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Speaker 1: Pushkin. I promise not to get too technical with you,

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Speaker 1: but bear with me for a second. I am speaking

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Speaker 1: to you now through an electro voice ARI twenty microphone.

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Speaker 1: It's black with a mesh cap at the top, kind

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Speaker 1: of clunky, very eighties looking. It's pretty weighty. I think

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Speaker 1: if you clubbed someone with it, you could probably knock

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Speaker 1: them unconscious. Same deal if you just talk real slow

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Speaker 1: and boring. Some people, people who spend all their time

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Speaker 1: thinking about recording equipment, think it sounds honky in the parlance.

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Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure what that means. In any way,

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Speaker 1: I like it. My Ari twenty, however, is not gold plated.

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Speaker 1: But today on the show, we have the story of

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Speaker 1: somebody who's was Rush Limbaugh is probably the most famous

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Speaker 1: conservative talk radio host of the twentieth and twenty first century.

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Speaker 1: He was a larger than life personnel, and he contributed

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Speaker 1: a whole lot to the hyper partisan, hyper polarized media

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Speaker 1: landscape we live in today. Making the story you're about

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Speaker 1: to hear, we listened to a lot of Rush limbat tape,

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Speaker 1: and when you listen to enough of it, you begin

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Speaker 1: to feel his voice like it's hammering into your skull.

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Speaker 1: Whatever you think of the man's politics. He was an

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Speaker 1: all time Hall of Fame shock chock. He was very,

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Speaker 1: very good at his job. When he really wanted to

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Speaker 1: make a point, he'd lean in really close to the

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Speaker 1: microphone like this. It's called eating the microphone. Well, the

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Speaker 1: episode I'm about to play you is about how that

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Speaker 1: gold plated microphone eight American politics. Since the beginning of radio,

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Speaker 1: people have worried about its power. On the radio, millions

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Speaker 1: of people can hear a single voice all at the

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Speaker 1: same time, with sound effects and on scene reporting, radio

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Speaker 1: could put images and ideas into the listener's mind, your mind.

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Speaker 1: People thought it was so powerful it could be a

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Speaker 1: great tool for democracy, a way to educate everyone in

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Speaker 1: the country. But if radio was that powerful, couldn't it

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Speaker 1: be a tool for totalitarianism and groupthink. In nineteen thirty three,

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Speaker 1: Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Gerbels wrote, the German radio, under

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Speaker 1: national socialist auspices must become the clearest and most direct

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Speaker 1: instrument for educating and restructuring the German nation end quote.

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Speaker 1: In the US people were worried about that version of

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Speaker 1: the radio, so they made laws and rules and norms

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Speaker 1: to keep it at bay, the fairness doctrine, equal time.

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Speaker 1: Those were some of them. But surveying the last one

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Speaker 1: hundred years of media history, you might get the feeling

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Speaker 1: that fairness and equality haven't really been the trajectory. This

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Speaker 1: episode looks at what went wrong with the media and

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Speaker 1: politics and points to the history of the moment we're

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Speaker 1: in now, where it seems as if every American lives

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Speaker 1: in his or her own version of reality. From our

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Speaker 1: second season, recorded back in twenty twenty one, Here's hush Rush.

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Speaker 2: There's a place in our world where the known things go.

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Speaker 2: A corridor of the mind, lined with shelves cluttered with proof. Inside.

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Speaker 2: I've been cataloging my collection of evidence about propagandists, hypnotists

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Speaker 2: and conspiracy theorists, labeling reels with masking tape and sharpies,

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Speaker 2: organizing them by date, reel after reel of tape. It's

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Speaker 2: like the Nixon Novle Office in here, recordings of the

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Speaker 2: sorts of people we've been listening to all season, episode

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Speaker 2: after episode.

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Speaker 3: Your command of whole life in the months of worldwide lungfuls.

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Speaker 4: The man who makes his living by telling the truth, the.

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Speaker 5: Man who I got to say.

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Speaker 4: I want you to keep on going back and back

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Speaker 4: and back in your mind, the wall of secrecy, the

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Speaker 4: news media being silent, and the Patsy's locked up, and

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Speaker 4: the psychological profile.

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Speaker 2: Robert Ripley, access Sally, Maury Bernstein, May Brussel, Valentine, Yeah, boys,

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Speaker 2: Kaya and I I mean, each of them asking you,

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Speaker 2: the listener, to doubt what you think you know, and

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Speaker 2: very often that doubt is delivered through the medium of radio.

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Speaker 2: I've got just one more of these voices. He's all

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Speaker 2: the rest, all balled up together.

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Speaker 6: You are, my.

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Speaker 7: Friends, about to be exposed to the kind of bristling,

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Speaker 7: cogent analysis available nowhere else. Because of this, your initial

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Speaker 7: reaction may be shock and disbelief.

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Speaker 2: That's the voice of mister Rush Limbaugh. And I'm Jill Lapour,

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Speaker 2: host of a show that could hardly be more different

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Speaker 2: from the Rush Limbaugh Show. Welcome to the Last Archive,

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Speaker 2: the show about how we know what we know and

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Speaker 2: why sometimes it seems lately as if we don't know

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Speaker 2: anything at all. Step over the threshold and along the

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Speaker 2: passage of time to the year nineteen eighty eight.

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Speaker 1: Don't fight it, don't even try. Just surrender yourself.

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Speaker 2: Surrender yourself that's his mantra, it's not mine. My mantra

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Speaker 2: is never surrender. What's the first thing you do when

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Speaker 2: you get in the car, Collect the seatbelt, switch on

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Speaker 2: the ignition, Turn on the radio. Yeah, find the right station.

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Speaker 2: Here's a little there you want there, jingle one gracious Roman.

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Speaker 4: Her just say times.

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Speaker 2: Carry radios first became common in the nineteen thirties. For

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Speaker 2: decades radio was am radio, local stations, maybe with some

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Speaker 2: top of the hour news and a lot of sports.

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Speaker 8: Baseball.

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Speaker 9: You by the first bag of the bank of since

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Speaker 9: that or your money grows safely and high return certificates

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Speaker 9: of the body.

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Speaker 2: Something else that had long been popular on AM radio

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Speaker 2: gospel shows.

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Speaker 6: The voice of the Hour of Decision, Billy Graham, So

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Speaker 6: for you, for the nation, this is the Hour of Decision.

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Speaker 2: By the nineteen seventies, the most popular AM radio shows

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Speaker 2: were drivetime shows, the ones that aired during your commute.

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Speaker 2: Rock and Roll hosted by fast talking djsk.

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Speaker 10: Nine oh three and fourteen k on the award winning

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Speaker 10: Ye Rock Game.

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Speaker 11: Roll Over the show with Bunny and Product for all

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Speaker 11: some of you, no doubts, no wondering, one award.

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Speaker 5: I have won.

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Speaker 7: I'll tell you not out of the Marconia Warren More

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Speaker 7: Textlent Rock Kennery, that.

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Speaker 2: Young Boogaroo, that's the young Rush Limbaugh. Jeff Christy, this

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Speaker 2: is non to radio backs in.

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Speaker 4: Boy, congratulate our name and acclaiment winners.

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Speaker 7: Jeff round With of Eastmont.

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Speaker 5: I'll tell you, Jem I will think you twelve six

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Speaker 5: packs of Carefree sugarlist gun to get to it all day.

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh was born in Missouri. He went to Southeast Missouri

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Speaker 2: State University for a year, but dropped out to work

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Speaker 2: in radio. In nineteen seventy one, he got a job

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Speaker 2: as a disc jockey at an AM station outside Pittsburgh.

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Speaker 2: He got fired after a year and a half and

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Speaker 2: went to a station called.

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Speaker 7: Kqv And that one time made the twelve more entries

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Speaker 7: for you in the Camfree Rock Concert contrast.

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Speaker 5: You and Jack Box for Tomorrow is.

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Speaker 7: Two hundred and forty dollars and fourteen sent the lot

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Speaker 7: of guys that you can remember it. Bob deccannell makes

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Speaker 7: the next.

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Speaker 5: Call the one.

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh died in twenty twenty one at the age of seventy.

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Speaker 2: His obituaries head headlines like We're living in the world.

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Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh created and that's true. But even though you

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Speaker 2: may think you know all the ways we now live

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Speaker 2: in Rush Limbaugh's world, there's more to understand. It has

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Speaker 2: to do with what a lot of this season has

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Speaker 2: been exploring how we hear voices on the radio. There

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Speaker 2: were lots of testimonials to Limbo after he died, but

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Speaker 2: one comment really stuck with me. A guy wrote on

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Speaker 2: YouTube his show was the only one that came in clearly.

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Speaker 4: So I listened.

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Speaker 7: People are thinking of a Jefferson Startist show.

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Speaker 5: Work of way details them.

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh even when he was Jeff Christi. He was a

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Speaker 2: big guy, wide grin waved his hands a lot, big personality,

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Speaker 2: a little George Costanza meets Fred Flinstone. In nineteen seventy four,

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Speaker 2: he lost yet another job. He moved back home with

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Speaker 2: his parents in Missouri. He was twenty three. It was

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Speaker 2: a very tough time to try to make a career

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Speaker 2: in AM radio, mainly because FM radio was on the rise.

