The Glenn Beck Program - How Rush Limbaugh ‘Spawned’ Glenn Beck | Guest: Christopher Rufo | 2/18/21

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Glenn dedicates the show to legendary conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh, who passed away Wednesday after his battle with cancer. Glenn tells less well-known stories of Rush and how he created the modern talk show industry and saved AM radio. While the mainstream media and the Left dance on Rush’s grave, Glenn remembers who Rush really was and further shares how he literally owes his career to Rush. Who would be on the “Mount Rushmore of Radio”? Christopher Rufo, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty, joins to share Rush’s impact on his life and the latest on how fast critical race theory is spreading into schools and workplaces near you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rough Greens, you know, my dog, Uno is my best friend. I just love him. And yes, he slobbers. He found a he found one of the guys who were working on the house left a bag of like those You know Donuts you get like at 7-Eleven that are in the bag they come pre-packaged They were so hard he was eating them and they were crunching I thought he was eating some giant pretzel And I'm like what are you what are you doing? What are you eating? It was a bag of really old donuts that somebody had left from the construction crew So, you know, I love him.

He's got my kind of eating habits that, you know, when you find a bag of old donuts, you're like, I don't know. They still look kind of good. But I give him rough greens now. Now I haven't changed his dog food. I still feed him the same stuff that I've been feeding him. However, we add rough greens to it. And that's because it has all of the vitamins, minerals, and the probiotics that he needs for a great and healthy life.

and he has changed as a dog. We started feeding him, I don't know, eight months ago, and he really has changed. You're going to love the change you see. Get a bag of rough greens now for your dog to try out. It's free. It's absolutely free. You just pay for the shipping. They know that once you start to see the changes in your dog, they know you're going to continue with rough greens.

So, yeah, it is a little ploy. Give away a bag for free. make sure that they eat it. And then when you order your first bag, you're two months into it probably. And you're going to start seeing the difference in your dog. Six months into it. It's amazing. Rough Greens.

833, Glenn 33. 833, Glenn 33. It's like eight bucks for shipping for the bag. You just pay for the shipping. Rough greens, the first ones on them. Bag, a free bag of rough greens for your dog to try out at roughgreens. com slash Beck. Rush Limbaugh and I have had one thing in common.

One thing in common. And that is every show, Rush didn't know what his first words were going to be. You could ask him right before he went on the air and he'd prepare for hours, five or six hours the night before, four hours before every program in the morning. And by noon, Eastern time, he had his what he called, stacks of stuff arranged in front of him in columns. He could see the subject matter on everything he had and he could look at it. He would grab it. And early on, before Rush Limbaugh was, Rush Limbaugh, people would come in and say,

okay, Rush, what are you going to talk about today? What do you, you know, what's the most important thing you're going to talk about today? What is it? And he'd always respond, I don't know, I can't tell you. until the on-air light went on and he said those first words into his golden microphone. It was a spontaneous coming together of his thoughts and no one, no one except talk radio people can understand that. The greatest actors, the greatest performers, they don't write their own script. And if they do, they write it in advance.

Unlike us, unlike Rush, we speak for three hours every day unscripted. Unlike most, his desk was his broadcast studio. He didn't move from an office into a studio just before the program. When he arrived every morning, it was about a mile down from his house. He worked in his studio. It was built to be soundproof, but also have the very best creature comforts for a person to work from seven, eight, ten hours with minimal movement. My studio was next to his in Radio City. My studio didn't have all the bells and whistles that his studio had.

One of them was a secret cigar smoke vent because you couldn't smoke in Radio City. It was illegal in New York And nobody wanted to smell the recirculating cigar smoke So God only knows how he got it done on a historic building But he had a cigar vent put into the window And the window put back together So it didn't disturb the historic building And no one even knew it was there

The mornings before his show were quiet He really was a man of few words. In his studio for many years, there wasn't even a broadcast engineer. It was just him. Later, when he lost his hearing, he needed a broadcast engineer to help hear the audio. His cochlear implants wouldn't pick up or discern. I was there when they found out that Rush Limbaugh had lost his hearing. I remember that night, I think Stu was with me. We're in Gabe Hobbs' office. And we had just heard that Rush, it was still quiet.

No one was going to talk about it for at least another two weeks, that Rush had lost his hearing. And I remember listening to him at that time, and he was talking like this, an awful lot. From behind my golden microphone. And he was forcing his voice down, and it sounded weird. and I wondered what was going on with Rush. That night I found out. He thought he was losing his lower register. He thought his voice was getting higher.

And so he was forcing his voice down just a bit. He wasn't losing his lower register. He was losing his hearing. I remember how the company did everything they could to help him through that. I remember he came back on the air and he had two stenographers, an oscilloscope, and they had wired his board right where you would hear him do this. That board was wired, so it would send vibrations. So when someone was speaking on the phone, he could feel their voice.

He could see the voice pattern through the oscilloscope. He could feel it through his hands. and two stenographers were writing down everything the caller was saying in case one of them didn't get it right. He could compare the two. So he could watch in real time what they were saying, watch the voice pattern of the caller and feel the voice with his hands while still processing what he was going to say. Tell me the person that can do that. Tell me the person that can do that, and you never knew. He didn't know what his own voice sounded like anymore.

While he was talking on the air, he couldn't hear himself. We hear ourselves on tape, and we think, that doesn't sound like me. But it actually does. It sounds exactly like you. You're just not used to not hearing it from the inside. You hear your voice different because it's coming. from the inside. So you're not hearing it without all the resonance inside of you. Rush couldn't hear that anymore. From behind my golden microphone. He had that inflection

because he had to remember what his muscles felt like when he was using inflection. I didn't know Rush Limbaugh. I guess in some ways I'm a little like Rush. He didn't like to take telephone calls and after the cochlear implants he couldn't. But he didn't like off-air conversation. He would email later text message, instant message. But when you did meet him, he listened. For a guy who's on the air all the time, you'd think that he'd have a lot to say and people around him would want to hear him talk. All right, Rush, what do you really think? What do you think really is going on. But 90% of the conversations with Rush off air was your voice.

He was a profound listener. I think that's one of the reasons why he knew the country so well. Rush Limbaugh is responsible for saving the AM band. All around the country, I grew up on AM radio. RCA had invented FM radio. back in the late 40s. The guy who actually invented it, I think his name was Armstrong,

he killed himself because of RCA. He realized he had been used by RCA and Sarnoff. He had invented something much better than AM radio. But RCA and Sarnoff said, there are too many AM radios to sell before we give up on this thing. And they locked FM up into their vaults. And they sold more and more AM radios until they couldn't sell anymore. And that's when they introduced FM.

I grew up. I started on AM radio. Before FM was really anything. It was still, and here's another rock and roll hit, Inegada de Vita. By the time the 1990s came, I was programming AM radios, AM radio stations and they were dying. There was nothing.

And a guy who used to be the head of ABC, ABC radio, decided towards the end of his career that he would take some of his salary in something brand new, satellite time. And ABC was like, okay, all right, dude, if that's what you want. You want X number of hours this year a satellite time. Okay. What are you going to use it for? I don't know. I don't know. Just keep storing them up for me.

And by the time he left AM radio or I'm sorry, ABC radio, satellite was really starting to come into its own. But it was still mainly television or radio news. I remember when ABC News used to come in not on a satellite, it had come in on a telephone line. Satellite was just beginning to start to be used by radio, but not for syndicated. Talk, it didn't exist. There was the fairness doctrine, which made AM radio impossible. Talk radio, impossible, because everything I said had to be followed by a guy who was just as insane as Glenn Beck,

except on the other side. Nobody wanted to listen to a station like that. The Fairness Doctrine was dropped. Rush Limbaugh, who had been turned down by so many great people, Jack Swanson from KGO, right? Wasn't that where Jack was? KGO in San Francisco, Jack was a guy who was one of the first to reach out to me and say, you know, I think you have something, kid.

