GLENN BECK PROGRAM
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GLENN: Welcome to the program, Mr. Rush Limbaugh is joining us now. Hello, Mr. Limbaugh.

LIMBAUGH: Hello, Mr. Beck. You're looking great.

GLENN: You're sexy as ever yourself.

LIMBAUGH: No, I mean I'm actually looking at you right now. We've got the security camera in your studio up there. He is also in the EIB building, folks. Yeah, I'm looking. I can see what you're wearing. You are pointing out me right now, you are welcoming me in person. It's very nice to be here.

GLENN: Good to have you. First of all, how much is the bid up on the letter that came from congress?

LIMBAUGH: It's amazing. It's up to $117,100. When I left yesterday, left the studio yesterday, it was $56,100. I got home at about 4:30 and it had gone -- no, it was $65,100 when I left and it jumped up to $100,000 in 90 minutes after I left and now it's at $117,100 with about 26 hours to go.

GLENN: You watch. Tomorrow afternoon it's going to go through the roof. I bet it ends up at -- are you prepared to write a check yourself to match it for $200,000?

LIMBAUGH: Oh, yeah. I've made the commitment. So I'll do it. And I think you're right. I think the big money quote/unquote big money is waiting until the end so as not to bid it up.

GLENN: Yeah. How does it feel to -- I mean, you know, I saw this letter and I thought, you know, if I had Rush money, I would absolutely buy it. What a piece of history. What does it feel like to be a private citizen targeted by congress like this?

LIMBAUGH: With this bunch, it's an honor. I've got a lot of emotions about it. You know, professionally it's probably the pinnacle of these kinds of attacks because it is historic, as you mention. I mean, I'm a private citizen and when I say that myself, a lot of people say, what do you mean private citizen? You're well known throughout the country. I said, no, no, no, I'm in the private sector. I'm not running for anything. I don't hold elective office and I don't seek it and I'm just out here minding my own business doing my business and it involves being critical of them and to have 41 Democrat senators sign a letter to the CEO of your syndication partner basically asking them to shut you up and intimidate you is -- my parents wouldn't believe it. I mean, I think of myself, Glenn, really I'm just a kid from Missouri who I never -- I mean, I always wanted to be a success in radio, and I always thought I would be, but I never, ever would have considered that it would manifest itself this way.

GLENN: Rush, I'm so concerned. I remember listening to you when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City building and I remember how Clinton turned around and tried to turn it on talk radio and all the hate, et cetera, et cetera. We -- you know and I know that it's a matter of time before we're hit again or, God knows what could happen in this country, and the way our government is running right now, was just running at full speed ahead to embrace, you know, Che and Stalin for the love of Pete. What happens to us in this industry, God forbid, if something happens and Hillary Clinton is in charge?

LIMBAUGH: Well, you know, my pens issued a discharge petition yesterday trying to get his permanent forever ban on the fairness doctrine up for a vote. We'll see what happens with that. That's a valid concern about Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton has a history, the Clintons do, of just trying to get rid of and silence anybody who gets in their way. Critics, wherever they happen to be. And she's serious about it. I do think these people are sort of neo-Stalinist in that sense in that they don't want a debate, they can't afford to come into the arena of ideas and debate because they can't be honest about what they really intend to do and so they have to discredit people like you and me, and they can't do it with our audiences, Glenn, but they can do it with people who are not in our audiences, which would limit growth and so forth. And that's partially what this is all about. But I really think that, you know, if you look at this as a business, AM radio has been tremendously revived and is enjoying profound business success all across the country because of this format. The audience is huge. The combined audience for all of the conservative talk radio, national and local, is huge, and the American -- and this is not happening in a vacuum. If she tries or anybody tries to implement a policy that would in effect render this industry null and void, the audience isn't going to put up with it just like they wouldn't put up with the amnesty bill, and I can't believe, even though it's a regulated industry, radio, I can't believe that owners and managers of thee radio stations are just going to sit idly by and let themselves be put out of business. It just, it isn't going to happen, particularly on the AM side. If they succeed in getting talk radio off AM, there's no reason for AM anymore.

Rush Limbaugh

GLENN: The Republican party, speaking about putting themselves out of business, the Republican party has so disenfranchised themselves with I think a lot of conservatives. I'm a recovering alcoholic. I know you've got to hit bottom and have a "Come to Jesus" moment and say, jeez, did I screw up my life. Have you seen the "Come to Jesus" moment from the Republican party that they understand and have fundamentally changed and started to embrace conservative values again?