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Speaker 5: FM radio a fight free static three FM or FM

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Speaker 5: stereo car radio. Child Survey It's out of silent day.

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Speaker 2: Starting in the nineteen fifties, the era of Elvis the

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Speaker 2: Little Richard, people bought FM radios for their houses. But

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Speaker 2: the FMI I only really exploded in the nineteen seventies, when,

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Speaker 2: for the first time, you could get FM in your car.

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Speaker 2: At this point, AM radio was mono, just one track.

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Speaker 2: FM was stereo. It was immersive. Naturally, everyone wanted to

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Speaker 2: switch from plain old mono to stereo. He'd bring your

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Speaker 2: car into the shop and switch out your AM radio

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Speaker 2: for an FM radio with stereo speakers. Seem this change

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Speaker 2: in the sound of radio from AM to FM would

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Speaker 2: have vast repercussions for the history of knowledge. A very

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Speaker 2: long reverb, AM radio suffered, listenership plummeted, and then so

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Speaker 2: did AD revenue. By nineteen eighty seven, the majority of

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Speaker 2: AM radio stations were no longer making a profit, and

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Speaker 2: people who worked at AM radio stations in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventies were losing their jobs, including in Kansas City, where Limbaugh,

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Speaker 2: who'd been moving from job to job had landed.

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Speaker 12: All the DJs got fired.

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Speaker 11: I was spared as assistant program director, and you know

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Speaker 11: what that meant, programming the automation machine.

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Speaker 2: Limba didn't last long as an assistant program director. He

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Speaker 2: took a job instead with the Kansas City Royals baseball team. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: AM radio stations were beginning to figure out that if

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Speaker 2: they could leave music to the FM band and concentrate

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Speaker 2: on talk shows, they could start making money again. In

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Speaker 2: mono talk sounds fine, even if you might not agree

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Speaker 2: with what someone's saying.

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Speaker 7: The simple fact matter is that the homeless advocacy in

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Speaker 7: this country is, I think, based upon fraud.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four, broadcasting under his own name, Limbaugh

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Speaker 2: started a new kind of talk radio show in Sacramento

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Speaker 2: on KFBK. He pretty much invented a whole new format.

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Speaker 2: Soon he had a deal for national syndication.

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Speaker 4: The opinions expressed on the Rush Limbaugh program did not

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Speaker 4: necessarily reflect those of WABC Radio or its management, and

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Speaker 4: now here's Rush Limbaugh.

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Speaker 7: Either way. That's a Gutlass disclaimer. The view is expressed

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Speaker 7: by the host of this show ought to become federal

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Speaker 7: law in the station and sponsors all who heartily endorse them.

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Speaker 2: The Rush Limbaugh Show was a one way wall of talk.

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh was funny, he was angry. His program started with

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Speaker 2: a news digest, then a series of opinions mixed with

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Speaker 2: calls from listeners who agreed with those opinions. Year's voice now,

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Speaker 2: and it sounds so utterly familiar. That's because it's the

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Speaker 2: voice of the political YouTuber, or of a certain sort

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Speaker 2: of podcaster, brash, annoying, know it all. But it was

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Speaker 2: a new voice then, and it spoke to listeners for

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Speaker 2: three hours a day, five days a week.

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Speaker 7: So to give you just a bit of an idea

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Speaker 7: about the show, there are no guests never. We don't

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Speaker 7: talk about single issues or themes unless they evolve as

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Speaker 7: the program goes. It is pretty much an open line

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Speaker 7: discussion each and every day.

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Speaker 2: Limba revolutionized radio open line. It was all him, even

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Speaker 2: some of the ads. At a time when human resources

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Speaker 2: departments were newly requiring sexual harassment training, Limbaugh spent a

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Speaker 2: lot of his time on air attacking feminists, especially after

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Speaker 2: Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.

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Speaker 2: Limba made a fake ad about Feminazi trading cards. I'll

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Speaker 2: give you two glorious nyems for an Anita Hell.

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Speaker 1: Trading cards have always been for males only.

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Speaker 9: It's just not fair, It's not right. Damn I spilt

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Speaker 9: ill past my Betty freedan.

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Speaker 1: Feminazi cards are designed with a woman in mind.

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Speaker 2: I'll up front, I remember in those years my dad

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Speaker 2: listening to Limba, who drove my mother nuts. I bet

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Speaker 2: a lot of families had an experience like that. Limba.

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Speaker 2: He'd say it seemed anything, so partly people tuned in

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Speaker 2: for the thrill of it, to hear what he'd say next.

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Speaker 2: For the rest of us, though, it was like getting

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Speaker 2: kicked in the face every day. He went after feminists,

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Speaker 2: He liked to mock environmentalists, gays and lesbians. He made

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Speaker 2: a lot of jokes about aides. Despite or really because

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Speaker 2: of all that, Limbo's audience just grew and grew. Mainly

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Speaker 2: that audience was men, white men who were angry. As

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Speaker 2: angry as Rush seemed to be real. Wages for white

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Speaker 2: men who had gone to college were dropping. They're still dropping.

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Speaker 2: Some of these guys really did have a lot to

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Speaker 2: be angry about. Rush told them who to be angry at.

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Speaker 2: The people who loved Rush. They called themselves dittoheads because

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Speaker 2: they believed everything he said and would say it back ditto.

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Speaker 2: Limbo's format, the wall of Talk pushed nearly everything else

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Speaker 2: off talk radio, all the kooky chit chat and cooking

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Speaker 2: shows and carpentry shows and community theater everything. Meanwhile, radio stations,

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Speaker 2: which for a long time time had been mom and

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Speaker 2: pop operations, were getting bought out by giant, consolidated, national,

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Speaker 2: and even global corporations. Here I've got to disclose something

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Speaker 2: about that consolidation. The Rush Limbaugh Show was eventually syndicated

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Speaker 2: by an outfit called clear Channel. More recently, clear Channel

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Speaker 2: rebranded itself as iHeart Media, and an arm of iHeart

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Speaker 2: now sells ads for Pushkin Industries, which is the production

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Speaker 2: house that makes the last Archive. So this is like

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Speaker 2: when the Washington Post reports on Amazon and then has

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Speaker 2: to mention that the Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. Okay,

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Speaker 2: the last Archive is not the Washington Post, and iHeart

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Speaker 2: doesn't own Pushkin. But still it's important to disclose these things.

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh liked to present himself as a cowboy, a maverick, bold, reckless,

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Speaker 2: and unpredictable. In reality, he was more like the Wonderbread

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Speaker 2: of radio, the factory made whitebread of radio, who was

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Speaker 2: the same every goddamn day, rant, rant, ad rant, rant,

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Speaker 2: ad rant, rant, big rant, station break rant. What he

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Speaker 2: was selling was his own predictability three hours a day,

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Speaker 2: five days a week. But the forces that had to

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Speaker 2: do with Limbaugh's success had to do with more than

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Speaker 2: just radio formats. For years, Limbaugh's fortunes rose while other

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Speaker 2: medias fell. Daily newspapers were going out of business. Limbaugh

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Speaker 2: didn't seem to mind.

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Speaker 7: If you listened to this show every day, you never

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Speaker 7: need to read another newspaper again, never read on a magazine.

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Speaker 7: I do it for you, and you get a bonus.

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Speaker 7: I tell you what to think about this incredibly complicated

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Speaker 7: and controversial issue.

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Speaker 2: I tell you what to think. And he wasn't joking.

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Speaker 2: Limba presented himself as a prophet liberals and Feminazis, they

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Speaker 2: were heretics. Limba was talking politics, but his show was

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Speaker 2: less like a news program than like those old radio

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Speaker 2: gospel shows. Politics as preaching, listening as worship, conservatism as

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Speaker 2: a new religion. Scholars call this called sectarianism, and in

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Speaker 2: this era, sectarianism was headed to Washington.

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Speaker 12: At gopack, our mission is to gain control of the

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Speaker 12: US House of Representatives.

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Speaker 13: We're developing a farm team of future congressional candidates.

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Speaker 2: That's audio from what's known as a go Pack tape,

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Speaker 2: one of the thousands of tapes made by a GOP

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Speaker 2: political action committee that had become the mouthpiece for just

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Speaker 2: one man.

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Speaker 13: This is Congress and Nude Gingrich. As a candidate, you've

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Speaker 13: probably been listening to tapes from gopack all year, and

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Speaker 13: you know that we've emphasized certain basic ideas and certain

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Speaker 13: basic approaches.

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Speaker 2: Newt Gingrich, then a congressman from Georgia. Gingrich heard what

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh was doing on air, and in the late nineteen

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Speaker 2: eighties started to record his own version of that format

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Speaker 2: through these go pack cassette tapes. If you were a

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Speaker 2: Republican running for office or working on a campaign, you'd

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Speaker 2: probably listen to these tapes in your car as cassette player.

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Speaker 13: In this tape, we have a speech I gave to

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Speaker 13: the Republicans in California. We decided to share with you

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Speaker 13: as an example of how you can bring all the

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Speaker 13: basic values together.