I think there's something to this talk radio thing, don't give up. And I said, wow, that's great. Would you hire me? And he said, oh, no. But remember, I'm the guy who didn't hire Rush Limbaugh. Jackie got two now. He went to work. Rush went to work with this little radio station in Sacramento.

And nobody thought it would work. Nobody thought it would work. Rush did. He knew, from his childhood, he knew. he knew he was going to be successful. I'm going to pick the story up there in one minute. First, let me tell you about our sponsor. It's LifeLock.

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these entrepreneurs that come from nothing and have no reason to believe that they can do anything better than their parents. Rush was one of those guys. I grew up with, I grew up in a bakery with my dad. He lost his bakery. And in my 30s, I began to realize my dad was kind of a Willie Lohman character, always striving, but never really making it. There was no reason for him to believe that his son could make it because he never really did. But he did. He believed in it. He believed you can accomplish anything. I don't know where Rush got that belief, but every successful entrepreneur has that understanding.

And then they're willing to apply themselves and not stand around and whine. Rush hated school. He hated his grade school experience. He dropped out of college at 20. His father was a World War II combat pilot, and his father wasn't happy about these things. His radio gigs failed over and over and over again. He had to come home and live with his parents after a stint in Pittsburgh. He grew depressed. He was frustrated.

He said, I knew I was going to be successful. I just didn't know how or where what I would be doing. He said, I knew I was going to be successful, but nothing was ever working out for me. He said, I can remember taking a baseball bat out in the backyard and just beating a tree over and over and over again. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. He was abusing trees. Shut up.

So Ed McLaughlin was the president of ABC News. He was the guy who had all of this satellite time. He saw the success of this guy who everybody said would be a failure. And Ed was smart enough to see what was really going on with the Rush Limbaugh show in that small town of Sacramento. And he said, geez, I have all this satellite time. I don't know what else to do with it. He called Rush Limbaugh up and said, hey, I was thinking about syndicating you in a time where syndication was unheard of. You couldn't syndicate without satellite

And satellite was so expensive It was I think at the time like $2,000 an hour And that's when $2,000 was real money He said, I have all this satellite time Let me try putting your show on That was 1988 I remember hearing Rush Limbaugh For the first time in 1989

And I remember the Rush Rooms I remember him talking about the first Gulf War in ways I had never heard before, saying things I had never heard, saying the things like abortion is wrong, I hadn't heard that, I hadn't heard that articulated. Something was very different about Rush Limbaugh, and I don't know what it is exactly,

but as an observer, as a historian, as a guy who loves this industry, I've got a lot more to say about the great Rush Limbaugh. Next. This is the Glennback program. Well, boy, with all this weather going on, I'm just my aches and pains.

I can tell it's going to rain today when my bones are angry. My hand, my hand, it starts flapping like a bird when it starts to get cold. outside and that's how I know. Birds are going to be flying south because it's good. You remember when your grandparents used to say that? Everybody would say, I can feel

a rain in my bones and you'd be like, yeah, right, sure. And then you get to be 50, 60 years old and you're like, oh my gosh, I can feed my hand is flapping like a bird right now. Listen, if you have pain, get out of pain with relief factor. It's not

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The promo code is Glenn. It's up 30 bucks off. Your subscription to Blaze TV if you act now. BlazTV.com slash Glenn. This is the Glenn Beck program. Today, I want to spend some time just talking about Rush Limbaugh. I think he deserves a day. On the medium that he himself created,

I told you that he saved AM Radio. AM Radio was over because of crystal clear stereo FM. And AM Radio didn't know what to do. They were playing music and then they tried this horrible idea of AM stereo. Oh, good. So I could get the crappy sound in both channels. No, I don't think so. It went nowhere.

Nothing was going to save AM radio until Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh created an industry. Rush Limbaugh at the end of the fairness doctrine, which was only put in because of the Democrats with JFK. They knew the Republicans were making headway. And JFK decided, we need a fairness doctrine, which was anything but the only place after 19888 with Rush Limbaugh and after Reagan and it kills the fairness doctrine. Rush Limbaugh was the only place you could really go and hear a different point of view. You could hear somebody sit down and really explain and articulate why America believes what it does.

Why abortion was wrong? Why liberalism and Marxism was wrong. Why federalism and the republic was right to hear about our founding fathers. of us, all of us in radio. And I mean all of us. I mean those who are in music radio today. During COVID, it was talk radio that saved radio. All of the sponsors, all of the things, all of the problems that these companies have gone through.

only talk radio was generating cash everything else was down only talk radio talk radio during covid saved the a.m. and FM band and in my opinion that's two in the column for Rush Limbaugh. He saved the AM band and because of what he created. and because of what he led, he also saved the FM band. Who else has done this? What other one man? Not a movement.

You know, you can look at people that are individuals like JFK. Look what, I'm not, sorry, not JFK, but Martin Luther King. You can see what he did, but it wasn't just him. That was labor unions. that was churches. There were big organizations behind him. Who was behind Rush Limbaugh? He had more opposition than any man.

He was called the most dangerous man in America by those in power and by those in the media for three decades. They tried everything to get Rush Limbaugh off the air. and I would be, it would be a mistake. For me, I hesitate to even say this because I know the heat he will get. But the guy who started MTV is Bob Pittman. Bob Pittman is a genius. He's really, truly a genius. Bob Pittman and I don't agree on anything politically.

I mean nothing. And I'm sure it was the same. with Rush Limbaugh. Nothing in common politically. When Bob Pittman became the head of Clear Channel, I was very nervous because he is not a conservative. What Bob Pittman is is not just a good businessman, but a man who believes in freedom of speech. he does not believe in a country that shuts everyone down just because you don't agree with them. It would be a mistake to say that Rush did all of this on his own. He did a lot of it.

But what others had to do was stand up for his right. And Clear Channel and Bob Pittman has. They stood up for his right and in extension, my right. right. When all odds are against us, Rush also created something different as well. The personal relationship with sponsors and bringing small companies on because nobody in the big companies are going to advertise. They don't want to advertise. They don't want to be associated with all this hate. I can guarantee you that all those people that tweeted yesterday the hate have never listened to Rush Limbaugh. Not once.

Never did they listen to him in context. I've said many times before, and I think I originally got it from Rush Limbaugh, I can't program. I can't write my show and do my show for people who don't listen. That's insanity. Why would I do that? But it is the people who don't listen. They are the ones who tear us apart. Because they don't take the time to actually even try to understand what we're saying.

Try to understand. Oh, that was a comedic comment. You can say anything on the left. Comedically. But if you try to say it on the right, especially on talk radio, you're the devil. That's okay. You can judge a man by his friends, but you can also judge a man by his enemies. And Rush had some of the best enemies out there.

They did everything they could to destroy him. They've spent millions of dollars to destroy him. It didn't work. You know why it didn't work? Because of you. Because you wouldn't sit down. You wouldn't. be bullied into not listening.

You wouldn't be bullied into being shut up. The talk radio stations, when they were boycotted, those listeners rallied. When they were boycotted, the sponsors, the listeners, they went out and bought those products even more. I got an email from a really good friend yesterday. Greg Noak, he used to be the president of Premier

talk division. He worked with Rush for years. Then he went out and he did work for smaller businesses. He wrote to me today, he said, Glenn, I took the owners of Allen Brothers Stakes to meet Rush in Palm Beach one time. Rush had agreed to endorse their company and their commercials were to start in a few weeks. We entered the building, not wanting to be late, 3 p.m. sharp. We went up to the floor where Rush's studio was. He had just finished his show. and he came out to the lobby meeting area to greet us. As we sat down, Rush said this, quote, it is a true honor for you to have placed your trust in me.

I love helping privately owned small businesses like yours grow. Think of the people that you're going to hire. And the places they will go, the colleges their children will be able to attend. That's why I do this program. to attract the largest audience possible to tell them stories about companies like yours. I am a capitalist, and it gives me great pleasure to further the advancement of capitalism, knowing how many people down the line will benefit from your ad.

