Original subtitles

-Women are dying every day

all over the world because of people like you.

-Rush Limbaugh is one of the '90s most controversial figures.

-Feminists in America today are outdated.

-The reason that Trump was so effective with fake news...

It started with Limbaugh.

-First on radio, then TV.

-Whenever we see gays in the military,

we're gonna go... aah! [ Laughter ]

-Limbaugh attacks men...

-The NFL all too often looks

like a game between the Bloods and the Crips.

- women...

-We're going to do a feminazi update.

- And even children. - That's the kid!

-I don't think anybody was comfortable with that.

-I got the sense that he was beaten up when he was younger.

-He'll spend the decade and beyond

spreading hate and conspiracies.

-"Democrats are evil. Democrats are not patriotic."

-The modern Republican Party

has been reshaped in Limbaugh's image.

-It's Limbaugh's rhetoric that will fuel

the right-wing populism that taints our politics today.

-He purposely divided America.

-You will not replace us!

♪♪

[ Dial-up modems screeching ]

♪♪

[ Radios tuning ]

-The most dangerous man...

- in the U.S.A.!

-Well, Rush Limbaugh bills himself

as "the most dangerous man in America."

Why? Well, why not?

He has the hottest radio talk show in the country.

-[ Mimics fanfare ] Ladies and gentlemen!

-In the '90s, one man gives voice

to the id of American conservatism.

-It seems everywhere you look, there he is,

on the billboards and in the bookstores.

-With his radio and TV shows,

Rush Limbaugh will push together a cult following

by pulling America apart.

-You know what all caused this?

[ Crowd cheering ] Me!

-But Limbaugh's rise to become

the king of blue-collar conservatism

is no rags-to-riches story...

More like riches to even more riches.

-This guy grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri,

relatively well-off, very Republican family.

-His dad was a corporate lawyer and a Republican leader.

-His father was very politically opinionated and loved

to spout off at the dinner table.

Friends remember this. You know, when you went

to the Limbaugh dinner table,

you were getting a seminar in things.

-As a teenager, Limbaugh dreams of one day

spinning records for a top 40 radio station.

-He grew up loving radio, loved radio,

and he was a deejay,

much to the consternation of his lawyer father.

He was kind of viewed as the failure of the family.

I'm Brian Rosenwald. I'm the author

of "Talk Radio's America: How an Industry Took Over

a Political Party That Took Over the United States."

He goes off to college and only lasts like one year

because his heart's not in it, he's not interested in it.

And he heads off to try to do radio.

Limbaugh was a good deejay, but he was exactly

the type of person who didn't listen to his boss.

He was the kind of deejay who would call the local pizza place

and order 5,000 pizzas

and tell them he was from the competing station.

And so, that's a very poor strategy for remaining employed.

-After getting fired from jobs across the Midwest,

Limbaugh scores his first real break at KFBK in Sacramento.

-He got the job because another right-wing talk show host

made some sort of ethnic slur and was fired.

His name was Morton Downey Jr.

-You disagree with what you hear, don't blame us...

Blame it on Morton Downey Jr.

-Morton Downey Jr. will soon be known for his angry antics

on his late-night TV show.

But in 1984,

he's a loudmouthed deejay talking politics on KFBK.

-And he says something racist about a city councilman,

and so they fire Downey and they have a slot.

-Limbaugh gets that job.

But to appeal to Morton Downey's audience,

he tweaks what he talks about on the mic.

-And you have to understand, at the time that Limbaugh

goes to Sacramento, he is not that political.

This guy's never been registered to vote.

He's in his 30s.

But he's just sort of applying

the shtick that he had developed as a deejay

to political conversation.

And he has a good time,

and he's doing gags and all this kind of stuff.

-So, I have a little joke

I'm gonna play on the light company.

We will call them up on the phone right now.

-Limbaugh's new act is heard by Ed McLaughlin,

the head of ABC Radio.

He's got an opening at WABC,

the company's flagship station in New York City.

