it's just now a
Speaker 1: matter of implementing what we are going to be told
Speaker 1: later this week. So I'll be back here. I hope
Speaker 1: to be back on Thursday. If not, it'll be as
Speaker 1: soon as I can. And know that every day I'm
Speaker 1: not here be thinking about you and missing you. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Nothing was ever the same after that announcement.
Speaker 1: Nothing would ever be the same again. So after the
Speaker 1: show that day, that big announcement, brush was off. He
Speaker 1: and Catherine went to the airport where I assume the
Speaker 1: IB one was waiting, and Off went to begin his treatment.
Speaker 1: The stunning part of it was, okay, so so now
Speaker 1: you're dealing I'm we're all dealing with this emotional this
Speaker 1: emotional weight that felt like suffocation. It consumed your thoughts
Speaker 1: from the moment you woke up to the moment you
Speaker 1: went to sleep. You know, it was always there, even
Speaker 1: when you're working on other things or living your life,
Speaker 1: it's always nagging at you. Ruscious got advanced cancer. This
Speaker 1: isn't good. And there were plenty of tears among us
Speaker 1: the staff, and again also trying to encourage each other
Speaker 1: to be hopeful, because after all, this was rushed. This
Speaker 1: is a guy who had gone completely deaf, which would
Speaker 1: have been a career ender for almost anyone else. I'm
Speaker 1: deaf and I can only hear bionically with these very
Speaker 1: quickly human here has thirty five thousand hair cells each.
Speaker 1: They determined the frequency and the sensitivity of the human eerie.
Speaker 1: I don't have it minor dead. They laid down and
Speaker 1: died autoimmune. So I have eight man made biological electrodes.
Speaker 1: Are bionic electrodes that that try to do what hair
Speaker 1: cells do. And yet he came back and produced and
Speaker 1: produced and produced and never stopped producing excellent work. Even
Speaker 1: when he was a hundred percent death. He managed to
Speaker 1: get in there and do great shows. This is rush.
Speaker 1: He can do anything. So now you have guest hosts
Speaker 1: coming in. They're stunned. And the emotion that Mark and
Speaker 1: Ken and Todd brought to the show was so genuine
Speaker 1: and so real. Their admiration and love for Rush it
Speaker 1: was so touching, and their kindness was just unbelievably touching
Speaker 1: to all of us. During the course of this series,
Speaker 1: we'll be hearing from some of Russia's friends, family members,
Speaker 1: and influential leaders from the political and media worlds. Back
Speaker 1: in when the Russia Limbaugh program was originating from New
Speaker 1: York City, Rush met Rudy Giuliani. They became close friends.
Speaker 1: Of course, Rudy would go on to become the Mayor
Speaker 1: of New York City for eight years. Even after Rush
Speaker 1: left New York for Florida, the two states connected, always
Speaker 1: in the same forceome at charity golf events. They also
Speaker 1: worked together with Marvin Shanklin of Cigar Aficionado to raise
Speaker 1: millions of dollars for prostate cancer research. The Life of
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh Chapter one, narrated by America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 1: I knew what I wanted to do when I was
Speaker 1: eight years old. How did I know? Well, you know
Speaker 1: the story. I hated school. It was prison, I just
Speaker 1: hated it. You know, I'm locked in this place. I'm
Speaker 1: having to learn about. Whatever you learn about in first grade,
Speaker 1: you know how to pace things instead of the last
Speaker 1: place I wanted to be. So every morning, getting ready
Speaker 1: to go to this prison, this school, my mother had
Speaker 1: the radio on and she's listening to the guy, a
Speaker 1: local jock. And this guy sounds like he's having fun
Speaker 1: doing whatever he's doing. He's playing records, he's doing commentary,
Speaker 1: little weather forecast. It sounds like he's having fun. As
Speaker 1: a deats how I want my day to be. I
Speaker 1: don't want to begin my day in drudgery and something
Speaker 1: I don't want to do, but I have no choice.
Speaker 1: You have to go to school. If ever a man
Speaker 1: was born for radio, it was Rush Hudson Limbaugh the Third.