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Speaker 2: This is the sound of modern political history, shifting gears

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Speaker 2: and burning out the clutch. The tapes were mailed to

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Speaker 2: thousands of people every month. One Republican from Minnesota told

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Speaker 2: PBS's Frontline how crucial they were when.

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Speaker 1: They would come.

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Speaker 7: I mean, and you spent some time in a car,

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Speaker 7: particularly going back and forth to the state legislature.

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Speaker 9: When they would come in the mail.

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Speaker 7: I mean I would open them up right away, and

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Speaker 7: I would put them in a cassette player within twenty

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Speaker 7: four hours.

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Speaker 2: The purpose of the tapes was to create a single

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Speaker 2: national message for a conservative insurgency, to make newt dittoheads.

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Speaker 13: There are two movements in America. There's a left wing

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Speaker 13: radical movement, and there's a common sense, practical, center right majority,

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Speaker 13: the basic conservatives. Let me give you an example of

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Speaker 13: how we think you can draw those lines.

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Speaker 2: Gingrich proposed a set of dualisms for candidates to use

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Speaker 2: in ads. You might think this kind of hyper polarized

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Speaker 2: rhetoric is more recent, a product of social media, maybe,

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Speaker 2: but you'd be wrong.

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Speaker 13: We believe in locking up criminals, especially dangerous criminals, but

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Speaker 13: allowing honest citizens stone guns. The radical left introduced to

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Speaker 13: build a legalize sex with animals, but we oppose legal

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Speaker 13: sex with animals. In fact, frankly, we oppose any kind

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Speaker 13: of sex with animals.

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Speaker 2: In the early nineteen nineties, and a memo sent out

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Speaker 2: with the tapes, go Back supplied candidates with a vocabulary list.

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Speaker 2: It suggested words to use to help define your campaign change, opportunity, legacy, challenge, control, truth.

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Speaker 4: Moral, courage, reform, prosperity, crusade, movement, children, family, debate, compete, humane, pristine, provide, liberty, commitment, duty, fair, protect, confident, incentive,

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Speaker 4: hard work, initiative, common sense.

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Speaker 2: Go Peck also listed words to use to describe your

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Speaker 2: political opponents, words like sick, pathetic, liberal.

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Speaker 4: Lie, shallow, traders, sensationalists, in danger, coercion, hypocrisy, radical, threatened, devour, waste, corruption, incompetent, permissive, attitude, destructive, impose,

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Speaker 4: self serving, greed, sheet steel, abuse of power, obsolete.

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Speaker 2: This was political warfare on all fronts. Gingrich trained the officers,

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Speaker 2: Limbaugh rallied the troops. Gingrich's political power grew, and so

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Speaker 2: did Limbaugh's audience to round fifteen million listeners each week.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety one, Limba appeared on CBS's sixty Minutes.

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Speaker 4: What are you trying to do with this show?

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Speaker 7: I'm trying to attract the largest audience I can and

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Speaker 7: hold it for as long as I can so that

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Speaker 7: I can charge advertisers confiscatory advertiser rates. This is a business.

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Speaker 11: You're in it for the money.

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Speaker 7: Sure, of course, I'm doing a lot of this for money.

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Speaker 2: That's Limbaugh earning points for being honest. It's also a tactic.

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump would adopt honesty about loving money. Listeners adored it.

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Speaker 2: For talk radio, the money came rolling in, and not

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Speaker 2: just for Limbaugh. Between nineteen eighty nine and nineteen ninety four,

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Speaker 2: an average of twenty new talk radio stations went into

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Speaker 2: business every month. Their shows weren't all conservative, at least

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Speaker 2: not at first, but soon station owners discovered that if

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Speaker 2: they ran only conservative talk, they had more listeners.

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Speaker 14: No sports, no back, no information for mindless shatter your station.

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Speaker 4: Kay BBL Talk Radio on Alice Springfield's papered conservative and

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Speaker 4: author of the well selling book Only Turkeys Have Left Wings,

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Speaker 4: Ladies and Gentlemen.

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Speaker 8: Birch Barlow.

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Speaker 2: You know you're in the zeitgeist when you're satirized on

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Speaker 2: the Simpsons.

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Speaker 7: Good morning, fellow freedomlikers, Birch Barlow, the fourth branch of government,

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Speaker 7: the fifty first State.

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Speaker 2: The more famous Limbaugh got, the more worried observers got,

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Speaker 2: especially about how he talked about talk, how he talked

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Speaker 2: about the freedom of speech, how he talked about fairness itself.

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Speaker 7: This is also a benevolent dictatorship. I am the dictator.

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Speaker 7: There is no First Amendment here except for me.

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Speaker 2: Well, right, the First Amendment only constrains the government, not

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Speaker 2: a privately owned radio station. But for most of the

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Speaker 2: twentieth century there'd been some rules in place, rules that

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Speaker 2: date to a time when people understood just how dangerous

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Speaker 2: radio could be if broadcasters became dictators. In the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 2: a guy named Clifford Dirr got a job offer from

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Speaker 2: President Roosevelt. Derr was a lawyer from Alabama. He's best

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Speaker 2: known to history for something he did much later in

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Speaker 2: the nineteen fifty when he and his wife bailed Rosa

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Speaker 2: Parks out of jail. Anyway, in nineteen forty one, FDR

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Speaker 2: appointed Dr to the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, and

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Speaker 2: I said, what was that? The FCC is the federal

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Speaker 2: agency that regulates who can get broadcast licenses to use

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Speaker 2: the airwaves, which after all, belonged to the public.

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Speaker 6: When I went on to the FCAC, I knew absolutely

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Speaker 6: nothing about it. But at the time, we will monitor

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Speaker 6: all the access broadcast.

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Speaker 2: I did an episode earlier this season called The Inner Front.

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Speaker 2: It talks about how the US government monitored Radio Berlin

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Speaker 2: and Radio Tokyo. That was part of the FCC's job

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Speaker 2: during the Second World War, but the content of those

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Speaker 2: enemy broadcasts really changed how Durer and the FCC thought

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Speaker 2: about the power of radio.

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Speaker 6: My god, this is a terrific medium. The other can

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Speaker 6: be magnificent. I can completely ruin you if you've got

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Speaker 6: this thing in the wrong hands. So then Adam again

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Speaker 6: to take a more place to look at an American broadcast.

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Speaker 2: The FCC started enforcing some rules that were on the

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Speaker 2: books but that have been mostly ignored, and Der's influence

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Speaker 2: would lead to a new rule that would shape broadcasting

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Speaker 2: for the next half century. In nineteen forty nine, the

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Speaker 2: FCC established what became known as the Fairness doctrine.

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Speaker 9: Under the American system of broadcasting, the individual licensees of

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Speaker 9: radio stations have the responsibility for determining the specific program

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Speaker 9: material to be broadcast over their stations.

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Speaker 2: So you could broadcast whatever you wanted.

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Speaker 9: Except This choice, however, must be exercised in a manner

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Speaker 9: consistent with the basic policy of the Congress that radio

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Speaker 9: be maintained as a medium of free speech for the

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Speaker 9: general public as a whole, rather than as an outlet

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Speaker 9: for the purely personal or private interests of the licensee.

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Speaker 2: The fairness doctrine is about the public interest. It says

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Speaker 2: the government has an interest in what radio is dinations broadcast.

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Speaker 2: It says that on the issues of the day, radio

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Speaker 2: stations have to broadcast more than one view.

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Speaker 9: This requires that licensees devote a reasonable percentage of their

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Speaker 9: broadcast time to the discussion of public issues of interest

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Speaker 9: in the community served by their stations, and that such

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Speaker 9: programs be designed so that the public has a reasonable

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Speaker 9: opportunity to hear different opposition positions.

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Speaker 2: In the nineteen sixties, the fairness doctrine was strengthened by

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Speaker 2: way of congressional action, and the Johnson administration added a

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Speaker 2: guarantee for a right of reply after a criticism during

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Speaker 2: a broadcast. It wasn't often enforced, but it did happen sometimes,

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Speaker 2: like when Medgar Evers once got seventeen minutes of airtime

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Speaker 2: to respond to criticism of the NAACP, or once when

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Speaker 2: conservatives attacked Kennedy's proposed nuclear test ban treaty, stations were

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Speaker 2: required to play a pro test ban speech by the

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Speaker 2: president himself. This was exact bactly the kind of thing

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Speaker 2: that ticked conservatives off. Rules that required listeners to hear

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Speaker 2: more from Edgar Evers hear more from President Kennedy.

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Speaker 6: All mankind has been struggling to escape from the dockning

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Speaker 6: prospect of mash destruction on Earth.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, the Supreme Court affirmed much of

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Speaker 2: the Fairness Doctrine, but conservatives are getting more and more

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Speaker 2: peeved about it, believing that the Fairness Doctrine suppressed conservative views.

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Speaker 2: By the nineteen eighties, they really wanted to get rid

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Speaker 2: of it, and it was vulnerable because it was a regulation,

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Speaker 2: not a law. In nineteen eighty five, a new FCC

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Speaker 2: head appointed by President Reagan said he would fight to

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Speaker 2: end the Fairness Doctrine. Two years later, in a bipartisan vote,

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Speaker 2: Congress passed a bill that would have established the doctrine

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Speaker 2: as law, but Reagan vetoed it and Congress didn't have

431
00:26:00,915 --> 00:26:04,155
Speaker 2: the votes to override his veto. The doctrine was.

