Rush Limbaugh, firebrand right-wing radio host and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, dead at 70
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, the flame-throwing talk show host who revolutionized right-wing radio, died Wednesday after a long and public battle with lung cancer.
He was 70.
Limbaugh’s wife, Kathryn, announced his death on his radio show Wednesday.
Limbaugh told his listeners in January 2020 that he had advanced lung cancer, days before receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President Donald Trump at the State of the Union address.
The polarizing pundit, who was revered on the right and lampooned on the left, dominated the airwaves for the better part of three decades with a button-pushing style that never failed to generate conversation — and ratings.
Trump, in a call-in interview on Fox News, said he last spoke with Limbaugh about “three or four days ago.”
“He was fighting until the very end. He was a fighter,” the former president said Wednesday. “He had an incredible instinct for politics. He had an incredible instinct for life. He is a legend. To those people that listened to him every day, it was a religious experience for a lot of people.”
Long before topics were trending on social media, Limbaugh generated a dayslong buzz with commentary that went right up to the line, and often over it.
The Missouri native was the nation’s second-highest-paid radio personality, according to Forbes, which put his net worth at $600 million. His $87 million annual income was second only to Howard Stern’s deal with SiriusXM.
Tributes to the conservative were endless, like callers to his program.
House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) credited Limbaugh with “revolutionizing” American radio with his no-holds-barred style. “His voice guided the conservative movement for millions every day,” McCarthy tweeted.
Donald Trump Jr. called him “a true American legend.”
Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany recalled hearing Limbaugh as a child in her father’s pickup truck.
“My fellow classmates from my all-girls Catholic school knew if they rode in my car, we would be listening to Rush Limbaugh,” McEnany tweeted. “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.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), perhaps the most prominent far-right-wing voice in Congress, joined the chorus of remembrances for Limbaugh with an “RIP Rush” tweet.
“Thank you for your legendary impact on so many Americans!” Greene wrote.
The tributes to Limbaugh didn’t end at America’s border.
Nigel Farage, the right-wing British nationalist, tweeted that his political ally from across the pond “gave the silent majority a voice.”
But not all the reaction was rosy.
Liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America said Limbaugh “sold his listeners a false reality and we will be paying the price for it for a long time to come.”
“Rush Limbaugh made his career lying to his audience, stoking misogyny, and fueling racism,” Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone said in a statement. “He entertained listeners by mercilessly mocking and maligning anyone who didn’t resemble his typical listener — straight, white, conservative, and male — and that cruelty eventually became a central tenet of modern conservatism.”
Limbaugh had four marriages, including his last one to party planner Kathryn Rogers, 43, whom he wed in 2010. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas officiated at wedding No. 3.
He was known for his fiery and articulate rhetoric, which was always impassioned, though not necessarily accurate.
He famously used the term “feminazi” to describe women’s rights advocates, and said in 2015 that “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of pop culture.”
Fact-checking outlet PolitiFact found the majority of Limbaugh quotes were to some degree false, including his assertion that “the evolution crowd” could be proven wrong by the fact that gorillas don’t turn into human beings overnight.
“I’ve always had a question: If we were the original apes, then how come Harambe is still an ape, and how come he didn’t become one of us?” Limbaugh asked in 2016, referring to the Cincinnati Zoo ape who was killed by zookeepers after a child fell into his enclosure.
Limbaugh, a cigar smoker for 30 years, had expressed skepticism over the dangers of smoking. He even compared COVID-19 to the common cold and falsely told his legion of listeners there had been 18 other COVIDs.
“The Rush Limbaugh Show” was syndicated in 1988 and served as the prototype for the modern-day, right-wing media movement.
Vanity Fair once likened the shock jock’s influence among conservatives to Oprah Winfrey’s sway with women. Limbaugh was credited with heavily influencing voters in 1994 when Republicans won the House of Representatives during President Bill Clinton’s first term.
Limbaugh was also a top-selling author, despite attending only one year of college at Southeast Missouri State University, where he reportedly “flunked everything,” according to his mother. She reportedly told a biographer her outspoken son only seemed interested in being on the radio.
In 2014, he won the Author of the Year award at the Children’s Choice Book Awards for his work on “Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures With Exceptional Americans.”
“I love America,” Limbaugh said after receiving that honor from young readers. “I wish everybody did.”
His kids book was commercially successful, despite being panned by literary critics including Kirkus Reviews, which called it “exceptionally bad.”
He credited conservative intellectual William F. Buckley as a role model, calling the influential commentator “indescribable” and “irreplaceable” after his death in 2008.
In his last broadcast of 2020, an emotional Limbaugh told listeners he didn’t expect to see the end of the year and was grateful he did.
“Because I have outlived the diagnosis, I’ve been able to receive and hear and process some of the most wonderful, nice things about me that I might not have ever heard had I not gotten sick,” he said.
“How many people who pass away never hear the eulogies, never hear the thank-yous?”
With Chris Sommerfeldt and Dave Goldiner