-He moves to New York July 4th weekend of 1988,

and August 1st of '88, he debuts nationally.

-♪ With talent on loan from God ♪

-In New York, Howard Stern has already established himself

as the king of the FM dial

by syndicating his show to stations across the country.

-Howard Stern starts to kind of pioneer the raunchier,

in-your-face,

what they call "guy talk" that could be really sexual.

-Stern was so outrageous on last night's "Tonight Show,"

NBC issued a formal apology to its viewers.

-They talk a little politics, but it was mostly focused on sex

and women and popular culture and that kind of thing,

and it pushed the boundaries of propriety.

-But while Howard reinvents what morning drive time sounds like,

Rush uses his midday AM talk show

to do the same thing with political radio.

-Tantamount Pictures presents...

Bill Clinton in "Tax-ula."

-It's hard to understate how different and unique

and fresh his show feels.

-There's no doubt that the Rush Limbaugh radio show

was pretty inventive.

There was more comedy.

Limbaugh had an amazing talent of connecting with his audience.

He did it unlike other right-wing ranters on the radio.

- on loan from God, Rush Limbaugh,

here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.

-Calls his network

the Excellence in Broadcasting Network,

and EIB One is his plane

when he gets wealthy enough to have a plane.

-And that was very sticky. You know what I mean?

Excellence in Broadcasting, you know.

It's just... it was all...

It was all this... I wouldn't even say it was marketing,

'cause it was way more campy than marketing, you know?

-Limbaugh quickly makes a name for himself

by belittling liberal beliefs.

-Morality is not defined by individual choice.

You hear that, you liberals?

-He has caller abortions.

He plays, um, a vacuum cleaner sound effect

and screaming in the background

while hanging up on liberal callers

And his point... he stops them after a short period of time,

but his point is that they're more controversial

than actual abortions.

So, he's making a conservative political point,

but he's not just lecturing on it.

He's not a sermonizer.

This is not church. This is fun.

- ♪ Whoa! ♪ - Rush Limbaugh!

-Yeah.

-The first time I heard Rush Limbaugh,

I vividly remember driving to my sister's house in Cincinnati.

I turned him on, I'm somewhere in the middle of Indiana,

and here's this energetic, kind of off-the-wall guy...

-[ High-pitched voice ] Tiananmen Square,

nuclear weapons, oh, no!

- who's speaking to me.

I am Joe Walsh, former Illinois congressman,

former Republican candidate for president,

and former Rush Limbaugh listener.

-Before Rush, conservatives complained

that no one on TV or radio speaks for them...

-Generally, if you were right of center, you'd get pounded.

You'd get criticized.

- and that the mainstream media

is biased against them and their values.

-ABC, CBS, NBC... They're all left of center.

CNN... left of center.

I mean, most of the media in America is,

has always been left of center.

-Thank you, Mr. President.

-Well, I hope I've answered your questions as best I could,

given the very little that I know.

-So to have somebody like Rush Limbaugh beat them up,

it was refreshing.

-The country was moving to the right since Reagan,

and there was... There had been backlash

from, you know, the social movements.

You know, there was the hippie movement,

there was the civil rights movement,

there was the feminist movement.

-This is a kind of peak moment in the culture wars.

You've got a lot of white Christians,

especially white Christian men, who feel like the world

has been turned upside down on them over like 20 years.

-Telling these men,

"Well, you can't call Black people 'colored' anymore,

you can't call women 'girls' anymore."

-And it's these white conservative men

who see in Rush Limbaugh

a man willing to speak up on their behalf.

-Rush had an amazing, amazing sense of what people

who tended to think like he did, where they were coming from.

-He's just becoming a bigger and bigger deal,

especially for men.

It becomes like their clubhouse.

-In only a year, his audience swells

to almost 1 million people on 172 stations.

His listeners soak up his lack of political correctness,

and so long as he's beating up on liberals,

they don't care if what he's saying is true.

If Rush says it, they believe it.

-And so, the simple fact of the matter

is that the homeless advocacy in this country is...