432
00:26:04,195 --> 00:26:09,475
Speaker 9: Dead, and now here's Russe Limbaugh.

433
00:26:13,475 --> 00:26:16,075
Speaker 2: Limbaugh could not have operated if the Fairness Doctrine had

434
00:26:16,115 --> 00:26:18,795
Speaker 2: still been in place, at least not without worrying that

435
00:26:18,875 --> 00:26:21,675
Speaker 2: the FCC might come after him because he used his

436
00:26:21,795 --> 00:26:25,595
Speaker 2: airtime to promote partisanship. In fact, he was more than

437
00:26:25,635 --> 00:26:29,155
Speaker 2: a partisan. Limbaugh wanted to be a king Maker. In

438
00:26:29,275 --> 00:26:32,915
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, after his preferred candidate, Pat Buchanan failed

439
00:26:32,955 --> 00:26:36,395
Speaker 2: to win the nomination, Limbaugh stumped for George Bush, Senior.

440
00:26:37,035 --> 00:26:40,355
Speaker 2: But when Bush lost to Bill Clinton, Limbaugh sounded a

441
00:26:40,395 --> 00:26:43,235
Speaker 2: battle cry. He made it his mission to take down

442
00:26:43,275 --> 00:26:45,355
Speaker 2: the Clintons, both of them.

443
00:26:46,555 --> 00:26:49,315
Speaker 7: The Clintons are running around on this national tour. Now,

444
00:26:49,715 --> 00:26:51,435
Speaker 7: you know, I don't know how else to say this.

445
00:26:51,555 --> 00:26:54,155
Speaker 7: I mean, the president gets away when he says something

446
00:26:54,195 --> 00:26:57,075
Speaker 7: it isn't true later being told about, Oh yeah, I

447
00:26:57,195 --> 00:27:00,195
Speaker 7: was an inadvertent statement. The motto of this administration every

448
00:27:00,235 --> 00:27:01,915
Speaker 7: day is what can we do to fool him? Today?

449
00:27:02,315 --> 00:27:06,115
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton, for sure did sometimes lie, no question, but

450
00:27:06,235 --> 00:27:10,195
Speaker 2: fooling people was not the motto of his administration. Clinton

451
00:27:10,315 --> 00:27:12,955
Speaker 2: got exasperated. You can hear him on Saint Louis AM

452
00:27:13,115 --> 00:27:15,435
Speaker 2: Radio practically begging for a rite of reply.

453
00:27:16,275 --> 00:27:19,355
Speaker 5: After I get off the radio today with you, Rush Limbaugh,

454
00:27:19,355 --> 00:27:21,635
Speaker 5: I'll have three hours to say whatever he wants, and

455
00:27:21,755 --> 00:27:24,635
Speaker 5: I won't have any opportunity to respond. And there's no

456
00:27:24,875 --> 00:27:27,235
Speaker 5: truth detector. You won't get on afterwards and say what

457
00:27:27,475 --> 00:27:28,395
Speaker 5: was true and what was.

458
00:27:29,915 --> 00:27:32,915
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety three, Democrats in Congress tried to bring

459
00:27:33,035 --> 00:27:36,195
Speaker 2: back the fairness doctrine. Limbaugh like to call their effort

460
00:27:36,595 --> 00:27:40,035
Speaker 2: the hush rush Bill, but other people on talk radio

461
00:27:40,475 --> 00:27:41,075
Speaker 2: didn't see.

462
00:27:40,955 --> 00:27:41,395
Speaker 5: It that way.

463
00:27:42,035 --> 00:27:44,155
Speaker 12: I'm a proponent of the fairness doctrine.

464
00:27:44,635 --> 00:27:48,115
Speaker 2: That's longtime radio and television host Larry King in nineteen

465
00:27:48,195 --> 00:27:48,635
Speaker 2: ninety three.

466
00:27:49,635 --> 00:27:50,035
Speaker 5: I like it.

467
00:27:50,235 --> 00:27:52,315
Speaker 12: I like the fact that we as broadcasters have to

468
00:27:52,395 --> 00:27:54,755
Speaker 12: be fair. It is not out to get any broadcast.

469
00:27:54,795 --> 00:27:56,755
Speaker 12: I know Rush Limbaugh thinks they're out to get them.

470
00:27:59,795 --> 00:28:02,115
Speaker 12: All it means is that a station who has if

471
00:28:02,155 --> 00:28:04,915
Speaker 12: you have eight right wing hosts, you better put some

472
00:28:05,155 --> 00:28:05,875
Speaker 12: left wing hosts on.

473
00:28:06,075 --> 00:28:07,075
Speaker 1: I don't know what's wrong with that.

474
00:28:08,475 --> 00:28:12,075
Speaker 2: But the fairness doctrine was not reinstated, and in nineteen

475
00:28:12,115 --> 00:28:16,115
Speaker 2: ninety four, in the midterm elections, Republicans flipped the Senate

476
00:28:16,235 --> 00:28:19,675
Speaker 2: and the House. It was a wipeout. They took ten governorships,

477
00:28:19,875 --> 00:28:23,115
Speaker 2: they won state legislatures if they elected Newt Gingrich Speaker

478
00:28:23,155 --> 00:28:26,435
Speaker 2: of the House. The freshman Republicans in the House named

479
00:28:26,515 --> 00:28:29,595
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh an honorary member of their class, and he

480
00:28:29,635 --> 00:28:32,915
Speaker 2: went to Capitol Hill where he was besieged by reporters

481
00:28:33,115 --> 00:28:36,275
Speaker 2: asking him how talk radio had led the Conservatives to victory.

482
00:28:36,995 --> 00:28:39,475
Speaker 7: These reporters who asked me questions about talk radio were

483
00:28:39,515 --> 00:28:42,595
Speaker 7: all trying to say, in a roundabout way, that I

484
00:28:42,715 --> 00:28:46,475
Speaker 7: took a bunch of brainless people and converted them to

485
00:28:46,675 --> 00:28:51,315
Speaker 7: mind numbed robots, and every day would send out code

486
00:28:51,555 --> 00:28:55,115
Speaker 7: in my show that would force them to march to

487
00:28:55,195 --> 00:28:57,275
Speaker 7: the polls on November the eighth of the poll the

488
00:28:57,355 --> 00:28:58,635
Speaker 7: lever I wanted them to poll.

489
00:29:00,355 --> 00:29:03,075
Speaker 2: Listening to Limbaugh's speech to the freshman Republican members of

490
00:29:03,115 --> 00:29:06,235
Speaker 2: the House, you can hear them giggling as Limbaugh turned

491
00:29:06,315 --> 00:29:09,795
Speaker 2: to a new topic, reports of secret meetings that Built

492
00:29:09,955 --> 00:29:13,595
Speaker 2: and Hillary Clinton were holding in the White House about me.

493
00:29:14,315 --> 00:29:16,995
Speaker 7: They're trying to come up with a liberal version of me.

494
00:29:18,115 --> 00:29:21,555
Speaker 8: They're scouring America looking for some liberal.

495
00:29:21,315 --> 00:29:23,915
Speaker 7: Host who can automatically end up on six hundred and

496
00:29:23,955 --> 00:29:25,155
Speaker 7: sixty radio stations.

497
00:29:25,955 --> 00:29:27,435
Speaker 5: They think that they can.

498
00:29:27,475 --> 00:29:29,515
Speaker 7: Just pluck some liberal out of the sky and put

499
00:29:29,555 --> 00:29:31,875
Speaker 7: him on the radio and create a bunch of liberal

500
00:29:31,955 --> 00:29:32,875
Speaker 7: mind numb robots.

501
00:29:33,835 --> 00:29:38,555
Speaker 2: Point taken Limbo's listeners, any listeners weren't mind numb robots.

502
00:29:39,115 --> 00:29:42,435
Speaker 2: But remember he asked his listeners to surrender to his

503
00:29:42,635 --> 00:29:45,235
Speaker 2: point of view, and millions of them did just that

504
00:29:46,235 --> 00:29:48,515
Speaker 2: you might not like the fairness doctrine. You might want

505
00:29:48,595 --> 00:29:51,195
Speaker 2: some other sort of guidelines or mechanisms in place, you

506
00:29:51,315 --> 00:29:54,115
Speaker 2: might want none at all. But whatever your view, you

507
00:29:54,235 --> 00:29:57,395
Speaker 2: still got to wrestle with this fact. A democracy can't

508
00:29:57,435 --> 00:29:59,555
Speaker 2: really work if people only listen to one kind of

509
00:29:59,635 --> 00:30:03,675
Speaker 2: political opinion all day, every day. Limbo was right about

510
00:30:03,675 --> 00:30:06,555
Speaker 2: one thing, though, in this era with the fairness doctrine dead,

511
00:30:07,035 --> 00:30:09,635
Speaker 2: some people really were looking for a liberal version of him,

512
00:30:10,235 --> 00:30:13,915
Speaker 2: not someone who would hush Rush, someone who would crush Rush.