LIMBAUGH: I think that's a great question to ask particularly about the roster of presidential candidates. They are all out there trying to say I'm the next Reagan. None of them are. And the problem with that is you don't want Reaganism and conservativism redefined to include things that are not conservative. You know, the Republican parties, I'm going to start talking about this on the air yesterday. Somebody called and said how come the Republicans don't do what you're doing with this Harry Reid letter? And I said fear is the biggest thing. I don't care what the media says about me, and in the House those guys have to get reelected every two years and they have campaign commercials run against them based on what they say and do and vote and so forth and they're timid. They're the minority in Washington, both politically and socially, which I think is a big point, too, and I think they're just afraid to come back and fight like this. But they're actually, I think, doing a better job, Glenn, in the minority of stopping the Democrats than they did promoting themselves in the majority.

GLENN: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: It's fascinating. The Republicans were so long in the minority prior to 1994, particularly in the House, they got used to that, got used to stopping the Democrats. There's really, the Democrats in congress have gotten nothing of any substance done.

Now, it's one thing to stop them. It's another thing to advance your own ideas and that's what you're getting at, and it's a wild guess. It's anybody's guess to see what happens. I think once the nominees have been chosen for both parties in the presidential race, I think we don't have any idea how out of control, how crazy this election's going to be, and I'm going to tell you this. This notion that Hillary Clinton is inevitable, that all the Democrats in this country can't wait to vote for her is a media myth and it isn't the case. She is not a lock. She puts her pants on one leg at a time like every other guy does and it's time for people to stop being afraid of her and afraid of the Democrats and it's time to stop accepting their premise on things and go on offense. The media puts the Republicans and the conservatives on defense all the time: Well, the Democrats say this; what do you say to that. What we've got to say is I don't accept their premise. Who is it that has proclaimed Hillary Clinton the single best and only expert on healthcare? Has she ever run a business, has she ever been in a hospital, has she ever run one, has she ever been a doctor? Why? Why do we even debate the merits of her healthcare proposal and accept the premise and start getting into policy debates?

The question is, who is she to be determining this? Nobody. She has no clue what she's doing in terms of healthcare. Her proposal on healthcare's not about healthcare. It is about advancing her power, growing government so they can have more and more control over individual citizens.

GLENN: If I had a gun to Rush Limbaugh's head right now, which I want to make very clear I don't, although I do have a right to own a gun. If I had a gun to your head today and asked you, you gotta vote for somebody right now, who would it be?

LIMBAUGH: I haven't even said this on my program. I can't answer that right now. I don't endorse --

GLENN: I've got a gun -- I have a gun to your head, Mr. Limbaugh. You had to vote today, who would it be?

LIMBAUGH: Well, it would be either Rudy or Fred Thompson or maybe Mitt Romney.

GLENN: Listen. That's not an answer. That's what everybody in America is saying right now.

LIMBAUGH: It is an answer.

GLENN: Well, best of luck to you, sir, on this charity campaign that you're running. Can you tell me about the charity itself real quick?

LIMBAUGH: Yeah. The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation. It's a association started in 1995 by a lot of Korea and Vietnam War vets and the federal law enforcement agencies, retired FBI people and so forth, and the purpose of it is to raise money to provide college scholarships for the children of Marines and federal law enforcement officers killed in action. They went into high gear after the Oklahoma City bombing because aside from just military people that were in there, there were a lot of federal law enforcement officers that were killed. It's really, really a great thing that they do. And I thought this was just juicy. Here's Reid, he writes this letter. He gets his 40 cohorts to sign this thing and he expects, he honestly expects that the CEO of Clear Channel's going to keep it secret? How can he keep it secret? How can he keep it secret when he read the letter on the floor of the House that's in a congressional record and did a press release about it? So he's all upset the thing's been made public. This has not been a good couple of weeks for Harry Reid.

GLENN: I have to tell you I read the response. I saw the media spin on the response from Mark Mays who we're both friends with and I was so pleased to see his response from Clear Channel. I think he was -- I think he was a standup guy the way he handled it.

LIMBAUGH: I tell you what, I've told him. This is a federally regulated business.

GLENN: Yeah.

LIMBAUGH: And that, what he did, letting me have that letter and do this with it, that's courage. That's a lot of guts, Glenn. It really is.

GLENN: Mr. Rush Limbaugh, thank you very much, sir. We'll talk to you.

LIMBAUGH: My pleasure. You bet.

GLENN: Bye-bye.

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