Speaker 1: He entered this world in January of n right in
Speaker 1: the heartland of America, Cape Gherardo, Missouri. He was born
Speaker 1: into a family of lawyers who enjoyed success at nearly
Speaker 1: every level, and he almost seemed destined to be the same.
Speaker 1: His paternal grandfather, Rush Hudson Limbaugh the First, served as
Speaker 1: a United States ambassador. His father, Rush Hudson Limbaugh the Second,
Speaker 1: was a lawyer, as was his uncle, and even his
Speaker 1: younger brother David was also since gone on to becoming
Speaker 1: a bestselling author, but no Rush had different plans. As
Speaker 1: you can imagine, a deviation from the family business wasn't
Speaker 1: received all two Well, even Rush would have said later,
Speaker 1: there's no way my dad could have anticipated that Rush
Speaker 1: would break all and being phenomenally successful, not going the
Speaker 1: conventional route. So in the end it just worked out
Speaker 1: for the best. So Russia's family initially frowned upon his
Speaker 1: aspirations for a career in radio, they didn't completely ignore
Speaker 1: his passion for broadcasting. The age of nine, Rushwood broadcast
Speaker 1: from his own bedroom using a toy radio given to
Speaker 1: him by his parents that could only transmit throughout his house.
Speaker 1: There was a device called a Rimco carat Velle, and
Speaker 1: it was the most amazing thing. My parents got it
Speaker 1: for me for Christmas one year, and my mother actually
Speaker 1: dutifully put a radio on her lap and I would
Speaker 1: go upstairs where the bedroom was, and I would have
Speaker 1: my phone. And you had to have an external microphone
Speaker 1: to put into the speaker of the phonograph that you
Speaker 1: were playing records on. You had to move the microphone
Speaker 1: to your mouth when you were doing DJ stuff, and
Speaker 1: then you'd hould the microphone near the speaker for the
Speaker 1: phonograph to play the record, and my mother would dutifully
Speaker 1: sit down there and listen to this, and that the
Speaker 1: quality was just was was horrible, but it allowed me
Speaker 1: to get started on on living out my my dreams.
Speaker 1: As time passed, Rush came to believe that his family
Speaker 1: had a change of heart about his pursuit of broadcasting.
Speaker 1: Even though the family didn't understand it, the fact that
Speaker 1: I hadn't quit it was enough for them to encourage
Speaker 1: me to stay in it. And I did, and all
Speaker 1: that happened happened, and it's it's been so rewarding. It
Speaker 1: has been so so meaningful to me, and there have
Speaker 1: been so many people that have made it possible, among
Speaker 1: them all of you, thankfully for the rest of us,
Speaker 1: My friend Rush Hudson Limbo the Third spent the next
Speaker 1: seven decades in his relentless pursuit of broadcast excellent, and
Speaker 1: he set the standard that will be very very hard
Speaker 1: to beat. Not long ago, Mike Lindell, the inventor of
Speaker 1: My Pillow, and his team fit me for my very
Speaker 1: own my pillow. They also introduced me to their other
Speaker 1: incredible products, like their mattress topper sheets, towels, slippers and more.
Speaker 1: Sleep is important to me and I assume to you too.
Speaker 1: It's time you give my Pillow a try and see
Speaker 1: for yourself. Listeners have helped build My Pillow into the
Speaker 1: incredible company it is today, and Mike Lindell wants to
Speaker 1: give back to you. Now. Get great discounts on My
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Speaker 1: c O N. The next time we saw a rush,
Speaker 1: everything was different. It had to be different. We were
Speaker 1: in a pandemic. This was COVID. Russia's got advanced lung cancer.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be going through treatment that will compromise his
Speaker 1: immune system and knee germ that touches him could be fatal.