Is, I think, based upon fraud.

-This guy doesn't just get his facts wrong...

He turns them upside down.

My name is Jeff Cohen.

I founded the media watch group FAIR

that debunked and documented Rush Limbaugh's reign of error.

I remember the first time I heard Limbaugh.

I was in a cab in New York City,

and I was in that cab for about 20 minutes.

In the first 20 minutes, I said, "This is one

of the biggest charlatans in the history of talk radio."

He once said that, you know,

"This wasn't handed to me on a silver platter."

Not quite true.

His first radio job, he hosted a show on a local radio station,

and his dad was the part owner.

-I don't think he cared about the truth.

I don't think it was important to him.

That wasn't the goal of his show.

-I never knew from the beginning

if Rush Limbaugh believed a [bleep] word he said.

-A lot of people say, "You really believe

the stuff you say?"

I don't know. That's for you to figure out.

-I think Rush knew in many instances

he was not telling the truth.

Even after being corrected, he would keep saying the lie.

-Limbaugh isn't just loose with his facts.

He's also becoming more and more derisive

towards the social and political groups he targets.

-It's no secret the talk show host offends many people,

including gays, women, Democrats, and liberals.

-It was a lot of complaining about liberals and Democrats

and women and Black people.

-Making fun of gay people, making fun of people with HIV.

-The thing that a lot of liberals start to feel

is that he was a bigot.

He punched down at people who were less powerful than him.

-Early on, Limbaugh popularizes

the term feminazi

to describe any woman who's pro-choice,

something he's called out for when he appears on "Donahue."

- "Feminazis"?

Feminists are Nazis? - I don't think

that the feminists who say, "We're feminists,

we're fierce and we're in your face,"

which is clearly "us against men," is representative

of the majority of women in this country, or people.

-Not to psychoanalyze Rush,

but he seemed to have issues with women

and he seemed to have issues with sex.

There seemed to be a real ugly anger for women

that would come out publicly on his show.

How many of you guys

in your own experience with women

have learned that no means yes if you know how to spot it?

-Well, I mean, I guess people could say Rush was a sexist.

He said sexist things. You know what?

My father said sexist things when I was growing up.

My dad's not a sexist.

My name is Nick Africano.

I was a producer for "Rush Limbaugh,"

the television show, from '91 to '95.

Can you use language on TV?

- Yeah. - Oh, okay.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ]

-I mean, I won't... I'm not gonna say [bleep]

-I think like a lot of misogynists,

you know, it wasn't his fault... It's those damn women,

and it's the feminists and the feminazis.

-Despite increasing outrage from activist groups,

Rush Limbaugh doesn't get canceled like he might today.

Instead, he's rewarded.

CBS asked Limbaugh to guest host Pat Sajak's talk show,

but it's a request they will soon regret.

-Affirmative action is an insult.

- [ Indistinct shouting ] - Sir, please sit down.

We'll get to you in good time.

[ Audience shouting, booing ]

♪♪

-By 1990, Rush Limbaugh the right-wing radio phenomenon

becomes Rush Limbaugh the human cash machine.

Along with his million-dollar salary,

Limbaugh hawks an ever-growing range

of Excellence in Broadcasting merchandise, along with

the "Rush to Excellence" public speaking tour,

where he earns $250,000 a year

off fans willing to pay for in-person jokes

about what he calls "libtards."

-The latest craze among progressive homosexuals

has resulted in numerous gay men

reporting to hospital emergency rooms

needing gerbils surgically removed from their rectum.

-Rush would get particularly ugly

making fun of the whole LGBTQ community.

Man, it would be like he took a knife and just stabbed people

and twisted that knife, in a much uglier fashion

than when he's just going after somebody

because of climate change or some other issue.

-His increasingly toxic diatribes

earn him more and more fans,

the most diehard of which he nicknames the Dittoheads.

-Rush himself would call them Dittoheads,

and they started calling themselves Dittoheads.

Means that they just agree

with everything that Rush Limbaugh says.

-By the way, Ditto and a half

from the land of the lonely pine.