Then he opened up his legal pad. He said, I did some research on your products. I ordered several items. I tasted them. I have a few questions for you. he then spent 30 minutes questioning the owners. The owner's jaws dropping in amazement when they witnessed how interested Rush was in them as people, in their business. Greg wrote to me last night, just before we left, Rush turned and said,

How many hits per second can your website handle? They answered. I don't remember the number, but Rush replied with a twinkle in his eye and a chuckle. Well, I'll see what I can do about that. We all shook hands and the meeting ended. I got into the elevator with the owners. One said with wide eyes and a huge smile, he's going to try to crash our website, isn't he?

I looked at them and said, no, he's not going to try. He will. He knows he will. He's Rush Limbaugh. He knows his audience. He knows they're going to love your product. His first commercial, they crashed the website. Their business grew.

exponentially. If you've ever had Snapple, you have Rush to think. There's a small little brand that nobody knew about. He started drinking Snapple. He started talking about it on the air. He wasn't paid to talk about it. And Snapple became Snapple. Rush was a kind man. I think he was very shy. And no matter how many times he said, with talent alone from God. That was a joke. just a few brushes with Rush Limbaugh told me he wasn't that man that was an act

that was a show he was a gentleman always he was exceptional at what he did I want to tell you my personal experiences with Rush Limbaugh and the Mount Rushmore

of radio in a few minutes. Stand by Uh car shield you know they say car shield cars go further why is that well your car doesn't go and go and go and go because now with all of the chips that are in your car one chip can cost you five thousand dollars and you know at the time your car may be worth two and so they just total it and you have to go out and buy a new one and then start payments over again you can drive your car until the doors fall off if you have car shield because all whatever goes wrong if it's covered repair you don't have to worry about it at all

i've had a i think it was a six or seven thousand dollar chip go down in my truck and the last thing i wanted it was a new truck i don't need a new truck i like my old truck six thousand dollars if i was going to pay for it i would just bought a new truck i'll go buy another used truck for i don't know 15 grand and use that one until that chip goes out what a waste of money you can You can design your own plan with CarShield. You can design the payment plan, what's covered, what's not. And if something happens, you're protected. Get CarShield today and find out why CarShield cars go further.

It's 800-665-2157. If you use the promo code Beck or when you visit CarShield.com and you use the promo code back, you're going to save 10%. It's CarShield.com. Promocode back. Deductible may apply. We welcome back to the program, Mr. Stu Bergier, who apparently is just too weenie to actually make it to a single broadcast if there's a little bit of ice or snow. Yeah, also my house is completely filled with water.

So I thought maybe... You're the one hoarding all the water. Yes, it's all in my house, guys. All your pipe bursts in your attic. Yes. Yeah. Which it's interesting with the whole gravity thing. Like if it's in your attic, it doesn't stay in your attic.

It comes down to the below... floors, which was, yeah. Well, it's nice to have you back. Thank you. I appreciate it. I was thinking, as you were talking about this, I remember my last job before starting in radio was I was working at a furniture company, you know, scheduling deliveries. And I had to go get a drug test for this job, which by the way, I passed. Right. And, you know, they're not all that reliable. Anyway, but I remember sitting in the waiting room and I was into radio and I wanted to go into radio. And I remember the cover, I can't remember if it was news week or time or it was one of those types of magazines, the big ones at the time. And the cover was Rush Limbaugh and it was a cartoon. And it was

explaining how it was over finally. We finally are done with the Rush Limbaugh era. It was over. This is like 1996. I mean, they had declared him dead so many times in his career. Every time. And every time he fought back to the point where he lasted literally until his last day as the number one star in all of radio and influence well beyond that statement. I mean, it really is incredible and he did it all basically without social media. I mean, one of the things I was amazed about, and you mentioned this when you talked about him years ago for what was at the top 100 most important people or something, you did something with him. He never tweets. I mean, you know, he did a little bit of it towards the end, but barely, it really wasn't part of his profile.

And his death was not tweeted about, it was not leaked beforehand. It was told at the very beginning of his radio show by his wife. It doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. I mean, they just do not make them like him anymore. They just don't exist. Yeah, thank you. That's sad, isn't it?

Yeah, it really is. We'll lose him at a critical time. But we're up for the challenge. More than a minute. This is the Glenn Back program. All right, let me tell you about Rough Greens. I'd love to hear about it. Would you?

Yeah. Rough Greens is what I feed my dog. Uno. It's what Pat feeds his dog, what Stu feeds his dog. And when Stu's dog and Pat's dog get big enough, I'll feed their dogs to Uno. But I'll sprinkle little rough greens on top of them first, because that way they'll get their probiotics and all of the protein that they might need. That's hurtful. Miles is not love of the spot.

If he could hear it, he'd be upset. Yeah, it'd be. Miles! They're talking about you. Rough Greens will help your dog be healthier and happier. I've seen it. We've all seen it with our dogs. Rough Greens.

Are you FF Greens. Dot com slashback. Rough Greens. Dot com slash Beck. Or you can call 833 Glenn 33. It's RUFF Greens.com. America. Rush Limbaugh passed away yesterday.

It was announced on his show. by his wife, just minutes after I finished my broadcast. As I was finishing up, I got an email. Rush passed this morning. His wife is going to make the announcement. It is, it was a very tough day for a lot of people. It was a tough day for me, and I will tell you that I, I don't think I've ever done this.

Maybe, maybe except for Ronald Reagan. But I don't think there's, I think everything else can wait. Everything else can wait. Conservatives need to take the time today and just recognize where we are and the freedoms we have. And I think in no small part because of Rush Limbaugh. I'll explain that in 60 seconds. All right, let me tell you about American financing. Oh, you're tired of me shouting from the rooftop?

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All time high. All time high. Just a couple of weeks ago, it was 30. Why is this happening? Because of the spending that is coming your way and the, way the Federal Reserve Bank and the central banks around the world are treating cash. This is the next generation's gold. Now, unlike gold, I don't know if it will still be around, but this is what this generation

is looking at and they're saying, we're going to put it into something that nobody can take because of blockchain. Okay. So what does this mean? This means that everything's going to change. You need to get your financial house in order right now. Please call American financing. If you're paying 3 or 4% or more for your mortgage,

if you're paying on high interest credit cards, get out of all of that. Roll it into your mortgage without resetting the term of your loan. Reset your mortgage rate, your interest rate. Stu just did this. He's down in the twos. American financing, 800, 906. 2440, 8009062440 or Americanfinancing.net. American financing. NMLS-182334.

www. www.mLS consumer access.org. I'm going to share a couple of stories that I don't think I've ever shared before. And you'll understand at the end of this story, why I'm starting here as I'm talking about Rush Limbaugh. I remember sitting in a Broadway play. It was a Saturday afternoon. My wife and I were going. And in the middle of the play, a security agent comes up and hands me his phone. And it was on a news story.

And it was that Gabby Giffords had been shot. And they, of course, were blaming it on right-wing extremists, which it wasn't. it was a crazy man who was a supporter of the left, but more importantly, he had a problem with the way, I think the alphabet or grammar, grammar. He had a weird grammar hang up. It was very strange. And he was crazy.

Yeah, he was crazy. He was crazy. But at the time, they were blaming it on right-wing extremists and the violence. And I looked at my wife, it was a Saturday, I think, and I looked at my wife and I said, this next week is going to be hell. Monday, I got a call from Fox. I got a call from Roger Ailes' office,

who had been trying to get his thumb on me for a while. He had tried all kinds of things that were really, really despicable. One of the things I learned at Fox was everyone said, I can never leave Fox because, well, I just owe Roger too much. after working there for a while, I realized some people actually meant that they owed him because they had saved him or saved them from something. It was, and it wasn't Roger Ailes. It was the, well, I'm not going to get into it. But, and I remember thinking he is going to threaten to fire me because he called on Monday and said, I want to see Glenn in my office, you know, three people.