Speaker 1: So not only were we masked, but there was no
Speaker 1: more contact. That control room was off when rush came
Speaker 1: out of the control room during the breaks to go
Speaker 1: to the kitchen. Nobody could go. We couldn't have physical
Speaker 1: contact with him at all. We had to keep our
Speaker 1: distance because no one could take the chance during this
Speaker 1: pandemic that a sneeze, a cough, anything could come near
Speaker 1: him for fear that it would complicate, perhaps fatally, his
Speaker 1: already precarious position. And for us, that's that's that's a
Speaker 1: hardship because we were also used to I'd go into
Speaker 1: the studio every single day before the show. I mean
Speaker 1: it's part of it. I'd go in there. We talked
Speaker 1: for a few minutes sometimes, I just you know, if
Speaker 1: he looked like he was really having, ah, you know,
Speaker 1: a stressful kind of morning, I just maybe just rub
Speaker 1: his shoulders a little bit. Hey, let me give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of you know, a shoulder up. See
Speaker 1: whether you know whatever it was, it was, and it
Speaker 1: was it's hard to explain. We all have those of
Speaker 1: us that were with Rush every day, Brian, Dawn and myself,
Speaker 1: it's we were own family. I mean we saw each
Speaker 1: other to spent more time with each other than we
Speaker 1: practically did with anyone else for decades. Right, So we're
Speaker 1: we're our own family. We all had our different you know.
Speaker 1: Rushwood asked Brian to take care of certain things, especially
Speaker 1: um iPhone giveaways, iPad giveaways. Brian was always the point
Speaker 1: man to get stuff out the door for Rush and
Speaker 1: and to do other things. Um, I had different responsibilities.
Speaker 1: Dawn had an ongoing communication with Rush that that that
Speaker 1: that frankly, Brian and I didn't have. She was, as
Speaker 1: she would say, I'm the girl and I'm the boss.
Speaker 1: So her, her, Dawns a communication with Rush was different
Speaker 1: than anyone else's. And ever because she had a different
Speaker 1: kind of bond with him, and and and and it
Speaker 1: was it was infects just to watch sometimes you know. Um,
Speaker 1: she would say things and I'd say, I know, she
Speaker 1: just didn't say that, Yes she did. Um. And And
Speaker 1: like I said, we were all kind of our own
Speaker 1: little family in there. And we never had many visitors.
Speaker 1: I mean, we did have visitors occasionally, you know, people
Speaker 1: would come in, Um the great work that Catherine and
Speaker 1: Rush did for for charity. Once in a while someone
Speaker 1: would come in with with regard to that, the great
Speaker 1: work on the books. Uh. They did contest and so
Speaker 1: we'd have some of the contest winners come in and
Speaker 1: join us for a day. Um, some of Russia's close
Speaker 1: friends as golf buddies or or like Gay and Stanley
Speaker 1: Gaines would would stop in every maybe once a year,
Speaker 1: maybe once every two years. But for the most part
Speaker 1: we were in there by ourselves doing that show. And
Speaker 1: now to not be able to have any contact with Rush,
Speaker 1: physical contact. I don't want to sound selfish, because of
Speaker 1: course we we wanted. We we were praying and hoping
Speaker 1: that Rush would get better. But I think that was
Speaker 1: difficult on all of us because we were just so
Speaker 1: used to being, you know, so open with him, and
Speaker 1: now we were just also worried. And so the treatment
Speaker 1: started and for the first few weeks it seemed like
Speaker 1: everything was going well, and then the side effects came in.
Speaker 1: And Rush always from day one said he didn't want
Speaker 1: to be that cancer patient on the air. He didn't
Speaker 1: want want to live his life letting the cancer define him,
Speaker 1: and so this was key. I think most of us,
Speaker 1: or some of us, if we got a diagnosis like that,
Speaker 1: would just say, Okay, thank you, had a great run
Speaker 1: at this career. It's been wonderful. Bubbye. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: my bucket list. I'm going to, you know, enjoy myself.
Speaker 1: I'm going to see places in the world that I
Speaker 1: haven't seen while I still have the energy to do it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna spend the time that I want hanging out
Speaker 1: with just the people I want to um and UM
Speaker 1: guess what. That's what Rush did. He spent time with
Speaker 1: the people that he wanted to his audience. Russia's bucket
Speaker 1: list was to give everything that he could to the
Speaker 1: audience out of a sense of gratitude and thankfulness and
Speaker 1: appreciation for the wonderful life that this audience had provided
Speaker 1: for him. And he said those words so eloquently at times.