513
00:30:15,515 --> 00:30:18,035
Speaker 15: Hen you welcome me out, Franken, show, I'm out, Franken.

514
00:30:18,635 --> 00:30:21,515
Speaker 2: The left answer to Rush Limba would be for a while,

515
00:30:21,875 --> 00:30:27,555
Speaker 2: this guy, Alan Stuart Franken, a comedian best known at

516
00:30:27,555 --> 00:30:31,395
Speaker 2: the time for his work on Saturday Night Live. Franken

517
00:30:31,395 --> 00:30:33,715
Speaker 2: had written a book called Rush Limbo Is a Big,

518
00:30:33,755 --> 00:30:37,155
Speaker 2: Fat Idiot and Other Observations. He came out in nineteen

519
00:30:37,275 --> 00:30:40,475
Speaker 2: ninety six. The audiobook version gives you an idea of

520
00:30:40,515 --> 00:30:41,795
Speaker 2: Franken's vibe at the time.

521
00:30:42,875 --> 00:30:45,395
Speaker 3: I thought the title, aside from the obvious advantage of

522
00:30:45,475 --> 00:30:48,955
Speaker 3: being personally offensive to Limbaugh, would sell books. Let me

523
00:30:49,035 --> 00:30:52,315
Speaker 3: explain why it makes fun of Rush Limbaugh by pointing

524
00:30:52,355 --> 00:30:53,835
Speaker 3: out that he's a big lard butt.

525
00:30:54,515 --> 00:30:57,635
Speaker 2: Franken told c SPAN he wanted to be Limbaugh's kryptonite.

526
00:30:58,155 --> 00:31:00,115
Speaker 10: If Rush Limbaugh were to write a book about you,

527
00:31:00,515 --> 00:31:01,355
Speaker 10: what would its title be?

528
00:31:03,435 --> 00:31:06,955
Speaker 3: Uh, The guy who got me, the guy who held

529
00:31:06,995 --> 00:31:10,795
Speaker 3: me accountable, the guy who my ass.

530
00:31:11,995 --> 00:31:16,275
Speaker 2: Franken owned his comedy style deadpan, a bit obnoxious, part

531
00:31:16,355 --> 00:31:19,435
Speaker 2: smart alec, part frat boy. Here he is talking to

532
00:31:19,515 --> 00:31:21,075
Speaker 2: an audience of college students.

533
00:31:22,675 --> 00:31:24,275
Speaker 3: What I do is in propaganda.

534
00:31:25,275 --> 00:31:28,675
Speaker 16: What I do is taking what they say and using

535
00:31:28,755 --> 00:31:29,435
Speaker 16: it against them.

536
00:31:30,275 --> 00:31:31,475
Speaker 3: What I do is jiu jitsu.

537
00:31:34,915 --> 00:31:38,115
Speaker 16: They say something ridiculous and then I subject them to

538
00:31:38,235 --> 00:31:39,195
Speaker 16: scorn and ridicule.

539
00:31:40,595 --> 00:31:41,275
Speaker 1: That's my job.

540
00:31:42,835 --> 00:31:45,395
Speaker 2: Franken had a lot in common with Limbaugh. They were

541
00:31:45,435 --> 00:31:47,715
Speaker 2: both born in nineteen fifty one. They're both from the

542
00:31:47,755 --> 00:31:50,915
Speaker 2: middle of the country. Limba's from Missouri, Franken grew up

543
00:31:50,955 --> 00:31:54,675
Speaker 2: in Minnesota. They both love to perform. Then there are

544
00:31:54,755 --> 00:31:58,995
Speaker 2: the differences. Limbaugh dropped out of college, Franken graduated from Harvard.

545
00:31:59,755 --> 00:32:02,115
Speaker 2: The same year that Franken published Rush Limbaugh as a

546
00:32:02,155 --> 00:32:05,315
Speaker 2: Big fat Idiot, a new cable television network started up,

547
00:32:05,715 --> 00:32:14,955
Speaker 2: Fox News. Its motto was fair and balanced. This was

548
00:32:15,035 --> 00:32:17,875
Speaker 2: the cable TV version of stuff that Limbaugh and Gingrich

549
00:32:18,235 --> 00:32:22,395
Speaker 2: had pioneered. Really, you can put everything on early Fox

550
00:32:22,475 --> 00:32:25,555
Speaker 2: News into one of two bins that first labeled Limbaugh,

551
00:32:25,715 --> 00:32:29,915
Speaker 2: the second labeled Gingridge. The courser stuff Limba, the more

552
00:32:29,995 --> 00:32:33,235
Speaker 2: professory stuff Gingridge. But it was all the same in

553
00:32:33,275 --> 00:32:37,155
Speaker 2: the end, lots of opinion monologues getting viewers to distrust

554
00:32:37,475 --> 00:32:43,515
Speaker 2: other sources of information, rewriting American history. Meanwhile, talk radio

555
00:32:43,595 --> 00:32:47,915
Speaker 2: was getting harsher, meaner, more vulgar. Limba did a lot

556
00:32:47,955 --> 00:32:52,795
Speaker 2: of schoolyard name calling. He called MSNBC PMSNBC. He called

557
00:32:52,955 --> 00:32:56,595
Speaker 2: US News and World Report, US News, Meet the Press,

558
00:32:57,475 --> 00:33:01,235
Speaker 2: meet the depressed. Things got darker in nineteen ninety eight,

559
00:33:01,515 --> 00:33:04,355
Speaker 2: when the Monica Lewinsky scandal drove ratings through the roof,

560
00:33:04,795 --> 00:33:07,155
Speaker 2: both for Fox News and for Talk radio.

561
00:33:07,795 --> 00:33:11,355
Speaker 9: Bill Clinton got call Stumpen.

562
00:33:11,955 --> 00:33:17,915
Speaker 11: Legan turn Monica Lewinsky the blue stain dress.

563
00:33:19,475 --> 00:33:22,355
Speaker 2: All this time, and especially after nine to eleven, a

564
00:33:22,395 --> 00:33:25,555
Speaker 2: lot of liberals were still wishing there was a liberal Limbaugh,

565
00:33:26,595 --> 00:33:29,795
Speaker 2: so they started a new radio network called Air America.

566
00:33:30,875 --> 00:33:34,275
Speaker 2: Air America would launch all kinds of careers, including Rachel

567
00:33:34,315 --> 00:33:39,955
Speaker 2: Maddows before joining MSNBC. She had her own Air America show. Now,

568
00:33:39,995 --> 00:33:43,115
Speaker 2: Franken came to Air America from the USO. He'd been

569
00:33:43,195 --> 00:33:47,435
Speaker 2: going on tours entertaining the troops overseas Bob Hopestyle. He

570
00:33:47,555 --> 00:33:49,275
Speaker 2: saw that work as a chance to show that right

571
00:33:49,355 --> 00:33:53,035
Speaker 2: wingers didn't have a monopoly on patriotism. Franken, like all

572
00:33:53,115 --> 00:33:55,755
Speaker 2: of Air America, had the idea that left wing radio

573
00:33:56,035 --> 00:33:59,915
Speaker 2: would offer listeners the opposition positions that the fairness doctrine

574
00:33:59,955 --> 00:34:02,235
Speaker 2: would have required if it had still been in place,

575
00:34:02,835 --> 00:34:04,795
Speaker 2: though he didn't put it in such lofty terms.

576
00:34:05,475 --> 00:34:06,435
Speaker 15: It's about.

577
00:34:08,115 --> 00:34:11,835
Speaker 16: Answering these fuckheads that have been on the air and

578
00:34:11,995 --> 00:34:19,515
Speaker 16: lion and delivering this simplistic, black and white babble about

579
00:34:19,555 --> 00:34:23,315
Speaker 16: how the world works, as if they know something, and

580
00:34:23,555 --> 00:34:34,275
Speaker 16: they have built this infrastructure of feeding people misinformation about

581
00:34:34,835 --> 00:34:39,795
Speaker 16: economic justice and about how our society is run. And

582
00:34:40,315 --> 00:34:42,955
Speaker 16: it's about time that somebody fought back.

583
00:34:45,795 --> 00:34:53,355
Speaker 17: Talk to me, talk about the right wing.

584
00:34:55,355 --> 00:34:56,115
Speaker 3: Dis honesty.

585
00:34:57,115 --> 00:34:59,835
Speaker 2: Franklin launched his own Air America radio show in two

586
00:34:59,875 --> 00:35:03,875
Speaker 2: thousand and four. He delivered something surprising, an old fashioned

587
00:35:03,955 --> 00:35:07,035
Speaker 2: variety show sort of Marx Brothers but about politics with

588
00:35:07,195 --> 00:35:07,995
Speaker 2: lots of skits.

589
00:35:09,955 --> 00:35:14,115
Speaker 17: Show is brought to you by the Union of Jewish Archaeologists.

590
00:35:14,595 --> 00:35:18,275
Speaker 1: We look at fossils of arightly Man and asked, was.

591
00:35:18,315 --> 00:35:18,915
Speaker 8: This a Jew?