Thursday. That week was a very long week. And I tried to think how to outthink this, how to not get trapped, because if Roger fired me that week, he would basically be saying Glenn Beck was responsible for Gabby Giffords, and I would have to bow the knee. And I couldn't do that, but I couldn't get fired either. What was I going to do? I kept my office out. I had an office at Fox, but I never used it. I think I used it like twice. And the only reason why I went up there one time was to show my kids that it overlooked the M&M store in Times Square.

I kept my offices separate because I didn't want to be there. I wanted to retain my own independence. And we were about three blocks away, and I was walking. And we had wargamed this every way you could imagine. and I had been told by very wise people, get sick, don't go in. You can't go in because he will put you in a position to where you're, you won't win. You won't win. All the way over, I'm saying a prayer.

And I'm like, Lord, I got nothing. I got nothing. I don't, this is it. I need some divine intervention, some help, something. and I remember walking past his secretary's desk and she looked at me, she had a weird unspoken communication with me. I could tell what I was walking into. And she just looked up at me and he said,

he's waiting for you. And I thought to myself, I bet he is. And I opened up the door. And the minute I crossed the threshold, I was filled with empathy for her. him. It wasn't a scheme. It wasn't a plan. It was nothing. I was suddenly overcome with empathy for this older man. He was sitting behind his desk. Usually he would get up and he'd come

around his desk and he'd go, young man, good to see you. This time he sat behind his desk, didn't move and he looked up. And I saw him for who I felt he really was for the first time. an absolute genius who had lost his way, who now was kind of questioning everything that he did because he knew he wasn't, he wasn't the best man he could be. He was a really interesting guy. And he said, we've got a lot to talk about. and I said, Roger, before we do, and this was sincere. I didn't know where it came.

I know now where it came. I didn't know where this came from. But I was so deeply empathetic for him. And I said, Roger, I have a feeling I know where this is going. But before we get into any of that and whatever happens happens, let me first just thank you for this. He said what? And I said, I believe that America wouldn't be America today if you hadn't have started Fox News.

Fox News didn't save America, but you gave us extra time. You gave us maybe 20 years, maybe, maybe. After 9-11, imagine America without Fox News, without an opposing voice or a voice. voice standing up. Imagine what the country would be like. I said, without you, Ronald Reagan may not have won. You advised him and gave him great advice that helped him win. So, thank you. And I looked at him, and he had tears in his eyes. And he could tell that I actually meant that, that that wasn't some ploy. I actually meant that. And he said, you mean. You mean that, don't you? And I said, yeah, and I'm thinking to myself, strangely, I do. I've never even

thought of it. But yes, I do. He sat there behind his desk and he kind of padded his desk for a minute. He said, come on over, sit on the couch. I got to talk to you about something. And we sat there and we talked about nothing for an hour. Nothing. And then I said, well, if there, if there's a lot, you isn't anything else I got to get to the floor to do the show and he said oh yeah gosh I'm sorry I held you up for so long and I walked out everybody was outside of the building all my whole staff was outside of the building waiting they're like what happened what happened and I'm like ah nothing happened as I walked out I heard him say get that effing palin on the phone and that was the day that Palin had problems at Fox that we all are aware of. So why am I telling you this story in relation to Rush Limbaugh? Give me 60 seconds and I'll explain. Okay, you know, we all regret things in life, all of us.

You know, times we try to do the right thing and we didn't make it, times that we, you know, we didn't try to do the right thing and we accomplished whatever it was. so we feel horrible. There is one success, however, you may have had in your life that you're like, crap. And that's when you were successful at signing that contract for a timeshare. Yeah. There was probably somebody very, very good, a little slimy kind of, hey, I got to, would you like another Mai Tai?

They're on me. No, seriously, have another drink. Let me just tell you, you're going to be here all the time. No, no, no, no. That's not the way it worked out. is it? Call timeshare termination team today and get the process started. Don't put off another day of paying for things that you're not going to use.

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10 seconds, station ID. So why do I tell you about this with Roger Ailes? Megan Kelly and I had a great conversation recently about Roger and how complex he was and how there was a side of him that I didn't know that was just really dirtbag central. But there was another side that was amazing. He was one of the, he's one of the greatest thinkers I've ever met. And when I say thinker, I met other people who are, you know, literal rocket scientists. I mean somebody who understood America at its core instinctively. Instinctively.

He just knew it. He would have been the greatest broadcaster of all time. He's the producer of the Rush Limbaugh television show, Roger Ailes was. Before there was Fox News, that's one of the things he was doing. He believed in an America that he lived. that's not to say he believed in, you know, he told me one time, hey, I know, we look, we both believe in the Constitution, but, you know, sometimes you got to do what you got to do. And I remember saying, no, not when it comes to the Constitution, you do what it says, period. But he understood America and he understood the entrepreneur.

And he understood people who could come from nothing. And I think that's what he saw in Rush Limbaugh, and I think that's what Rush Limbaugh may have seen in him and what I saw in him. Rush had this instinct of what America was thinking and feeling and wasn't afraid to be out of step. It just was him. It's who he was. I tried to think of somebody that I could put in his category because he's one man. It's not like Roger Ailes in Fox News. Roger Ails, what he accomplished was a lot, but he took a lot of talent to do that.

This is one man and one man's talent, one show, three hours a day. Look at how different we are because of Rush Limbaugh. Think of what we know because of Rush Limbaugh. Think of the number of jobs saved because of Rush Limbaugh. Can you think of anyone who has impacted the culture as one man? Martin Luther King had a team around him. I'm not comparing the two. I'm just trying to think who I thought last night, maybe Johnny Carson, maybe, but Carson was just an entertainer.

Carson changed a lot of things, but it wasn't fundamental principles of life. He impacted the culture, but it was, there was no depth to it. It was important, but it wasn't essential. Can you think of anyone that had this impact as one human being? They say, you don't know the impact one person can have. He's a great example of that. I don't think people, because those who didn't listen to him were the ones. who had the loudest opinions.

I don't think people knew who Rush really was. As I said in the opening monologue last hour, that Rush was a quiet guy. He listened. He was a loyal guy. Most of his staff has been with him for 20 years, 25 years, some of them 30 years. He had a 32-year career.

to have staff members with you for 30 of those 32, that's pretty remarkable. He's the only guy. They say, oh, he sold out for money. He said these things for money, did he? You know what he didn't abandon? Not only what his core beliefs were, but he never abandoned the relationship of AM and FM radio. Satellite radio, podcasting, all of that stuff was derivative. In fact, we were just talking about it.

named the person who could die and it's broken, kept completely silent until his own show. He was about his show. You know why people like Rush Limbaugh? You know why people believe him? Because beyond all of the bluster, he was genuine. He has been incredibly charitable, but most people don't know about it. most people don't know that when you went to lunch or dinner with Rush Limbaugh, uh,

if it was exceptional service, or if he found out something about the, the server that was unique, special, the tip would be remarkable. Remarkable. $50 million to lymphoma, leukemia foundation.

He and his wife, Catherine, supported the Marine Corps, the Law Enforcement Association, the Tunnel to the Towers Foundation, and so many others. Privately, he changed the lives of multiple people, privately, quietly. If you had a problem, Rush was there. When people say, oh, I owe my career. When I say, I owe my career.

to Rush Limbaugh? I mean that. Literally, I owe my career to Rush Limbaugh. I'll explain and tell you about the

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But once you sleep with it and you put your fist through each. side of it and it fluffs up and it stays that way all night. I mean, I don't know, it's witchcraft. I don't know how they do it. I don't know what it is. I don't really care that much to find out. I'm sure I could find out, but it's a great night's sleep and I sleep with it every night. I also sleep on the Giza Dream sheets every night.