Speaker 1: I understand now what Luke Garrick meant, because I certainly
Speaker 1: feel like that. I feel extremely fortunate and lucky because
Speaker 1: I have outlived the diagnosis. I've been able to receive
Speaker 1: and here and process some of the most wonderful nice
Speaker 1: things about me that I might not have ever heard.
Speaker 1: There were two or three moments in the year where
Speaker 1: Rush did talk about his treatment. One was particularly grave
Speaker 1: when he indicated that they'd have to try a new approach,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of a red flag for me.
Speaker 1: That's like, hmm, this it's not going as expected. I
Speaker 1: think it was a red flag for all of us.
Speaker 1: There was the moment's mere Thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving show as
Speaker 1: we progressed, where Russian made it a point to speak
Speaker 1: very poignantly about out how much the audience meant to
Speaker 1: him and as many days as he could be there
Speaker 1: he was there. I remember him saying that, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's so funny. I still think about this a lot.
Speaker 1: He said, there will come a time when I will
Speaker 1: no longer be able to do this, but until then,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this is many days as I can.
Speaker 1: And to me, I wanted to ignore the first part
Speaker 1: of that, that that they're there will come a time
Speaker 1: when I can't do this. Of course, we all know
Speaker 1: that that's reality. There's a time in everyone's life when
Speaker 1: life changes, when whatever has gone on before is not
Speaker 1: going to go on again. This is life for all
Speaker 1: of us. But to have it on a stage before
Speaker 1: seven million or more people the audience, by the way,
Speaker 1: kept growing and growing and growing and never stopped growing
Speaker 1: into his thirty third year. To have this that I
Speaker 1: am going to do this as long as I can
Speaker 1: do this showed you where his love was. He loved
Speaker 1: his wife, He loved what he did for others through
Speaker 1: the charities and through the philanthropy. He loved all of that.
Speaker 1: But Rush made no secret about it. He said it,
Speaker 1: and it was jest, but it wasn't. I was born
Speaker 1: to host, and you were born to listen. And until
Speaker 1: the very end that was Russia Limbaugh born to host
Speaker 1: with timent on loan from God, and we we're there
Speaker 1: to listen and to enjoy that broadcast. I think perhaps
Speaker 1: the moment I knew something was terribly wrong would be
Speaker 1: later in the year, near Christmas. I've been very lucky, folks,
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how many, how many ways
Speaker 1: you I when this kind of thing befalls you, it's
Speaker 1: hard not to become self focused. It's hard to not
Speaker 1: just think of yourself, and it's it's hard to think
Speaker 1: that everybody's gonna drop what they're doing and deal with
Speaker 1: with me, with you. You have to guard against that
Speaker 1: because this is to the family, This is as disrupting,
Speaker 1: it's as upsetting as it is to me, and in
Speaker 1: some cases even more so. So. You can't I can't
Speaker 1: be self absorbed about it when that is the tendency
Speaker 1: when you are told that you've got to do date.
Speaker 1: You have an expiration date. A lot of people never
Speaker 1: get told that, and so they don't face life this way.
Speaker 1: That Christmas broadcast, his last Christmas broadcast with us, was
Speaker 1: incredibly special to me. It was the worst. It was
Speaker 1: the the precursor to the worst Christmas of my life.
Speaker 1: Because I was so devastated emotionally after that broadcast that
Speaker 1: I didn't go out Christmas. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: around anybody. I just wanted to stay home and mope
Speaker 1: and cry and feel miserable because I could tell in
Speaker 1: that broadcast that this man who had spent the entire
Speaker 1: year giving everything that he had to give was perhaps
Speaker 1: not going to be here the following Christmas. This was it.
Speaker 1: My point in all of us today's gratitude, My my
Speaker 1: point in everything today that I shared with you about
Speaker 1: this is to say thanks and to tell everybody involved
Speaker 1: how much I love you from the bottom of a
Speaker 1: sizeable and growing and still beating heart, still beating heart.