592
00:35:21,635 --> 00:35:24,355
Speaker 2: What else Franken was doing was different from anything else

593
00:35:24,435 --> 00:35:27,035
Speaker 2: on the air, mostly though it was different from the

594
00:35:27,115 --> 00:35:30,635
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh Show. Everything about Franken Show was designed in

595
00:35:30,755 --> 00:35:34,955
Speaker 2: opposition to Limbaugh's show. Unlike Limbaugh, who only had guests occasionally,

596
00:35:35,435 --> 00:35:39,755
Speaker 2: Franken Show featured them, and unlike Limbaugh, Franken invited calls

597
00:35:39,795 --> 00:35:43,235
Speaker 2: from people who disagreed with him. When Franken did monologues,

598
00:35:43,555 --> 00:35:44,635
Speaker 2: he often got serious.

599
00:35:45,155 --> 00:35:48,435
Speaker 17: In the early sixties, We'd watch TV. We watched the news,

600
00:35:48,555 --> 00:35:51,395
Speaker 17: maryor TV trays in there, watched the news. We'd see

601
00:35:51,995 --> 00:35:57,275
Speaker 17: southern sheriff's sicken police dogs on black demonstrators.

602
00:35:57,355 --> 00:35:58,875
Speaker 14: Made that so that no Jew can be for that.

603
00:35:59,755 --> 00:36:02,395
Speaker 2: The most important part of Franken Show came when he

604
00:36:02,475 --> 00:36:04,195
Speaker 2: fact checked the Rush Limbaugh Show.

605
00:36:04,955 --> 00:36:08,435
Speaker 17: How many people listened to him Fifteen to twenty million, right, right, Okay,

606
00:36:08,635 --> 00:36:12,035
Speaker 17: so those people believe him, right, yeah, Okay, so most

607
00:36:12,275 --> 00:36:15,315
Speaker 17: of his listeners believe is seventy five percent people making

608
00:36:15,395 --> 00:36:20,155
Speaker 17: minimum wage are teenagers in their first job. I had

609
00:36:20,195 --> 00:36:22,955
Speaker 17: our staff look at up sixty one point one percent

610
00:36:23,315 --> 00:36:25,995
Speaker 17: of people earning minimum wage are twenty or over. You know,

611
00:36:26,115 --> 00:36:29,475
Speaker 17: we got our statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

612
00:36:29,635 --> 00:36:31,875
Speaker 17: and he got it from the Bureau of Limbaugh's butt.

613
00:36:33,275 --> 00:36:36,235
Speaker 2: Frankn put on a good show, but Air America turned

614
00:36:36,235 --> 00:36:40,195
Speaker 2: out to be a disaster. The company was underfunded, badly run,

615
00:36:40,395 --> 00:36:44,595
Speaker 2: beset by financial mismanagement and scandal. Also, the audience for

616
00:36:44,675 --> 00:36:46,875
Speaker 2: Al Franken's show never got above a million and a

617
00:36:46,915 --> 00:36:50,035
Speaker 2: half weekly listeners, just a tiny fraction of the audience

618
00:36:50,075 --> 00:36:53,155
Speaker 2: of the Rush Limbaugh Show. There are lots of theories

619
00:36:53,395 --> 00:36:56,115
Speaker 2: about why left wing radio failed. One of them is

620
00:36:56,195 --> 00:36:58,555
Speaker 2: that liberals would rather listen to something more thoughtful and

621
00:36:58,675 --> 00:37:03,075
Speaker 2: temperate like NPR. But then again, liberals flocked to Comedy Central,

622
00:37:03,315 --> 00:37:06,475
Speaker 2: where John Stewart's Daily Show and the Colbert Rupport were

623
00:37:06,595 --> 00:37:08,915
Speaker 2: very much in the mold of Air America. So I

624
00:37:09,035 --> 00:37:12,795
Speaker 2: tend to think the was the company. Franken jumped ship

625
00:37:12,995 --> 00:37:15,915
Speaker 2: before the ship sank. In two thousand and seven, he

626
00:37:15,995 --> 00:37:18,835
Speaker 2: went off the air and announced his run for a

627
00:37:18,915 --> 00:37:22,075
Speaker 2: Senate seat from Minnesota. Two thousand and eight was a

628
00:37:22,155 --> 00:37:27,435
Speaker 2: wild election year. Barack Obama was seeking the Democratic nomination,

629
00:37:27,955 --> 00:37:31,035
Speaker 2: and after he defeated Hillary Clinton, he made his historic

630
00:37:31,115 --> 00:37:35,275
Speaker 2: bid for the presidency. Rush Limbaugh turned the fire hose

631
00:37:35,315 --> 00:37:38,715
Speaker 2: of his fury from the Clintons to the Obamas. He

632
00:37:38,795 --> 00:37:41,955
Speaker 2: played on air a song called Barack the Magic Negro.

633
00:37:43,515 --> 00:37:46,195
Speaker 2: Obama decided to let that pass, which is likely why

634
00:37:46,195 --> 00:37:50,195
Speaker 2: you've never heard of it. Obama won in something close

635
00:37:50,235 --> 00:37:53,275
Speaker 2: to a landslide, and Al Franken became the new Senator

636
00:37:53,315 --> 00:37:58,075
Speaker 2: from Minnesota. In office, Franken's comedic personality evaporated. He was

637
00:37:58,195 --> 00:38:01,715
Speaker 2: mostly known for being pretty reasonable, quiet, and hard working.

638
00:38:03,755 --> 00:38:07,515
Speaker 15: In addition to providing some budgetary certainty for the next

639
00:38:07,555 --> 00:38:10,315
Speaker 15: two years, the budget deal on the some of the

640
00:38:10,435 --> 00:38:15,235
Speaker 15: extreme across the board cuts of the sequester that will

641
00:38:15,395 --> 00:38:16,635
Speaker 15: enable us to make more.

642
00:38:16,755 --> 00:38:20,315
Speaker 2: In twenty fourteen, Franken won reelection to the Senate. He

643
00:38:20,435 --> 00:38:24,075
Speaker 2: was sort of a non story. Meanwhile, rush Limbaugh's tirades

644
00:38:24,075 --> 00:38:27,835
Speaker 2: grew louder and louder all through Obama's two terms in office.

645
00:38:28,195 --> 00:38:38,915
Speaker 2: Limbaugh urged obstructionism, the rejection of all compromise. Thank you.

646
00:38:40,195 --> 00:38:45,875
Speaker 7: Let's say, as conservatives, liberals demand that we be bipartisan

647
00:38:46,675 --> 00:38:50,715
Speaker 7: with them in Congress. What they mean is we check

648
00:38:50,795 --> 00:38:53,195
Speaker 7: our core principles at the door. Come and let them

649
00:38:53,275 --> 00:38:54,875
Speaker 7: run the show, and then agree with them. That's my

650
00:38:54,995 --> 00:38:55,835
Speaker 7: partnership to them.

651
00:38:56,635 --> 00:38:58,835
Speaker 2: Okay, I've got to stop the tape. I am so

652
00:38:58,995 --> 00:39:01,515
Speaker 2: sick of this. Hel Franken, when he was writing that

653
00:39:01,555 --> 00:39:03,715
Speaker 2: book about Limbaugh, said it took a real toll on

654
00:39:03,835 --> 00:39:05,675
Speaker 2: him to have to listen to this guy all the time.

655
00:39:06,515 --> 00:39:11,115
Speaker 2: I feel that it's like reading hate mail. To be honest,

656
00:39:11,195 --> 00:39:14,235
Speaker 2: I find listening to Al Franken pretty grading too. But

657
00:39:14,355 --> 00:39:17,955
Speaker 2: when you're researching historical development, you don't choose the evidence

658
00:39:17,995 --> 00:39:22,195
Speaker 2: you enjoy. Your job is to listen to all of it.

659
00:39:23,115 --> 00:39:27,635
Speaker 7: To us, bipartisanship is them being forced to agree with

660
00:39:27,755 --> 00:39:31,755
Speaker 7: us after we have politically cleaned their clocks and beaten them.

661
00:39:32,515 --> 00:39:34,875
Speaker 1: And that has to be what you're focused on.

662
00:39:51,795 --> 00:39:56,035
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, Hillary Clinton was running for president against

663
00:39:56,075 --> 00:39:56,475
Speaker 2: a new.

664
00:39:56,435 --> 00:40:00,195
Speaker 8: Opponent, politicians are all talk.

665
00:40:00,195 --> 00:40:00,795
Speaker 6: And no action.

666
00:40:02,275 --> 00:40:05,715
Speaker 2: That year, Al Franken spoke at the Democratic Convention, still

667
00:40:05,835 --> 00:40:06,955
Speaker 2: fighting the far right.

668
00:40:07,635 --> 00:40:18,275
Speaker 18: I'm Al frankan Minnesota senator and world renowned expert on

669
00:40:18,515 --> 00:40:28,835
Speaker 18: right wing megalomaniacs, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and now Donald Trump.

670
00:40:30,755 --> 00:40:34,395
Speaker 2: And that was the right genealogy, Limbaugh made Trump possible.