-Thank you. Thanks very much.

-A Dittohead was just a rabid fan.

"I agree with you. Ditto."

-Politically, I agree with him. Beautifully.

I always agree with him.

-My dad was such a Dittohead that he said,

"I don't agree with everything Rush says...

Rush agrees with everything I think."

I'm Jen Senko.

I'm an award-winning filmmaker,

director of "The Brainwashing of My Dad."

-Like many Americans in the '90s,

Jen's dad discovers Rush Limbaugh...

-Rush Limbaugh.

- on the car radio during his daily commute to work.

-Before Rush, my dad was, you know, a Democrat.

To keep himself company, he... he found talk radio.

He wasn't much into music, but the guy on the radio

was racist, sexist, homophobe,

and always, always, always

pounding on liberals and Democrats

and... and demonizing them.

"Democrats are evil. Democrats are not patriotic.

Democrats are gonna just destroy the country."

And, so my dad found Rush Limbaugh

and fell in man love

and became addicted to Limbaugh.

It was like the pod people, that movie.

This is the body of my dad, but it's not my dad.

-You have to understand that if you're driving a truck

or you're in an auto body shop or you're a homemaker,

you know, they're spending 15 hours a week with him.

And he is, you know, almost there...

That could be more than they're spending with their spouses.

He becomes part of their families.

He becomes, you know, a friend to them,

and they form this bond.

-You know, it's just a bunch

of wacko, leftist environmentalists

who are continuing their assault on capitalist America.

-Rush became my father's best friend.

He locked himself in the kitchen for three hours

and would have these Limbaugh lunches.

And my mom was cast to the living room

to eat her lunch in the living room.

I remember thinking that my dad's addicted to this anger.

-And the number of Americans addicted to Limbaugh is growing.

By 1990, his nationwide syndicated network

reaches 5 million listeners.

And as long as his audience continues to grow,

the show's corporate sponsors don't seem to mind the vitriol.

-When it comes to the US media, it's corporations

that are the owners, and that can never be forgotten,

that these media corporations were willing to give a voice

to a guy who was a champion of the overdog.

He defended tobacco industry,

he defended the pharmaceutical companies.

They're huge advertisers.

And he was beating up on these powerless groups.

So, the big corporations,

I think, were happy to give him a microphone.

-In March of 1990,

the executives at media giant CBS

choose to ignore Limbaugh's attacks against minority groups

when they ask him to guest host Pat Sajak's failing talk show.

-This is, you know, CBS. This is the big time.

This is... they're trying to see could Limbaugh be a star

in late-night television the way he is on the radio?

♪♪

-As you know, there's been a controversy brewing all week

regarding the Idaho abortion bill.

-Rush quickly discovers what happens when you do

your bellicose act in front of a non-Dittohead crowd.

- You'll never have a baby. - You... It has nothing...

Madam... Madam... - You'll never be pregnant.

You'll never have to have an abortion.

- Madam? - Yes, Rush?

- Why are you so mad? - Why am I mad?

- Yeah. - Because women are dying

every day all over the world because of people like you.

-A bunch of activists are in the audience,

and they start talking back to him.

-We are going to be wherever you are

and we're gonna denounce and expose you.

-It's just an utter, unmitigated disaster.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Rush Limbaugh never handled opposition well.

- Now... - Go back to the radio, Rush!

-Rush Limbaugh never, ever really was put in a position

from the beginning where he had to defend his point of view.

-Finally, some of the people

he's been denouncing from his throne

are there confronting him,

and it was an embarrassing moment for him.

-Limbaugh gives up on TV for now

and returns to the safety of his three-hour-a-day radio program.

-In TV, we have a live audience,

and I think that was a fair bit difficult for him.

You know, when he was behind the radio,

he just had to crank the mic on and, uh... and get talking.

It was pretty easy that way

in terms of having to deal with anybody.

-From behind his mic, Rush can do what he does best...

Spout off about feminists, immigrants, and minority groups

he thinks are all destroying the "real America."