Speaker 1: It was just something in the way that he delivered
Speaker 1: the message, and later on he privately told us, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect to be here this long after that diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and that was something else that was chilling, and he
Speaker 1: kept using the word terminal. It had changed, his lexicon
Speaker 1: had changed from having advanced lung cancer to having terminal
Speaker 1: lung cancer. And he said it more than once because
Speaker 1: he wanted us to know this is terminal, and he
Speaker 1: knew it was terminal. Now, silly me. I'm still thinking
Speaker 1: that whatever this next treatment is is going to reverse
Speaker 1: all of this, and it's not gonna be terminal. And
Speaker 1: until the day that Catherine announced his death, I still
Speaker 1: believed that he would find some way to survive this.
Speaker 1: But I also know that when God wants you to
Speaker 1: come home, you're coming home. Regardless of who you are,
Speaker 1: what your station in life is, how important you think
Speaker 1: you are, how important the world thinks you are, none
Speaker 1: of that matters. When it's time to go home, You're
Speaker 1: going home. And of course, not wanting Rushed to suffer,
Speaker 1: there is also solace and that he is not suffering.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you that some of those days,
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, you could really see
Speaker 1: what giving it all meant. Rush could barely move after
Speaker 1: the show. Some some days you can see just how
Speaker 1: much those three hours had taken out of him. You
Speaker 1: couldn't tell it at all during the show. It was
Speaker 1: These shows were flawless, some of his better shows ever.
Speaker 1: But when that show was over, he was done. He
Speaker 1: was exhausted. At one point he said, I could barely
Speaker 1: stand up. This disease had taken such a toll on him.
Speaker 1: We could see him losing weight. He had grown the beard,
Speaker 1: which at first kind of reminded me of Hemingway. And
Speaker 1: then later on he started to even to me look
Speaker 1: gaunt through the beard. His complexion changed, so you could
Speaker 1: tell he was going through it, but you couldn't tell
Speaker 1: it from listening to him because he put it on
Speaker 1: on the table. Even after the disappointments of election Day,
Speaker 1: still maintained a positive attitude right through that awful holiday season.
Speaker 1: There were some other moments in the holiday season that
Speaker 1: we're We're precious. One day stands in particular, and that
Speaker 1: was a celebration of Christmas that the four of us
Speaker 1: had with each other, Rush, Dawn, Brian and myself, and
Speaker 1: he asked us to come into the studio and we did,
Speaker 1: and it was the first time in the year that
Speaker 1: we had contact with him, and it was special, and
Speaker 1: it was so special that I almost don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it because it's like a jewel. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you this, Rush Limbaugh greatest broadcaster of all
Speaker 1: time in my eyes, and I've known many great broadcasters,
Speaker 1: but beyond that, one of the most courageous human beings
Speaker 1: I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. And the way
Speaker 1: that Rush handled his final challenge, he left nothing on
Speaker 1: the table. He gave it his all. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us for the first episode of Russia Limbaugh The
Speaker 1: Man Behind the Golden E I B Microphone. Next episode
Speaker 1: you'll meet the Inner Family. Two people I referenced in
Speaker 1: this episode, Dawn Patchynsky Brian Johnson were there with me
Speaker 1: with Rush for twenty years through the control room as
Speaker 1: this genius did his radio program. Join us next episode.
Speaker 1: Russia Limbaugh The Man Behind the Golden E I B
Speaker 1: Microphone is produced by Chris Kelly and Phil Tower of
Speaker 1: Best Producers in America. Production assistance Mike Mamone and the
Speaker 1: executive producers Craig Kitchen and Julie Talbot. Our program distributed
Speaker 1: worldwide by Premier Networks, found on the I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: app or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. This
Speaker 1: is James Golden, This is both Snerdley this is James Golden.
Speaker 1: I'm honored to be your was for this in every
Speaker 1: single episode of Rush Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden
Speaker 1: E I B microphone. Thank you for being with us.