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The promo code is Glenn. Save 30 bucks off your subscription to Blaze TV. This is the Glenn Beck program. One of my favorite responses to the question or to the charge that you're a racist or homophobe. NBC the Today Show asked him Are you a racist? Are you a homophobe? Like you're going to get

Yeah, yeah I am. What a stupid question. But his response was brilliant. No, I'm not. Are you? Are you a racist? No. Are you a homophobe? No. Okay, good. We're both clear now. I mean, just.

Just not afraid of it, not afraid of it. Tucker Carlson asked me last night on his show how he could remain so optimistic and not get better. And it's because Rush and anyone who is in this industry that is smart, you pay attention to the people who listen to you, not to the people who don't. Rush knew who he was talking about. He also knew who he was. See, when when people on the left are questioned, which is rare, they don't have to think about who they are or their view or if that viewpoint could be interpreted as being racist without them being racist. What did they said? How is it that I could be hated by so many people? How many people think this about me? people on the right, we're expected.

If you believe these things, you expect going in, you're going to get trashed. Now, you may not know the extent that may be a little shocking, but you question yourself. If you're a thinking decent human being, you question yourself, wow, they said that about me. Is that true? Is that who I am? And you think about your positions because you're challenged all the time. You're not challenged. and nobody's

seriously challenging Casio-Cortez in her Green New Deal. Nobody's seriously challenging. Anybody who's challenging that they can just say, well, they're a racist. They don't believe in climate change.

They're science deniers. They don't have to think about it anymore. It's actually a benefit to be pushed like the right is pushed. We have to know what we believe in. When I said, I owe my career to Rush Limbaugh.

I literally mean I owe my career to Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh came into this industry and he created something brand new. There are no AM radios in cars in Europe anymore. They're shutting down all the AM radio stations. AM radio doesn't exist. Why? They don't have Rush Limbaugh. They didn't have.

have something like Rush Limbaugh to bring everybody back to the AM dial to make sure people were actually using that. I honestly don't know what happens to radio. Now that Rush is out, I don't know how long talk radio and people like us survive. This is a huge, huge loss because you had to get rid of him before you get rid of clowns like me. You had to get rid of him. Now that he's gone, I don't, I don't know what happens from here, but I owe my career to rush. You know, I think people thought that this was a slam. At least the media printed it as such. He did an interview with the Today Show. And he was asked about me,

do you worry about the new guys coming up on the block? He's like, no. Well, what about Glenn Beck? Quote, look what I've spawned. Glenn Beck is to me right on. Glenn Beck is the result of my success. He's right. 100% true.

100% right. There's not a lot of people that could say something that outrageous and be 100% accurate. That is 100% accurate. It's true. And it's not only just. political talk radio does just like sports radio exist today without Rush Limbaugh without him saving the AM dial so that so many stations would be able to thrive that weren't just news talk I mean the entire sports radio format basically owes

its you know life to Rush too in many ways rush said on his last show of 2020 just a few weeks ago that he largely sees himself as a political failure. He said my career has been enormously successful by any standard. But there's a large part of me that feels like I've failed in such a major way. In 30 years, I've tried to convince people, try to persuade people, try to encourage people to critically think on their own, to realize the difference between a conservative and a liberal, the difference between Republicans and Democrats as it relates to conservative principles versus liberal principles. I think anybody who honestly does their job feels that way. Somebody who's doing it for the money, someone who's doing it for the fame, they don't feel that way.

I think almost all of us in talk radio feel that way. What else could we have done? How come this hasn't made the impact that we hope? But what Rush was missing and what sometimes I fail to see and others is that we're not a collective. We believe in the individual. We believe one individual can change the world. And that's where our change comes from. Somewhere out there, there is somebody who has been deeply, profoundly changed by Rush Limbaugh.

Somebody who's been deeply and profoundly changed by Mark Levine. Stephen Crowder Ben Shapiro All of those names I just gave you Oh 100% Their career 100% To Rush Limbaugh Mount Rushmore of radio

Could be carved Today On it would be Rush Limbaugh On it would be Paul Harvey on the radio Mount Rushmore would be Don Imus. And probably in the Washington position would be Bob Hope. Those four men.

And really, the only one that I would question would be Paul Harvey, because Paul Harvey really kind of stepped into the shoes of, what's his name? Good night. Good luck. Edward Aramuro. He did news and brought news. in a different way, but in my generation, it would be Paul Harvey.

I thought today and yesterday, if you're old enough, you may have reached the point to where you're like, oh, crap, I'm the elder at the table now. I'm the one talking about all the problems I've been having with gas. We as kids used to sit at the little kids table, and then we got to the kids. the adult table. And when you got to the adult table, you always heard all the old people going, yeah, I got this pain. And my doctor was lancing his boil. And you're like, could we stop talking about all of this stuff? And you realize at some point, I'm not at the top of the food chain. I'm the next to be eaten. I'm now at the bottom of the food chain. I'm the head of the table. And I don't really want to be

the head of the table because I know what comes next and I'm not those people. I'm yes, I'm still talking about gas and boils, but I'm not those people. Those people were wise and good and decent. I have been the most fortunate man. The guy who really invented morning radio was Don Imus, the morning zoo, was a knockoff in many ways of Don Imus. He invented that. He was my friend.

I wrote for Bob Hope. Paul Harvey, I met. And Rush Limbaugh is responsible for my career. And more than just saving the network or inventing, he was personally responsible for my career. I'll talk about that next hour. And I want to tell you about how an honest, honest, very powerful liberal who was the head of the national organization of women in Los Angeles or in California, how Rush Limbaugh changed her. I think all of the problems of the world today, and they are big, they're going to be there tomorrow.

world is still going to be on fire and there's probably going to be a few more fires as well. Today, I think we should focus on the power of the individual, the power of one man, the power of one voice. And hopefully you will find yourself somewhere in the stories that I'm trying to tell you today about a great man, Rush Limbaugh. All right, you want to save money whenever and wherever you can, but I also like quality in the things that I pay for, so I'm not going to buy something that is not as good. And also, now, for the first time in my life,

I'm like, I'm not doing business with that company. No. All right, so let me give you something that you can change. And it plays a big part in your life. It's Patriot Mobile. All the cell towers, everybody's on the same cell tower. now is the big guy. So, you know, you now have to look at customer service. Is that better? With Patriot Mobile, yes, it is. Is it going to cost you less money than the competition?

Big time, yes, it is. Can you get a great deal on whatever plan you settle with? And can it be easy to switch over? Because that's always a hassle. Not with Patriot Mobile. And most importantly, am I giving my money to people who are working against my values? Am I giving my money to, let's say, Verizon that's helping fund Planned Parenthood, helping fund organizations that are, you know, standing up against the Second Amendment and the First Amendment. I don't want to give my money to them. Patriot Mobile doesn't do that. In fact, they do the opposite.

They're standing with you. And this month, you get free Premier activation when you set the phone up. They'll set it up for you. You'll get a special gift with the offer code back. And you'll get the same service. lower price and the values you believe in. So join now, Patriotmobile.com slash Beck. That's Patriotmobile.com slash Beck.

Giving credit where credit is due, spending the day talking a little bit about Rush Limbaugh today. I know next hour you're going to spend some time talking about the foundations of the show and how Rush Limbaugh was very intimately involved in that going back a few years. But I remember listening to Rush Limbaugh after high school. and I wanted to get into radio, but I really wanted to do kind of sports or, you know, comedy stuff.

And I remember sitting in the beach and, you know, Fort Lauderdale after high school, you know, no money. Like, you know, the only thing I could do is go to a free beach. And I had like a Walkman and listening to Rush Limbaugh,

not really ever thinking about politics all that much. And I just remember him bringing up these arguments or callers bringing up these arguments that were like liberal points. And you know, like when you watch like law and order where like the prosecution makes their case and you totally think that that's true. And then the defense makes their case and they totally like they totally bring you back and forth. And I remember him, you know, these points would be made by liberals and I didn't know anything about politics. And they seemed like good points. And he had an answer for every one of them. Every single one of them he had the answer for. And it always made much more sense than the

initial point. And he could, he was, he had that unique ability to be able to. to within a couple of sentences show how ridiculously absurd the leftist point was on any given topic. This is why they worked so hard and spent so much time and money to make him into a monster. Because they needed to put an electric fence around him. You couldn't let anyone into his audience. And listen, that's why they never debated anything he actually said. Yeah. Because he was so effective.