And his opinions soon reach the inner circles

of a political group that agrees with him.

-Slowly, Republican consultants, Republican staffers,

Republican politicians are being turned on to him,

and when they're turned on to him,

a light bulb goes off that,

you know, this could be really politically beneficial.

-The Republican Party woke up to the fact that, "Oh, my God,

this guy is channeling our voters better than we are,

and we better embrace him pragmatically and politically."

-The Republican who embraces Rush the most

is a man named Roger Ailes.

-Before Rush, there was Roger Ailes.

-Roger Ailes, who is a television producer

and political consultant

responsible for lots of famous ads.

-One of his most notorious is "Revolving Door,"

a campaign commercial for the Bush-Quayle ticket in 1988.

The ad is a not-so-subtle suggestion

that voting for Michael Dukakis

means Black criminals get released from prison.

-This was calculated to emphasize

the one African American here.

-Roger Ailes was one of the most important figures in the history

of the modern Republican Party and the modern media.

Ailes worked for Richard Nixon's campaigns,

later worked for Reagan, worked for Bush the first.

-He already had this idea that he wanted to make news

that would be biased towards Republicans

and that would earn Republican voters.

-In a few years' time, Ailes will help create Fox News,

the conservative wing of Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

But in 1992, he's helping transform Limbaugh

from a right-wing bomb thrower into a guided missile.

-Roger Ailes and Rush were two of a kind.

In fact, when they met, Roger Ailes said it felt

like he met his... his soulmate.

-In June of 1992,

he arranged for Rush Limbaugh to come to the White House.

And George Bush the first carries his overnight bag

into the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House.

-Think about this.

This is a guy who's been fired like five times

and isn't even registered to vote.

And in less than a decade, he's sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom.

Like, you could never have picked a guy and been...

Who was more unlikely to be a political star

in short order than Rush Limbaugh.

♪♪

-Roger Ailes believes enough in Limbaugh

to bring him back to TV

by creating "The Rush Limbaugh Show."

Learning from the Pat Sajak fiasco,

Ailes fills the studio audience with loyal Dittoheads.

The show premieres in syndication

in September of 1992,

just a few months before Clinton challenges Bush

for the presidency.

-Rush danced to his drum, and he said things

that lots of people didn't like.

He made people crazy.

But you know what? If you play it safe,

I guess people don't talk about you.

-Leading up to the election, Rush's TV show,

along with his three hours a day on radio,

serves as one long attack ad

against Democrats and the Clintons.

-A woman is like a tea bag.

Put her in hot water, she just gets stronger.

And, uh...

[ Witch cackles ]

-We made fun of Hillary Clinton, for sure, yes.

And Bill Clinton.

-Back and forth, can't make up his mind

which way he wants to go. That's what it looks like

when Bill Clinton gets close to the Selective Service Office.

-During the run-up to the election,

Clinton focuses on winning over young and Black voters

by appearing on shows like "Arsenio Hall."

-Meanwhile, Bush Senior relies on Limbaugh

and attacking Clinton's military draft record.

-Speaking to a national radio audience today,

President Bush told conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh

he doesn't want to make a big deal

out of Clinton's draft status, but he did call on the Democrat

to give a full explanation of his non-service.

-The only problem with Limbaugh criticizing Clinton

for dodging the draft is that Limbaugh

did the exact same thing, but for different reasons.

-There were a lot of good reasons

to criticize Bill Clinton,

but Bill Clinton was opposed to the Vietnam War that he evaded.

Rush Limbaugh supported the Vietnam War.

He just wanted other people to fight it for him.

-Rush and other, uh, outspoken leaders

in... in conservative media, I think,

do best when they have an enemy that they can rail against.

Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama.

-You know, listen, the Clintons... fair game.

And they... and, listen, they took a lot of people apart

on... on the way to where they were.

So, that never felt like an unfair fight.

-While Rush starts out his TV show

with the same humorous political jabs

he perfected on radio, it's not long

before he crosses the line into petty personal attacks.