671
00:40:34,875 --> 00:40:37,675
Speaker 2: Trump's whole I alone can fix it. Thing that was

672
00:40:37,715 --> 00:40:41,515
Speaker 2: straight Limbaugh. The style of followership that Limbaugh cultivated, those

673
00:40:41,595 --> 00:40:47,235
Speaker 2: dittoheads that became trump Ism, those schoolyard insults straight Limbaugh.

674
00:40:47,995 --> 00:40:51,795
Speaker 2: All this led the political outsider Trump to an unexpected victory.

675
00:40:52,635 --> 00:40:55,755
Speaker 2: But long after Trump won, Limbaugh remained fixated on the

676
00:40:55,795 --> 00:40:56,755
Speaker 2: outgoing president.

677
00:40:57,635 --> 00:41:02,715
Speaker 11: The first moment that Trump does anything that is the

678
00:41:02,835 --> 00:41:04,755
Speaker 11: unraveling of an Obama agenda item.

679
00:41:05,035 --> 00:41:07,355
Speaker 1: Obama's going to be on TV. Hey, you know what,

680
00:41:07,475 --> 00:41:08,355
Speaker 1: I won't go on TV.

681
00:41:08,715 --> 00:41:10,115
Speaker 11: I'm glad you'd exclue.

682
00:41:11,875 --> 00:41:13,395
Speaker 10: TMP about destroy Obama.

683
00:41:13,475 --> 00:41:13,595
Speaker 14: Ker.

684
00:41:14,475 --> 00:41:17,995
Speaker 2: I find Limbaugh's prediction super revealing because of how wrong

685
00:41:18,075 --> 00:41:20,035
Speaker 2: it was, Because, of course, Obama did not go on

686
00:41:20,195 --> 00:41:24,235
Speaker 2: television and damn Trump's every move. Instead, Obama kept quiet

687
00:41:24,275 --> 00:41:27,835
Speaker 2: for pretty much all four years of Trump's administration. Obama

688
00:41:27,915 --> 00:41:31,275
Speaker 2: played by old school rules. The ex president steps out

689
00:41:31,315 --> 00:41:34,875
Speaker 2: of politics, the rules that every other American president of

690
00:41:34,995 --> 00:41:39,315
Speaker 2: whatever party had played by from the beginning. Limba, though,

691
00:41:39,715 --> 00:41:43,315
Speaker 2: seemed no longer able to imagine that anyone still played

692
00:41:43,355 --> 00:41:49,635
Speaker 2: by rules. Twenty first century political warfare is a battle

693
00:41:49,675 --> 00:41:52,555
Speaker 2: for truth. People like to say, but more and more.

694
00:41:52,995 --> 00:41:56,035
Speaker 2: I think it has been a battle about doubt. Believe

695
00:41:56,395 --> 00:42:00,995
Speaker 2: only me, doubt everyone else. Rush Limbaugh said he was

696
00:42:01,035 --> 00:42:04,795
Speaker 2: the voice of America. L Franken tried to fact check him.

697
00:42:05,795 --> 00:42:08,315
Speaker 2: Then Donald Trump said he was the voice of America,

698
00:42:09,595 --> 00:42:11,555
Speaker 2: and then all hell broke loose.

699
00:42:13,115 --> 00:42:15,235
Speaker 1: I can do anything whatever you want, grab them by them,

700
00:42:17,115 --> 00:42:17,955
Speaker 1: I can do any of them.

701
00:42:19,235 --> 00:42:22,355
Speaker 2: After the Access Hollywood tape came out just before the

702
00:42:22,395 --> 00:42:26,275
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen election, Trump said it was just locker room talk.

703
00:42:27,515 --> 00:42:28,915
Speaker 16: I've been in a lot of locker rooms.

704
00:42:29,915 --> 00:42:32,355
Speaker 2: That's Al Franken on Late Night with Seth Myers.

705
00:42:33,275 --> 00:42:35,835
Speaker 16: I you know, I belong with a health club OA

706
00:42:36,035 --> 00:42:36,915
Speaker 16: in Minneapolis.

707
00:42:37,915 --> 00:42:38,715
Speaker 1: I think you can tell.

708
00:42:38,835 --> 00:42:39,555
Speaker 9: Yeah, we can tell.

709
00:42:40,195 --> 00:42:47,995
Speaker 14: And our locker room banter is stuff like is Trump crazy?

710
00:42:51,635 --> 00:42:53,795
Speaker 2: In the end, though, one politician who would be brought

711
00:42:53,875 --> 00:43:01,195
Speaker 2: down for trump sins would be Al Franken. In twenty seventeen,

712
00:43:01,435 --> 00:43:05,395
Speaker 2: a conservative talk radio host named Leeann Tweeden went on

713
00:43:05,475 --> 00:43:09,875
Speaker 2: the air at KABC in Los Angeles with a bombshell.

714
00:43:09,995 --> 00:43:11,795
Speaker 9: Who is your abuser?

715
00:43:13,755 --> 00:43:16,955
Speaker 19: Senator Al Franken. It was in two thousand and six

716
00:43:17,915 --> 00:43:21,275
Speaker 19: we were going on a USO tour. He gave me

717
00:43:21,435 --> 00:43:24,555
Speaker 19: the script, and you know, it was full of sexual

718
00:43:24,635 --> 00:43:26,835
Speaker 19: innu windows and it was supposed to be funny, you know.

719
00:43:27,235 --> 00:43:29,435
Speaker 2: Tweeden told the story of how back in two thousand

720
00:43:29,435 --> 00:43:32,115
Speaker 2: and six, she and Franken had been together in Kuwait,

721
00:43:32,315 --> 00:43:35,715
Speaker 2: backstage at a USO tour, rehearsing for the show.

722
00:43:36,355 --> 00:43:38,515
Speaker 19: And he mashes his mouth up against mine and he

723
00:43:38,595 --> 00:43:41,515
Speaker 19: sticks his tongue in my mouth. And as it happens,

724
00:43:41,635 --> 00:43:43,675
Speaker 19: it happens so fast, and he puts his tongue in

725
00:43:43,715 --> 00:43:46,675
Speaker 19: my mouth and his mouth is just wet and slimy.

726
00:43:46,835 --> 00:43:49,275
Speaker 19: I was violated. I was disgusted. That's not what I

727
00:43:49,395 --> 00:43:52,275
Speaker 19: was expecting. All I could think about was that's what

728
00:43:52,435 --> 00:43:54,835
Speaker 19: you wrote that in the script for, so you could

729
00:43:54,915 --> 00:43:55,435
Speaker 19: do that to me.

730
00:43:56,315 --> 00:43:58,155
Speaker 2: Also, there was a cringey photo.

731
00:43:58,715 --> 00:44:01,795
Speaker 14: A photo has surfaced today showing Tweeting asleep on the

732
00:44:01,875 --> 00:44:05,195
Speaker 14: flight back home, and it reveals Franken groping her.

733
00:44:06,075 --> 00:44:10,795
Speaker 2: Franken apologized sort of vaguely, but then seven other women

734
00:44:10,875 --> 00:44:15,675
Speaker 2: made accusations against him, mostly about unwanted touching. Pressured by

735
00:44:15,715 --> 00:44:19,955
Speaker 2: his Democratic Senate colleagues, Franken resigned. His speech on the

736
00:44:19,995 --> 00:44:21,395
Speaker 2: Senate floor was.

737
00:44:21,435 --> 00:44:25,555
Speaker 14: Bitter, I of all people am aware that there is

738
00:44:25,715 --> 00:44:31,475
Speaker 14: some irony in the fact that I am leaving while

739
00:44:31,515 --> 00:44:35,395
Speaker 14: a man who has bragged on tape about his history

740
00:44:35,435 --> 00:44:38,875
Speaker 14: of sexual assault sits in the Ovoil office.

741
00:44:39,595 --> 00:44:43,115
Speaker 2: When the New Yorkers Jane Mayer reinvestigated the case, Franken

742
00:44:43,155 --> 00:44:46,955
Speaker 2: told her that he regretted resigning. Seven current and former

743
00:44:47,035 --> 00:44:49,755
Speaker 2: senators who urged him to resign said they regretted it too.

744
00:44:50,475 --> 00:44:53,715
Speaker 2: As Mayor told NPR, there were holes in Tweeden's story.

745
00:44:54,355 --> 00:44:57,915
Speaker 10: She had never been subjected to any fact checking. She

746
00:44:58,075 --> 00:45:01,555
Speaker 10: had never produced any corroborators. And I spoke to eight

747
00:45:01,675 --> 00:45:05,795
Speaker 10: people on that USO tour who had no political agenda,

748
00:45:05,795 --> 00:45:07,635
Speaker 10: and most of them were in the military, and they

749
00:45:07,715 --> 00:45:10,555
Speaker 10: were right there and they just didn't she is voice

750
00:45:10,635 --> 00:45:11,115
Speaker 10: she saw it.