So that's why I said earlier, Rush didn't do his show for the people who didn't listen. You can't do that. And that's the left. Because early on, the left did listen to him. And they realized, this is why they dubbed him the most dangerous man in America, because they knew if you listened to him, you'd have that experience. You'd be like, oh, my gosh, everything I thought I knew is wrong. Wait a minute. That works.

And that works with this, this and this. and and that's that's the biggest Rush Limbaugh was very successful in any possible way you could count it but the left was also very successful in convincing half the country that he was an absolute monster monster he wasn't he wasn't

it was their only defense was to pull him out of context and make him toxic I'm going to give you a I'm going to give you an honest liberal diehard, head of the national organization of women for a while, and how Rush Limbaugh changed her coming up. I want to talk to you a little bit about the zebra.com. Insurance can be complicated, and that's why the zebra was created.

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It's important to pick the right insurance company. I'm so mad at you about this. I have to apologize, and I'm so mad at you about that. I'll tell you why. Maybe tomorrow. We're taking the day to say to the world's problems, I'll see you tomorrow. I mean, they're all going to be here.

The world is going to be on fire, and there might be another part of the Amazon that's burnt down overnight. We can wait a day. I think it's important that we give Rush Limbaugh the credit that Rush Limbaugh deserved. He was a childlike. You know, Christ said, come to me as a child.

I think in some ways Rush Limbaugh was like that. Every time the Pretender's theme played, he became playful and childlike. When meeting listeners or standing in front of an audience receiving a standing ovation, when having simple friends over for dinner, always childlike, never childish. It stemmed from he loved what he did, he loved people,

and when that golden mic was turned on, so was he. It was 12 p.m. Eastern every day where he would enter the gates of his own self-built Disney world for the very first time. We honor this hour, Rush Limbaugh in 60 seconds. All right. I want to talk to you a little bit about relief factor.

I used to be in a ton of pain all the time. I could barely function. Just two years ago, I said to Stu, I said to my wife, because I had been trying to do it for almost eight years. I had turned the blaze over to, you know, my business partners about 10 years ago and said, I can't do this anymore because I'm in so much. pain than two years ago, three years ago, I said to Stu, I don't know how much longer I can do it. I'd just rather be with my family. I'm in so much pain.

I'm not going to spend all the time here. Then I found relief factor. I had tried everything, everything. And some things, and I mean tried crazy things, some things worked for a while and then stopped working. Relief factor has worked for me now for three years. I tried it for three weeks. That's what they say.

Three weeks, you should know. I tried it for three weeks. I didn't want it to work honestly in some ways because that would make my wife right. And she's right all the time anyway, so I don't. Anyway, it's relief factor. And you can try it now for three weeks. Try the three week quick start for only 1995. You don't have anything to lose.

Except your pain. Get your life back. Relieffactor.com. 800, 500, 583, 84, 800. 50088384 relief factor.com. From behind my cardboard microphone. This is the Glenn Beck program. With no hands tied behind my back and talent on loan from Milton Burrell, who's been dead for a long time.

Welcome to the program. I will tell you, I got into this business, this talk radio business. this talk radio business in the late 1990s, but I only did shows, fill in shows. I was doing comedy morning shows. And I was sick of it. And I got into talk radio because I felt I had something to say,

but I really got into it also because I wanted to make fun of it. all these intellectuals that just of you know were high and mighty and most of them and that this time all the local ones were like attorneys that were all trying to get on and I'm an expert I'm a local official on the school council and they were boring as snot and I got into it because I wanted to make fun of all of it and I saw things in a completely different way I think Rush Limbaugh did the same thing in a way he was making fun of the media and he mocked all of that. Most people don't know that the roots of this show really kind of stem back to Florida and Rush Limbaugh. I knew the first time we ever did a talk radio show, Stu will verify that this is true because it was just like, he was so sick of me. and this is like 1998, 97.

We did our first talk radio show, and it was just, it was for like an hour, two hours maybe. And I took my headphones off after the first break, and I looked at him, and he was running the board and helping produce, and I looked at him over the board, and I said, we're going to replace Dr. Laura. And he said, what? And I said, this show's going to replace Dr. Laura.

And he said, how about we finish? our first show. And I told him, I said, mark my words. Well, the first time I was on kind of a job interview. I had done shows for WABC and I had filled in here and there. But nobody would give me a job. And I changed my life. I was really struggling in the 90s.

I changed my life. I was an alcoholic. I was going on first. five years sober. I had found an amazing woman that loved me and also was just really good for me. And then I met my wife, too. No, I'm kidding. And I married her, Tanya. And my life changed. But I couldn't get a job. I get baptized. And the day after my baptism, I just remember this because of the, I tried for two years. years to try to get somebody to to you know represent me I talked to everybody I couldn't get anybody to represent me and uh it was a Monday afternoon and my phone rings at my apartment and uh

guy on the other side of the phone said uh hey I understand you're looking for an agent and I said yeah I have been for two years and he said uh my name's George Hiltzik he was the biggest agent of radio at the time by far, by far. He had done everything in his career. He was an NBC executive. He was part of the original Saturday Night Live legal team. A legend. George is a legend. He's a legend. But anyway, he calls me up. And he said, well, I heard from Jack Swanson, and a KGO that maybe I should pay attention to you. And I said, okay, well, thanks. And he said, well, Jack's the guy who passed on Rush Limbaugh, so let's not get too excited,

joking. And I said, well, that's great. What do we do? And he said, well, I want to check you out. I want to check you out. And he said, I've heard many things about you, good and bad. He calls me back on Wednesday. And he said, all right.

I'll take you on. Now, I'm thinking to myself over the last couple of days. I'm thinking to myself, there's a chance this guy won't take 10% of my money. And I said that to George. He said, I'll take you on. I said, really, honestly, I've been thinking about this for a while. You mean to tell me that you would pass up 10% of what I'm already making because you wanted to check me out and see?

And he said, you're entering a new territory. He said, you want to go into talk radio. He said, you can't be a fraud. in talk radio. And I've heard stories about you in the past, but I understand that you're trying to change your life. You've sobered up. You're stable. And you're a good man. And I said, wow, well, thank you. Yes, I am. And he said, well, that's why I'm taking you on, because no one can fake who they are for three hours without a script every day. The audience is too smart. They will figure you out and you're done.

He said, and I've wasted my time. So I take that job. I take him as a client. I get a job at WFLA in Florida. And I had to do kind of a job tryout before. And what they decided to do was to let me do my first network show. I had never, I mean, I had like, what did we have? 20 shows in our back pocket that we had done.

And they said, we want you to do this, this network show. And Rush Limbaugh has allowed us to put you into his studio in New York City. And I'm like, wait, wait, what? So I go into the Rush Limbaugh studios. And Stu and I, I'll never forget, this giant oil painting. There's a picture I think I tweeted today, a giant oil painting of Rush behind the microphone. and there's the golden microphone. And Stu and I look at each other like, I can't believe this.

And I did my first show because of his kindness of letting us use that studio. Two years go by, I'm working in Florida. And we went from worst to first. Actually, we went from worse to a lot worse to first to first in a two-year period. And there was this one week, and I don't even know, I don't even know if I've asked you this. Did you know who was on that phone line that week? You don't even remember this. So one week just before Premier offers me a position, the phone line at WFLA is tied up.