-He was cruel from the beginning.

-On January 20th, 1993, Bill Clinton gets sworn in

as the 42nd president of the United States.

Immediately, he outlines his vision for change.

-We're going to ask the rich to pay their fair share

so the rest of America can finally get a break.

-For Democrats, it's a moment of triumph...

The first time they've held the White House in 12 long years.

And while Limbaugh publicly decries Clinton

as a dangerous liberal and a threat to conservative values...

-So, I think it's, uh, pretty much far-left liberalism,

uh, that seeks to... to raise the level of incompetence

to the level of competence.

- privately, he celebrates.

With Clinton as president,

Limbaugh has the perfect target for all his grievances,

and that means more listeners and more money.

-Bill Clinton beats Bush in '92.

'96, Bill Clinton's reelected.

Those are heydays for Rush.

The fact that... that Rush had Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton

to go after, I think that

more than almost anything else

really helped grow his show.

-The Clintons give him something to be against.

You know, not only is there a Democrat in the White House

trying to do liberal things, but he's a guy who they think

is, like, the worst from a moral standpoint.

They're looking for someone who's going to voice that.

And Limbaugh provides them that.

-Yes, he gave voice to a hell of a lot of people

who felt voiceless,

but Rush Limbaugh taught people during the '90s

that it's okay to demonize your political opponents.

-I never did them the way they are doing us

in Washington, D.C., today.

It is wrong

and it is not good for the United States of America.

-Oh, dissent and disagreement

is not good for the United States of America.

[ Baby talk ] We're so sorry, Mr. President.

[ Laughter and applause ]

So sorry.

-He hammered... Hammered Clinton.

You know, Trump whined

that he was the most picked-on president, like, ever.

But really, before Clinton, there was no president

that was hammered as much as he was.

-When attacking the Clintons proves to be the magic formula

for attracting even bigger audiences,

Rush seems willing to say anything to appease his fans.

That includes ridiculing

the Clintons' 13-year-old daughter, Chelsea.

-Let's take a look, see who is the cute kid in the White House.

No, no, no, no! That's not the kid! That's...

That's the kid! We tried to...

[ Laughter and applause ]

-Like, how hurtful is that?

-He was a pioneer in many things,

and one of the things he pioneered in was nastiness,

name-calling, and coarseness gone public.

-I got the sense that he was beaten up when he was younger.

And he would then lash out. Projection.

He would lash out and take off after like, I mean,

take off after the way Chelsea Clinton looks.

-I don't think anybody was comfortable with that.

Um, I wasn't comfortable with it.

Looking back on it,

I'm less comfortable today. I have children.

-His own mom calls him up and scolds him for that.

You don't attack children. So, yes, there...

There is some stuff where he's crossing the line,

where it's over the top, but these people

who hate Clinton find a lot of it entertaining.

-By far, the more disturbing aspect of that

was how his audience reacted.

"Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!" And they [bleep] ate it up.

-The reaction from Limbaugh's critics

was often just as over-the-top.

-Yeah, I mean, one day, uh, we were opening the mail

and someone sent us feces, human feces in the mail.

FedEx.

I was the one that opened it.

The greatest part is that they spent the money

to overnight it to us, and it's like,

"I'm gonna send poop, and guess how I'm gonna get them

to open it... I'm gonna send it FedEx."

-But the parcel does nothing to stop Limbaugh

from trash-talking the left, including making shit up

if it helps to advance his anti-liberal agenda.

-He says the Clintons send their daughter to a school

where all the eighth graders have to write an essay...

"Why I Feel Guilty Being White."

"CBS News is my source."

There was no CBS News report.

There was no essay.

It would have been very hard

for the 25% of the people at Chelsea Clinton's school

who are nonwhite

to write the mandatory essay.

♪♪

But again, these lies,

these concoctions are in furtherance

of a serious political perspective,

which is white people are oppressed,

the people that are wrecking society are the feminazis,

the homeless, the immigrants,

the gays, and the people dying of AIDS.

