Conservative talk radio pioneer Rush Limbaugh died Wednesday after a year-long battle with cancer.
During his more than 30 years on air, Limbaugh ripped into liberals, foretold the rise of Donald Trump and flouted political correctness, making him one of the most powerful voices in politics.
Limbaugh’s death at age 70 was announced on his influential radio program by his wife, Kathryn.
“I know that I am most certainly not the Limbaugh that you tuned in to listen to today. I, like you, very much wish Rush was behind this golden microphone right now, welcoming you to another exceptional three hours of broadcasting,” his wife told listeners in a surprise noon announcement.
“For over 32 years, Rush has cherished you, loyal audience, and always looked forward to every single show. It is with profound sadness I must share with you directly that our beloved Rush, my wonderful husband, passed away this morning due to complications from lung cancer.”
Limbaugh announced last February that he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
New York AM radio station WABC carried Limbaugh’s program beginning in 1988 and served as his national broadcasting flagship for years. The program later aired on New York’s WOR.
“Rush Limbaugh, he was with WABC for 25 years, 1988 through 2013, and we’re going to put him in the WABC hall of fame. Of course he deserves it,” station owner and New York mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis told The Post.
“He had his own peculiarities. I didn’t agree with him with a lot of stuff. But he was an American patriot and I respected him for that,” Catsimatidis said.
Kathryn Limbaugh said, breaking the news, that “as so many of you know, losing a loved one is terribly difficult, even more so when that loved one is larger than life.”
“Rush will forever be the greatest of all time. Rush was an extraordinary man, a gentle giant, brilliant, quick-witted, genuinely kind, extremely generous, passionate, courageous and the hardest-working person I know,” she said.
“Despite being one of the most recognized, powerful people in the world, Rush never let the success change his core or beliefs. He was polite and respectful to everyone he met, even most recently, when he was not feeling well in the hospital, he was so appreciative to every single doctor and nurse and custodian.”
Limbaugh galvanized listeners with his blunt assessments of the social and political landscape and his penchant for sarcasm.
Although the cancer was expected to quickly kill Limbaugh, he received treatment and continued to host his radio program.
President Trump, during his last State of the Union speech, awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In honoring Limbaugh at the State of the Union, Trump called his friend “a special man beloved by millions.”
Rush took as a badge of honor the title “most dangerous man in America.” He said he was the “truth detector,” the “doctor of democracy,” a “lover of mankind,” a “harmless, lovable little fuzz ball” and an “all-around good guy.” He claimed he had “talent on loan from God.”
Limbaugh often enunciated the Republican platform better and more entertainingly than any party leader, becoming a GOP kingmaker whose endorsement and friendship were sought. Polls consistently found he was regarded as the voice of the party.
His idol, Ronald Reagan, wrote a letter of praise that Limbaugh proudly read on the air in 1992: “You’ve become the number one voice for conservatism.”
In 1994, Limbaugh was so widely credited with the first Republican takeover of Congress in 40 years that the GOP made him an honorary member of the new class.
During the 2016 presidential primaries, Limbaugh said he realized early on that Trump would be the nominee, and he likened the candidate’s deep connection with his supporters to his own.
In a 2018 interview, he conceded Trump is rude but said that is because he is “fearless and willing to fight against the things that no Republican has been willing to fight against.”
Limbaugh influenced the likes of Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and countless other conservative commentators.
Tributes to the influential Republican poured in on Wednesday afternoon, and Trump gave his first post-White House TV interview to praise his friend.
Trump revealed that he spoke with Limbaugh “three or four days” before his death. “His fight was very, very courageous and he was very, very sick and, you know, from diagnosis on. It was just something that was not going to be beat, but you wouldn’t know it.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) tweeted, “Rush Limbaugh revolutionized American radio. His voice guided the conservative movement for millions every day. Rest In Peace, Rush.”
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany praised Limbaugh’s “unrelenting boldness to proclaim the truth.”
“Growing up in Plant City, Florida, my dad would always play the Rush Limbaugh program in his pick-up truck,” McEnany recalled. “My fellow classmates from my all girls Catholic school knew if they road [sic] in my car, we would be listening to Rush Limbaugh. I am the definition of a ‘Rush Baby,’ and it’s not just me. There are tens of thousands of us all across the conservative movement.”
Former Fox News host O’Reilly wrote, “Mr. Limbaugh provided a conservative balance against the dangerous left wing corporate media machine. History counts few entertainers among those who made a difference in the country. Rush Limbaugh did.”
Fellow pundit Beck tweeted, “No words … I just got news the Rush Limbaugh has passed away. thanks Rush for all you taught, gave and were. A hero to many. An icon. A patriot. A revolutionary that saved radio. Heaven’s gain, our loss.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tweeted, “Rush Limbaugh was a generational media trailblazer. He gave a voice to millions of conservative Americans whom the mainstream media had not even tried to represent. His impact is impossible to overstate. May he rest in peace.”
Former President George W. Bush said in a statement that Limbaugh “was a friend throughout my Presidency.”
“While he was brash, at times controversial, and always opinionated, he spoke his mind as a voice for millions of Americans and approached each day with gusto,” Bush said.
An archival clip re-surfaced by C-SPAN showed former Vice President Mike Pence saying as a House member in 2001, “I am in Congress today because of Rush Limbaugh.” Pence also was a radio host before holding office and was nicknamed “Rush Limbaugh on decaf.”
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III was born Jan. 12, 1951, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. His mother was the former Mildred Armstrong, and his father, Rush Limbaugh Jr., was a lawyer.
Rusty, as the younger Limbaugh was known, was chubby and shy, with little interest in school but a passion for broadcasting. He would turn down the radio during St. Louis Cardinals baseball games, offering play-by-play, and gave running commentary during the evening news. By high school, he had snagged a radio job.
Limbaugh dropped out of Southeast Missouri State University for a string of DJ gigs, from his hometown, to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, to Pittsburgh and then Kansas City. Known as Rusty Sharpe and then Jeff Christie on the air, he mostly spun Top 40 hits and sprinkled in glimpses of his wit and conservatism.
“One of the early reasons radio interested me was that I thought it would make me popular,” he once wrote.
But he didn’t gain the following he craved and gave up on radio for several years, beginning in 1979, becoming promotions director for baseball’s Kansas City Royals. He ultimately returned to broadcasting, again in Kansas City and then Sacramento, California.
It was there in the early 1980s that Limbaugh really garnered an audience, broadcasting shows dripping with sarcasm and bravado. The stage name was gone.
“I came to New York,” he wrote, “and I immediately became a nothing, a zero.”
Ultimately, Limbaugh moved his radio show to Palm Beach and bought his massive estate. Talkers Magazine, which covers the industry, said Limbaugh had the nation’s largest audience in 2019, with 15 million unique listeners each week.
“When Rush wants to talk to America, all he has to do is grab his microphone. He attracts more listeners with just his voice than the rest of us could ever imagine,” Beck wrote in Time magazine in 2009. “He is simply on another level.”
Limbaugh expounded on his world view in the best-selling books “The Way Things Ought to Be” and “See, I Told You So.”
With wires