All week during my show started at 3 o'clock, was over at 3 o'clock, was over at 3. seven one phone line was tied up and i didn't know why and nobody would tell me well i find out later that rush limbaugh was listening to my show every day that week good thing they didn't tell me i would have freaked me out but he was he had been asked to listen to my show by premier Now I find this out later. The head of Premier Craig Kitchen goes down to Florida to meet with Rush. And Rush knows that the meeting is about me. And Craig said to me later, after we started to really know each other, we were talking about this bogus with talent alone from

God. And how much of an act that was, how humble he really was in person, how quiet he was in person. He wasn't that beat his chest guy. That part was an act. But his listeners knew that. They're in on the joke. In on the joke. And he said, in fact, you know we had to ask Rush for permission out of courtesy to hire you. And I said, what? They said, yeah, he listened a few weeks ago, you know, when you were, when you were, you know, on the air before we, before we offered you this gig, he listened.

We asked him to listen. And I remember the phone line, I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's who it was. They had him listen for a week because they had so much deference for him. Because I was going to be before him on the network. They wanted to make sure that Rush was okay with the lead-in. Apparently, he said yes. But the point of the story is, is while he was sitting there at dinner, when Craig sat down, the first thing he said was, it's been a good run.

It's been a great run, Craig, hasn't it? And Craig said, yeah, it has. It's like we've accomplished a lot. And I'm, I'm comfortable. So don't worry about it. You know, not everybody lasts, you know, forever. He actually thought that he was having dinner because they were going to say to him, it's over.

Are you kidding me? Most people don't last 30 years in this business. But Rush Limbaugh didn't know he wasn't. most people. He still had the excitement and he still had the humility to go. It could be over at any time. That's hard for somebody who's worth $600 million. That's hard for somebody who has 27 million listeners a week.

To put that into perspective, Colbert has about $3 million a night. Rush had 27 million a week. Do the math. How humble he really was. More in a second. All right, you sick, twisted freak. Our sponsor is Bill Pard, Day 49 of Weight Loss Regime, Dear Diary. Exercising went really well today.

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Well, we have, uh, we have spent most of the show, except for the last, what, 38 minutes now, talking about the late and truly great Rush Limbaugh. And what's frightening is, as I said earlier, you remember when you were at the ones at the head, or you were at the kids' table, and now you find yourself at the head of the table. you know, if you're 50, 60 years old and all the older people are dying off, you're like, oh, crap, I'm the next for the dirt vault. And there's a lot of wisdom there at the table that now is lost. And I look at, I look at all of us who remain, who are now, what, supposed to fill his shoes?

Nobody can fill those. I look at us and we're all bluffing. All of us are bluffing, no matter what anybody says. They have no idea what they're doing. They have no idea what they're doing. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one bluffing and they're all experts, but I don't think so. And I feel badly for the next generation, if there is a next generation, because you're having to learn from us.

good luck. Good luck with that. So in the long run, kids, what I'm saying is he was very optimistic, but I don't think he paid that much attention to what was following him. So when it comes to good talk radio, because now it's up to us. And it's more than just talk radio, right? I mean, you know, Rush was so central to the conservative movement. I mean, he was basically the head of it, post-Ragan. I mean, it was basically Rush Limbaugh as the head of the movement. And, you know, he leaves a huge gap there. You know, I mean, Rush Limbaugh is largely the reason I'm a conservative. I mean, coming out of high school, I didn't pay attention to politics at all.

Reagan was for me, but Limbaugh cemented things. Like you, I knew what I believed, but I really hadn't. You know, the thing that was so frustrating with, with Rush was when you would talk to friends before Rush Limbaugh was. the Antichrist, you'd talk to friends and you would say, you've got to listen to this guy. You've got to listen to him. You'd be debating something. You'd be talking about and you're like, I can't say it like he says it. You just, you have to listen.

And that's the only frustrating thing is, you know, we're not all Rush Limbaugh. No, he was really, really good at this. But, you know, he was, that approach was possible back then, too. You could win people over by having people listen to Rush Limbaugh. Yeah. Because that's why they destroyed it. That's why they did it. And of course, you know, partially because of things like social media where things get taken out of context.

It wasn't what? Yeah, I know. You know, most of the people you've heard over the past couple of days who are just dancing on Rush Limbaugh's grave in a grotesque ways that I don't remember ever doing to a liberal. But, you know, people reveal themselves in these moments. But they're dancing on his grave. And most of them have literally never heard one show. not even an hour of Rush Limbaugh. They've taken in only Media Matters bull crap sort of clips out of context, you know, whatever

bad joke they think he made 10 years ago. They've been repeated a thousand times. And when you listen to him as a whole, you realize that he was a broadcaster, an entertainer, a very smart person who was incredibly well read over a multitude of topics. And a person who could break down things into little chunks. that people could understand. But as you point out, it's not just that. It's not just a couple clever tweets that you could pull off today.

It's, you know, 15 hours a week without a script. I mean, it's a totally different. These Hollywood types, these even news anchors, anybody that you watch, you have no idea. You have no idea how few people can do what Rush Limbaugh did. Talking without a script, being able to do it for three hours, Uh, that takes real intellectual heft. The Glenn Beck program.

And then there's people like me that just kind of every day. I'm like, how the hell am I still on the radio? I don't get it. Real estate agents. I trust.com. If you're looking to sell your house, you might need to do some remodeling. I don't know. Stu, you don't really need to.

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It's a free service to you. Real estate agents, I trust.com. Find the right one for you now. All right, and head over to blazTV.com slash glen. The promo code is Glenn. They've got 30 bucks off your subscription to Blaze TV now. BlazTV.com slash Glenn. Many members of the media are taking sick, twisted glee in the death of Rush Limbaugh.

And they're also trying to set the history against him, make sure that that's cemented in by playing all kinds of bad things that he has said, either in jest or in mistakes that he later apologized for. you know, it doesn't matter to people anymore. If it's even true, it doesn't matter anymore. And he may be the last example of somebody who's just really bulletproof, really bulletproof. And even he had some scary times. We were supposed to be with him the day he lost his Monday night football gig. And that was a really. weird day.

And yet, you know, yet he had carved himself a place where he could, you know, continue to do what he did because he listened to the listeners. And that's what I did with the Blaze. And we are grateful, truly grateful that the only people we have to answer to are you. And we ask you to join us at blazedtv.com slash Glenn save 30% of. on your subscription now. But talk radio is going to come under attack because everything is and they have to shut you up. Last night I did a show, our Wednesday night special on national suicide and what's

actually killing our kids. And I started the show with Christopher Roo folks. We started with the non-literal suicide, the national suicide, that really comes from critical race theory. Christopher is the contributing. editor for the City Journal and the director of Center on wealth and poverty. He is the guy who is really responsible for rooting this out and and letting people know what critical race theory is and how deeply embedded in the system.

If you missed last night show, we talked about this curriculum that is in public schools up in New York and they identify the eight white identities. that you have. And it starts at white supremacist. And then I think the, I think one of them is a race trader. And that's on the good side of the scale, by the way, if you're a race trader, if you're selling out the white race, it's, it's crazy. I wanted to bring Christopher back. This is the only thing that we have done today that is not related to Rush Limbaugh, because I think this is so important. Chris, welcome to the program. It's great to be with you. Thank you. First of all, Any thoughts on Rush Limbaugh? Did you listen to him?

Yeah, you know, I didn't. I grew up actually, I don't know if you know this, Glenn, as a kind of liberal, bohemian in California. That was my upbringing and political orientation for most of my youth. And then I started kind of questioning those assumptions. It started to not match with reality. I started veering more towards the center. And I wrote one of my first pieces for City Journal, where I was still kind of in the center, maybe center right, and Rush read it on air. I got a flood of emails and it was very strange because I had been grown up hearing all of these bad things about Rush Limbaugh. And then I started listening. I said, oh, interesting. Rush Limbaugh is reading my story. I started listening. I said, man, what you heat,

what people in California and the people that are spewing so much venom on Twitter here is so different than what you actually hear from his words. And I became a fan subsequently. And, you know, it was very sad to hear the news. Yeah. I wanted to get Tammy Bruce. Maybe we get Tammy Bruce. See if we can get Tammy Bruce on the show tomorrow. She tweeted something. She was very, very, you know, she was ahead of the national organization of women for a while. And then she met Rush Limbaugh.