And those are the people he would fume about.

♪♪

-Now, this next one, I want to warn you,

some of you liberals, you're gonna be unhappy at this.

I love it.

[ Laughter and applause ]

-While taking cheap shots at the Clintons can be ignored

as harmless political satire,

the rise of the Christian right and right-wing radical groups

makes Limbaugh's rhetoric increasingly dangerous.

-We are for the Second Amendment

and for the American people to arm themselves.

And when we take over, we're gonna level the IRS building.

-Rush said the things that they were told that they couldn't say

or weren't supposed to say.

And it also combined with sort of like the evangelical movement

that was going on at that time.

-Rush Limbaugh came along with a more secular approach,

but the wave he rode in on was televangelism.

He was able to prey on the social resentments

and the resentments against modernity and feminism

and gay rights

that people were getting from right-wing Christian preachers.

-By the end of 1994, Rush has 20 million listeners on radio

and several million viewers on TV.

That gives him an audience similar

to shows like "Seinfeld" and "Friends."

-Those were his, you know, glory days, man.

He's making a shitload of money.

He's eating, he's drinking, he's smoking his cigars.

He's living life large, and he looked like...

On TV, like he'd been living life large.

-Rush is making more and more money.

He's gaining the trappings of success.

I think the best place that you see this is politically

because he becomes a rock star specifically to conservatives.

And maybe the best way of understanding this

is the 1994 Republican revolution.

[ Marching band plays ]

-The revolution, led by Congressman Newt Gingrich,

happens during the midterm elections of '94,

when for the first time in 40 years,

Republicans win a majority in Congress.

It's a major upset for the Democrats,

and Republicans in and out of politics

know exactly who to thank...

Rush Limbaugh and his legions of Dittoheads.

-These are not unimportant people who are like,

"Will you take a picture with me?

Can I have your autograph?"

Like, they treat him like a rock star.

-But just as he's basking in the conservative limelight,

America gets rocked by a homegrown terrorist...

[ Indistinct shouting ]

- who doesn't quite fit

into Limbaugh's carefully crafted world view.

-It's about feeding your audience what you think

they [bleep] want to hear. And Rush Limbaugh knew

that his audience wanted to blame a Muslim.

[ Sirens wailing, indistinct shouting ]

-On April 19, 1995,

the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

in Oklahoma City

gets hit by a terrorist attack.

The toll is devastating.

168 are confirmed dead, including 19 children.

-Rush Limbaugh was one of many commentators

after the Oklahoma City bombing happened

that immediately rush to assume this is foreign

and "let's retaliate, let's bomb somebody, God damn it."

That was par for the course,

but Limbaugh had the biggest audience to say that with.

-Within just three days,

the FBI tracks down the real terrorist...

American born and bred Timothy McVeigh.

His motivation... retaliation for the FBI's handling

of the Waco siege in Texas exactly two years earlier.

-And then we learned that the terrorist was connected

to right-wing militia groups,

grew up around Buffalo, New York.

And all of a sudden, it was like,

"I never said those things."

You know, clearly we don't want to be bombing Buffalo, New York.

-The... The thing that a lot of liberals start to feel

is that talk radio hosts are encouraging hate.

Not only are they, you know, preaching kind of hatred

and... and anger towards Democratic politicians...

That this can easily spill over, right?

That if you preach that these people are attacking America,

they're attacking American values,

a logical leap for some of the fringe of the audience

that there could be people out there who are moved to violence.

-Timothy McVeigh represented a number of disenchanted,

loner-type white dudes in America

who didn't feel a connection to anything.

Rush Limbaugh would have helped give them a voice.

Rush gave them a home.

-In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing,

as many Americans try to come together and heal,

Rush Limbaugh downplays the role

that white conservatism played in the tragedy

and continues his obsession with poking fun at the Clintons.

-Well, look at it this way, sir. If you aren't reelected,

you'll have more time to practice your golf game.

- I'm looking forward to that. - Oh, so are we.

