TODD: I want to chat with Peter in Unionville, Connecticut. Peter, hi. You’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. Todd, your guide host today. Hi, Peter.

CALLER: Hi, Todd. First, I want to thank you for your great work in being part of the committee. You do a phenomenal job.

TODD: That’s really an honor to hear, and all the work really goes on in the back end with Team EIB. I appreciate that.

CALLER: Okay. You’re part of the process. But, listen. I wanted to tell you a funny story how I started listening to Rush. I wasn’t into politics and it was during the Clinton regime. So I’m finding a station. I’m circling on the radio, and I hear this guy say, “It’s 263 days of America Held Hostage,” and that little sentence he said resonated, and I would look for it, and I eventually understood conservativism, and it’s something like that. And I got a redemption. I would love to bring that back, like today you could say, “America Held Hostage day number 50 of ‘punity,’ not unity.”

TODD: Punity?

CALLER: Punity, not unity.

TODD: Yeah, punitive process, to punish. Wow. Yeah.

CALLER: I don’t know if you guys would consider it, but I used to love when he started. I would look forward to just hearing his intro today of America Held Hostage.

TODD: I remember that, and I remember the liberals were utterly outraged and beside themselves. They mustered as much faux outrage on that as I’ve ever heard. They really did a good job of pretending to be outraged, and so —

CALLER: Bring it back.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: Bring it back.

TODD: All right. I don’t know. See, guide hosts don’t have that power. But it’s now a noted request. It will go into the hopper, the actual professionals at EIB will consider that. I appreciate the phone call, Peter.

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TODD: Kelly in Ogden, Utah. Kelly, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s Todd Herman, your guide host this week. Welcome, Kelly.

CALLER: Thank you very much for the welcome, and good morning to you and everyone who’s listening.

TODD: Good morning.

CALLER: I just… Of course not “just,” but one of the things I want to bring up is what’s you’re doing there at EIB, this is like a weeks-long eulogy. I do not really think of it as a funeral service. But we had decades of conservative thought taught to us by the professor. So the work you guys are doing at the EIB Network, it’s just brilliant and rich, for this Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner to honor our Rush, as Ms. Kathryn put it — “our Rush.” So he was a national treasure.

TODD: Indeed.

CALLER: The first time I heard Rush, of course I was getting spoon-fed all of his liberalism on local radio here, but it was in 1989. And instead of the program I usually would hear when Rush came on, I think it wasn’t a half an hour before I was thinking, “Somebody’s gonna take this guy out, because he is preaching against the liberal dogma.” But he had so much about truth and reality and making the complex understandable that he survived, and he lasted until God said, “It’s time to come home, Son.” I’m just so happy you all are doing this.

TODD: It’s a joy to do it.

CALLER: I’m almost a 31-year plus student of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Thinking.

One of the things he did was taught me how to think about things that may otherwise have seemed unthinkable. For example, Joe Biden turning his back on the unions and closing down the Keystone pipeline. What, eight, 10, 11, 12,000 jobs? Why would he do that? Because Joe Biden worships Gaia, and most of the left, that’s main religion is earth worship. So shutting down the pipeline and causing all those jobs to be lost would just be a reasonable sacrifice to Mother Earth.

TODD: So if they’re worshiping Gaia — and I’m not saying they’re not. But if they are, then what is the role of, say, a Tom Steyer, who, in my judgment, got out of fossil fuels and then started to invest in so-called green energy and is getting rich at that — or Algore who went from having very little money to being, you know, nearly a billionaire based upon his scam movie. How would you characterize their role in all this? Are they the…? I’m trying to figure out, trying to remember the people who sold indulgences. Are they just selling indulgences?

CALLER: You know, it could be. It could be that, that the powers that be are so protective of green energy and things like that that are demonstrably untenable. Ask the people in Texas how well windmills work, and they use petroleum-powered helicopters to spray petroleum deicer on those windmills, and the windmills kill birds. But they’re allowed because they are anti so-called fossil fuel. I don’t use that term because I’ve never seen anybody burn a fossil.

TODD: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, you would know in Ogden because you have fossils and you have to oil processors there.

CALLER: We do.

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: You’re well aware. You lived in this area.

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: Right just north of Salt Lake City there’s oil refineries.

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: Hauling in tanker trucks, and they got pipelines going in there and I don’t think you got a lot of rocks.

TODD: I don’t think you do. Look, I appreciate what you’re saying about the work the team has done here. And also, you know, it is interesting that you phrase it the way you did, that God called Rush home, and that has implications for us, the people who are left behind without the Maha. That’s why I want to continue the conversation as we roll through today about what our responsibilities are and how we can carry on this great legacy of a deserving Medal of Freedom winner. I appreciate the call, Kelly.

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TODD: Let’s talk now to Steve in Niagara Falls, New York. Steve, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. Todd Herman your guide today. Glad you called Steve. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Thank you Todd. I mentioned to your screener that I had a really neat story when we were talking about when we first got into Rush. I was a police officer back in the late 1980s. I’ve since retired, but that’s when Rush first came on. One of our officers kind of like turned us on to him. And, of course, everybody started to tune in. And somehow a bunch of… Back then there were a lot of “Rush is Right” stickers that were available.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: So seven of the police cars, state police cars actually had “Rush is Right” stickers on ’em, and they were there for quite some time. And, of course, working in a Democrat-run city — Democrat-run for over half a century– once I guess the powers that be realized what that meant and who Rush was of course the stickers mysteriously came off the police cars.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: For a while, they were there for quite a bit.