And it changed her life. And she said the same thing. Everything I believed and everything I had been told about him and his audience just wasn't true. Let's talk about critical race theory because I am getting messages from people who want to know I have to go into a critical race theory kind of thing in my, office and they'll fire me if I say anything. I saw Accenture, I think, let a 30-year partner go because he spoke up against this and said, we shouldn't be doing any of this. Tell me about how critical race theory is going to be affecting people, if it hasn't already, in their places of business and what they should do. Yeah, I mean, if it isn't already in your workplace and your workplace is like

a large corporation, a publicly owned firm, it's coming. And it's going to come under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, which sound great, but sometimes are really aggressive propaganda and indoctrination campaigns. Can you, can you say first what the difference between equality, which our Constitution talks about, and equity, which is critical race theory? What is the difference? Because they sound the same and people think, ah, equity. equality, equality, it's the same. It's not. Yeah, equality is the idea that we're all created equal under God and that we, the government should protect individual rights regardless of race, creed, color, religion, et cetera. And essentially, it's the equal protection

under the law. Equity is, the critical race there is basically say, hey, equality hasn't worked. We still have large racial disparities. There's still kind of systemic racism in society. So they've abandoned the idea of equality, treating people equally, and replaced it with equity, which is treating groups as units and then trying to equalize outcomes based on group identity. So a very kind of quick way to think about it is equality is something like the equality of opportunity, and equity is the equality of results, which we've seen over and over in the 20th century lead to human and social disaster. Okay, so I'm in my office. Thank God, this isn't happening at my company, but I'm in my office and I get a note that says I have to attend this racial diversity and equity class and I want nothing of it. And maybe there are people in my office, but no one will say anything. What do I do? And what happens if nobody does stand up against it?

Well, there's a couple things you can do. One is if you feel confident enough and you feel like you have the conviction to do so, you can stand up. You can speak out. You can send a letter to the HR department, letting them know that these theories don't actually lead to better outcomes in the business literature. They put the firm at legal risk for lawsuits and that they conflict with your own deeply held beliefs. How do they open up the firm for lawsuits? Well, you know, I'm working on this, but I think there's a strong case to be made, and there's some kind of analogies in case law that if critical race theory, for example, traffics and racial stereotypes, they say white people can be reduced to the essence of whiteness and it's analogous with oppression, you know, that's a violation of the Civil Rights Act. if they compel speech, especially in public institutions, that's also a violation of the law. And then if it creates a toxic work environment, which in many cases it does, it's pitting people

against each other, it's creating a kind of race-based harassment, which is a protected category. Again, these are all actual violations of the law. And I think big companies are maybe the quickest to potentially change tack because their legal departments, If this starts becoming a cost center, if it starts becoming a legal risk, if they start fearing lawsuits, they're going to probably disband a lot of these programs pretty quickly. So I think that's one, you know, excellent way forward that we could hopefully see unfold in the next two years. You have giant companies.

Are you, you read up on the Great Reset, Chris? Yeah. I mean, you see these, what are called ESGs, these standards, in these big companies. and that's the first red flag. If your company has an ESG environmental, social justice, and governmental standards, you're already in trouble. Yeah, and I think people are going to have to make a big decision. If your beliefs, your politics, your faith is important, and you work at a company that is

actively kind of mobilizing against it, you have a tough ethical and moral choice to make. Do you stay and fight? or do you find employment with a company that lets you express yourself more authentically? And I've talked to a lot of people in the last six months where they say, you know, I have these obligations, I have a family, I have a career, I have a reputation. But this is just eating away at me, this political indoctrination, trying to shame people, trying to create collective guilt based on race or faith or identity. And I tell them, you know, you really have two options.

You have, you're going to have to sit and take it or you're going to. going to have to have some courage and stand up for those convictions. And in some cases, people are actually starting to fight back. And in, you know, some cases, even fewer, unfortunately, they're actually having success at shutting down these programs. You did a great story in the City Journal on Anti-Racism, comes to the Heartland. And you talk about Springfield, Missouri, how the teachers are being forced to locate themselves on the oppression matrix, which is what? The oppression matrix is a kind of graph or grid that was designed by some social justice

academics that basically said, these are the checklists that makes you an oppressor. These are the checklist that makes you an oppressed person. So white, male, heterosexual, English-speaking Christians were the kind of dominant oppressors and then, you know, the other side. And it was a middle school in Springfield, Missouri, a place. that is not a kind of progressive stronghold. It's not L.A. or New York. And they were forcing teachers to essentially locate themselves on this

oppression matrix and telling white male teachers, you are an oppressor, telling female or people of color that we're teaching in the system, you are an oppressed, taking in none of the actual reality of the situation. No one's individual stories and categorizing them in this way. And teachers were absolutely outraged. You know, they leaked me the documents. and hopefully the school district will think twice before doing it again.

It also, they handed out flyers or some, you know, training materials, and the handout originally listed MAGA as, quote, a form of covert white supremacy. Now, they took that off because people found out about it, and so they went back into the hiding, and they scampered under the refrigerator like cockroaches do. but MAGA, this is, this should show you where we're headed when they say, hey, we got to find extremists. The stuff that is being passed out to our teachers in schools is really revealing on who they think those dangerous extremists are.

And they're the people in the red states. Yeah, absolutely, that's right. And I think we've seen an evolution of language for the last four years under the Trump administration. there was this drumbeat from the media constantly saying, making the association that white, conservative Christians are by definition white supremacists. And there was an attempt to tie those two phrases together. And then on January 6th, and I know you condemned it, I condemned it, the violence at the Capitol, they were gleeful. You could, you could, those 72s after, they said, this is our big opportunity. We can now move from white supremacists to white supremacist domestic terror.

And it's a really a kind of maybe spontaneously coordinated, but clearly a coordinated language campaign to basically create the connotation between conservative and Republican voters and white supremacists and domestic terrorists. And these phrases are dangerous. I mean, it's a truly, you know, the worst thing that can be. And they're trying to basically annex all conservative voters into that kind of linguistic umbrella. which then they could use to silence, to de-platform, to outlaw, and to marginalize. What I think is, you know, is not a majority of strong plurality of the country. Christopher Rufo, thank you so much. We'll talk again. Thank you for all of your hard work.

You can follow him on Twitter at Real Chris Rufo, Rufo, or his website is Christopherrufo.com. Thanks, Chris. We'll talk again. Thank you. All right. Let me tell you about Gold Line. Right now, people are investing in gold, silver, and some are investing in Bitcoin. I will tell you I've invested in both. One is really, really rock solid. One is fluctuating. One is being discussed now about being taken out or regulated by governments all over the world, because they don't want somebody else to have this control or, in other words, take away the government's control of fiat currency. I have trust.

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This is the Glenn Beck program. weird for the first time in what 19 or 20 years. It's the first time I haven't thought, okay, what is Limbaugh leading with and how can I lead in to that with him? First time. I know. It's an end of an era is an understatement with this one. This is really tough.

It may be the beginning of a new era and a very frightening era. I'm scared. I know. I know. I know. Couldn't come at a worst time. than it just did. I just looked up at the screen on MSNBC.

How to manage life after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Well, gee, that makes me want to run out and get it. First of all, how to manage life after you get the vaccine? I don't know. Go back to doing your work and doing your life. The whole point of it. Gosh, they should be encouraging people. Hey, guess what?

Get the vaccine. You get to go back to your life. If you've already had COVID, you get to go back to your life. life. No, no, no. No, we all have to wear masks after you had the vaccine and you've had the virus. It's silly and it's hurting people.