751
00:45:12,755 --> 00:45:16,035
Speaker 2: As Mayor pointed out, Leanne Tweeden claimed, Franken wrote the

752
00:45:16,075 --> 00:45:20,195
Speaker 2: controversial skit in two thousand and six for her, but

753
00:45:20,355 --> 00:45:23,475
Speaker 2: in fact, and this is indisputable, he wrote it in

754
00:45:23,555 --> 00:45:27,555
Speaker 2: two thousand and three. Other actresses had played that same role,

755
00:45:28,475 --> 00:45:31,555
Speaker 2: but something else was lost in the frenzy around Tweeden's allegations.

756
00:45:32,035 --> 00:45:36,275
Speaker 2: Her employer, KABC is a conservative talk radio station. Tweeden

757
00:45:36,395 --> 00:45:39,155
Speaker 2: is a radio personality in the style of Rush Limbaugh

758
00:45:39,715 --> 00:45:42,115
Speaker 2: and KABC did not reach out to get a comment

759
00:45:42,195 --> 00:45:46,075
Speaker 2: from al Franken about Tweeden's accusations before airing them because

760
00:45:46,075 --> 00:45:48,875
Speaker 2: a right to reply that was a rule that dated

761
00:45:49,115 --> 00:45:52,755
Speaker 2: to the forgotten era of the fairness doctrine. I'm not

762
00:45:52,835 --> 00:45:56,035
Speaker 2: saying al Franken is the hero of this story. He's not,

763
00:45:56,835 --> 00:46:00,235
Speaker 2: but he isn't the villain either. Hyper Polarized politics will

764
00:46:00,275 --> 00:46:05,315
Speaker 2: always tend to dualism, good versus evil. The error of

765
00:46:05,395 --> 00:46:08,195
Speaker 2: the left is that it keeps joining this game of

766
00:46:08,315 --> 00:46:16,555
Speaker 2: mayhem instead of restoring the rules. In February of twenty twenty,

767
00:46:16,835 --> 00:46:20,075
Speaker 2: during his State of the Union address, Donald Trump awarded

768
00:46:20,115 --> 00:46:24,635
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal

769
00:46:24,715 --> 00:46:25,235
Speaker 2: of Freedom.

770
00:46:25,755 --> 00:46:30,395
Speaker 8: Here tonight is a special man, be loved by millions

771
00:46:30,475 --> 00:46:37,115
Speaker 8: of Americans who just received a Stage four advanced cancer diagnosis.

772
00:46:38,155 --> 00:46:41,435
Speaker 8: This is not good news. But what is good news

773
00:46:42,235 --> 00:46:45,075
Speaker 8: is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that

774
00:46:45,235 --> 00:46:45,995
Speaker 8: you will ever meet.

775
00:46:46,955 --> 00:46:51,035
Speaker 2: Limbaugh was dying of lung cancer. Al Franken was wandering

776
00:46:51,075 --> 00:46:55,435
Speaker 2: in the political wilderness all that year. Trump and Limbaugh

777
00:46:55,755 --> 00:46:58,115
Speaker 2: kept saying that Democrats were going to steal the twenty

778
00:46:58,195 --> 00:47:02,635
Speaker 2: twenty election. But stealing elections was a go peck golden oldie,

779
00:47:03,355 --> 00:47:06,355
Speaker 2: the two nut Gingrich had played back in nineteen eighty eight.

780
00:47:07,835 --> 00:47:10,475
Speaker 13: They're going to buy a registration, they're going to buy votes,

781
00:47:10,475 --> 00:47:12,755
Speaker 13: they're going to turn out votes, They're going to steal votes.

782
00:47:12,875 --> 00:47:14,475
Speaker 13: They're going to do anything they can.

783
00:47:14,955 --> 00:47:18,315
Speaker 2: Now you have to understand that, stop the steal, Gingrich

784
00:47:18,355 --> 00:47:21,315
Speaker 2: said in nineteen eighty eight, and by twenty twenty he

785
00:47:21,475 --> 00:47:24,235
Speaker 2: was saying it all over again. Two days after the.

786
00:47:24,275 --> 00:47:27,275
Speaker 13: Election, you know, one's to be of any doubt. You

787
00:47:27,355 --> 00:47:31,635
Speaker 13: are watching an effort to steal the presidency, and I says.

788
00:47:32,395 --> 00:47:37,075
Speaker 2: Joe Biden won, but Donald Trump refused to concede. Then

789
00:47:37,475 --> 00:47:49,155
Speaker 2: two months later, on January sixth, the next episode of

790
00:47:49,195 --> 00:47:52,475
Speaker 2: the Last Archive, I'll go paddling down the many ruvers

791
00:47:52,475 --> 00:47:55,595
Speaker 2: of doubt that dumped us into the sea of political catastrophe,

792
00:47:56,235 --> 00:48:00,035
Speaker 2: the day when supporters of a defeated president rioted inside

793
00:48:00,115 --> 00:48:08,475
Speaker 2: the nation's capital. But for now, I'll just say this.

794
00:48:09,275 --> 00:48:13,275
Speaker 2: Against the backdrop of murder and mayhem, some pillars of

795
00:48:13,395 --> 00:48:17,435
Speaker 2: right wing media began to crumble. A corporation that owns

796
00:48:17,555 --> 00:48:21,275
Speaker 2: talk radio stations across the country ordered its hosts to

797
00:48:21,435 --> 00:48:24,755
Speaker 2: stop saying the election was stolen and told them instead

798
00:48:25,115 --> 00:48:31,035
Speaker 2: to induce national calm. Now, Rush Limbaugh, though he was

799
00:48:31,115 --> 00:48:31,755
Speaker 2: having none of it.

800
00:48:32,275 --> 00:48:34,915
Speaker 11: There's a lot of people calling for the end of violence.

801
00:48:37,755 --> 00:48:42,555
Speaker 11: There's a lot of conservatives social media who say that

802
00:48:42,715 --> 00:48:49,155
Speaker 11: any violence or aggression at all is unacceptable, regardless of

803
00:48:49,195 --> 00:48:57,235
Speaker 11: the circumstances. I'm glad Sam Adams, Thomas Paine, the actual

804
00:48:57,315 --> 00:49:03,035
Speaker 11: Tea Party guys the minute Lexington and Conquered didn't feel

805
00:49:03,115 --> 00:49:03,595
Speaker 11: that way.

806
00:49:06,595 --> 00:49:10,475
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh died six weeks after that broadcast. The King

807
00:49:10,555 --> 00:49:14,435
Speaker 2: of a m Radio left behind in America more bewildered

808
00:49:14,675 --> 00:49:18,555
Speaker 2: and angry than ever, the nation split by a growing

809
00:49:18,755 --> 00:49:23,395
Speaker 2: canyon of talk with no bridges of meaning. That canyon

810
00:49:23,475 --> 00:49:26,515
Speaker 2: looked like it might just swallow up the oldest democracy

811
00:49:27,155 --> 00:49:36,635
Speaker 2: in the world. The Last Archive is written and hosted

812
00:49:36,675 --> 00:49:40,115
Speaker 2: by me Joe Lapour. It's produced by Sophie Crane, mckibbon

813
00:49:40,315 --> 00:49:43,195
Speaker 2: and Ben Natt of Haffrey. Our editor is Julia Barton

814
00:49:43,475 --> 00:49:47,795
Speaker 2: and our executive producer is Mielbel. Martin Gonzalez is our engineer.

815
00:49:48,395 --> 00:49:52,155
Speaker 2: Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Original music by Matthias Bossi

816
00:49:52,315 --> 00:49:56,315
Speaker 2: and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonett. Our research assistants are

817
00:49:56,355 --> 00:50:01,195
Speaker 2: Camanie Panthea and Lily Richmond. Our fool proof players Arioshia Mao,

818
00:50:01,515 --> 00:50:06,235
Speaker 2: Raymond Blankenhorne, Matthias Bossy, Dan Epstein, Ethan Herschelfeld, Becca A. Lewis,

819
00:50:06,355 --> 00:50:10,435
Speaker 2: Andrew Perella, Robert Ricotta, and Nick Saxton Sosia. Thanks to

820
00:50:10,475 --> 00:50:14,995
Speaker 2: Brian Rosenwald for his book Talk Radios America. We couldn't

821
00:50:15,035 --> 00:50:18,835
Speaker 2: have written this episode without it, and thanks to Simon Leek.

822
00:50:19,835 --> 00:50:22,555
Speaker 2: The Last Archive is a production of Pushkin Industries. At

823
00:50:22,555 --> 00:50:26,995
Speaker 2: Pushkin thanks to Jacob Weisberg, Heather Fain, John Schnarz, Carlin Migliori,

824
00:50:27,235 --> 00:50:31,555
Speaker 2: Christina Sullivan, Eric Sandler, Emily Rosstak, Maggie Taylor, Maya Kinnig,

825
00:50:31,835 --> 00:50:35,115
Speaker 2: and Daniella Lacan. Many of our art effects are from

826
00:50:35,155 --> 00:50:38,355
Speaker 2: Harry Jeanett Junior and the Star Jeannette Foundation. If you

827
00:50:38,515 --> 00:50:40,955
Speaker 2: like the show, please remember to rate, share, and review.

828
00:50:41,355 --> 00:50:44,475
Speaker 2: To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app,

829
00:50:44,675 --> 00:50:48,555
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Jill

830
00:50:48,595 --> 00:50:48,875
Speaker 2: Obour