TODD: I gotta think they regret that now given what the left has done. I mean, I retired, and I want to thank you for protecting us. I gotta think therefrom on the NYPD who is now a leftist now that they’ve seen what Billy de Blasio intends for you guys?

CALLER: Well, yeah, I worked in a large city in New York but not necessarily New York City at all.

TODD: Okay.

CALLER: But, yeah, I would definitely think not. I mean, there’s always going to be a few. There’s always a few in there. But, yeah, definitely it’s changed over. And I just wanted to express so much thanks to Rush because, you know, the military, and rightly so, gets a lot of, you know, promotion and a lot of backing. But Rush was always one to always include law enforcement on there as well, and he was just such a motivator for us and he really enjoyed how he used to back us up and defend us in a lot of different times, difficult times.

TODD: I just heard Rush so often with an emotional appeal to you guys, not appeal, but deeply emotional thanks. I said one day to an officer, I just said, “You know what? I appreciate everything you do.” And he said, “Well, “You do a lot too,” and I hate that. Because, yeah, I think that talking and freedom of speech and expressing unpopular opinions and being the skeptics and speaking truth in times of universal deceit, speaking truth is an act of bravery, but it’s nothing like what you guys do. So I’ll add my name to the thanks, Steve. I appreciate you very, very much.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

TODD: George is in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. George, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program. It’s Todd Herman, your guide host today. Welcome, George.

CALLER: Thank you, Todd, and mega hanging chad dittos.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: I’ll always use mega dittos because I don’t call it “office,” I call it “orifice,” and I don’t say “government,” I say “gov’ment.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: I still call those little germ buckets, “crumb crunchers.”

TODD: (laughing) You are a long-time student of Professor Limbaugh, aren’t you?

CALLER: Absolutely, and remember one of the important things: The learning never ends.

TODD: Right.

CALLER: Having grown up in Sacramento, California, myself I knew exactly what Rush meant every time about Rio Linda. It never got old.

TODD: Okay. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Slow down. This is so important. Everybody needs to know this. Please explain the Rio Linda thing.

CALLER: (chuckling)

TODD: I heard Rush explain it one time, but I’d love to hear it through the ears of a fellow student of the Limbaugh Institute.

CALLER: So Rio Linda is a just a little outside of Sacramento, the county, right? And you probably could put Yuba City in there, too, but we’ll use Rio Linda. When you drive through Rio Linda — and this is back then. I left in the eighties, and so Rush was there in the nineties. It hadn’t changed. It’s just… I dunno. It’s just a backward spot. It’s sort of like where time left behind.

TODD: (laughing)

CALLER: No rub on Rio Linda. It’s just time had left that spot behind, and when you think of sort of a… I don’t know. Maybe an old Pony Express town (laughing), that might come to mind.

TODD: (laughing) I once heard from a guy who is a bit of a former wrestler, punk rocker. His name is Henry Rollins. I went to a live show Henry did — a really phenomenal show, actually. Henry Rollins had asserted that in the United States of America, every Paul Stanley Kiss the van is in Encinitas, California. So is that true, that if you go to Encinitas, the place is just lousy with vans with beautiful paintings of Kiss, the band, on the side?

CALLER: Yeah. There’s so many throwbacks.

TODD: Okay! (laughing)

CALLER: Again, you leave LA; it’s a different world. You know, you’ve done such a great job today and I just want to make two quick points. One, Bo was on Hannity’s show shortly after Rush’s death —

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: — and the one thing he said that troubled him more than anything about the perception of Rush Limbaugh was that he was a racist. So thank you for playing all that. You could tell that Bo was deeply concerned about that.

TODD: Yep.

CALLER: He’s never liked it. It just kept him up — and, you know, I’ve been listening since the hanging-chad some days in ’99. I’ve been through Rush when he had his heart scare in Hawaii. I couldn’t wait for the six weeks to get back. He was up front about his addiction. When he was gone for that, I couldn’t wait for him to get back, as everybody else.

And then the guy couldn’t hear. He’s in radio! He’s on the radio and he can’t hear, and he came back. Any one of those four things would have shut down any other host. They would have just packed in the towel. He’s gone through so much and kept coming back for us. (chokes up) It’s absolutely amazing. And I’ll never forget the day I heard on Monday, “Oh, I got married,” because Kathryn was talking about it on the show not long ago. I thought, “What?” But what a secret.

TODD: Yeah. (laughing)

CALLER: I was like, how did I not know that?

TODD: Yeah.

CALLER: I listen to Rush. How did he keep that away?

TODD: Agreed. Listen. You know, you’re talking about a man — and just only because the clock is our enemy, George, that’s it. I don’t even really want to add on to what you said, ’cause you spoke so well about it. I’ll just point this out. There are people whose lives have been saved — I mean, just literally — because of Rush Limbaugh’s optimism, and owning his success has meant owning where he fell short on things. Heroic! I appreciate the phone call, George. It was a great call.