-The pleasure Rush gets from speaking falsehoods

is only matched by his love of spreading fake conspiracies.

Case in point, Jeff Cohen remembers when Limbaugh tried

to pin a fictional murder on Hillary Clinton.

-He went on the air breathlessly

to read something he got, like, faxed to him.

♪♪

-Okay, folks, I think I got enough information here

to tell you the contents of this fax that I got.

Brace yourselves.

There's a Washington consulting firm

that is scheduled to release a report this afternoon

that will appear, that will be published

that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment

owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body

was then taken to Fort Marcy Park.

♪♪

-Rush Limbaugh in action.

-Vince Foster was the associate White House counsel

who had committed suicide.

There's never been any evidence otherwise.

-I mean, how do you go on the air

when you get something off of the fax machine

accusing the first lady of the United States of murder?

It was part of this conspiracy crap that he was so good at,

you know, at telling, was these giant conspiracies.

-The conspiracies don't sit well

with his more mainstream TV viewers.

And in the summer of 1996, his show is canceled.

-In today's Washington Watch, Rush Limbaugh

is reportedly dropping his syndicated television show.

-While Rush focuses on his three-hour radio show,

his old friend and soulmate Roger Ailes launches Fox News.

Using Rush as the template, Fox spawns a slew of hosts

who channel Limbaugh's conservative fury.

-What you see today is all a derivation of Rush Limbaugh,

Sean Hannity, I mean, Bill O'Reilly...

these guys just didn't know how to do it.

They didn't have the verve he had.

-Then, when Bill Clinton leaves the White House,

Rush Limbaugh loses his favorite punching bag.

-He really needed to be the opposition.

It's not helpful for him

when George Bush the second becomes president,

'cause he needs to be bashing away at the Democrats in power.

-And while he's left to reminisce about the evil deeds

of Bill and Hillary,

Limbaugh will soon find himself in the grip of a vice

he spent his career railing against.

-Like millions of people, he got hooked on opiates.

-In 2003, the mainstream media

gives Rush Limbaugh yet another chance on TV

when ESPN hires him to commentate on NFL football.

-He only lasts like four or five weeks

because he... he starts talking about Donovan McNabb

of the Philadelphia Eagles

and Black quarterbacks.

-The media has been very desirous

that a Black quarterback to do well.

-It says something about U.S. corporate greed

that they would take a guy like Rush Limbaugh

with his... his history of racial contempt.

-That history will get another chapter when Limbaugh

says the following a few years later on his radio show.

-Let me put it to you this way...

The NFL all too often looks like a game

between the Bloods and the Crips.

-Three years later, in 2006, the king of right-wing media

reveals the true depths of his hypocrisy

when he's arrested on prescription drug charges.

-I remember Rush in the '90s railed against,

you know, people who did drugs and drug addicts.

And my... my dad agreed with him...

"Yeah, they should just be locked up

and throw away the key."

-He admits he went around doctor shopping,

getting these drugs from different doctors.

And the prosecutor has an open-and-shut case,

but drops the charge.

-He looks a little bit hypocritical when he confesses

that he has drug addiction and cuts a deal on,

you know, criminal charges and things.

-The drug war affected poor people and people of color,

the kind of people Rush Limbaugh belittled for decades,

and the Rush Limbaughs of the world got off.

-By the time that Rush's own addiction came out,

the Rush community was a full-on cult.

And so, the cult leader can do no wrong.

-And that's certainly true

when Limbaugh begins spreading the falsehood to his listeners

that Barack Obama isn't really a natural-born American citizen.

-He was one of the birthers that at the same time

that Donald Trump was questioning

that Obama is not a legitimate president

because he wasn't born in the United States,

Limbaugh was doing that conspiracy,

that fake conspiracy.

-I think Rush Limbaugh knew that was bullshit,

and yet he still put it out there.

Now, to me, I find that to be a lot more dangerous

than some idiot

who actually believes that Obama is not an American citizen.

Trump's a dumbass, so Trump doesn't know what he's doing.

But Rush? Rush knew.

-The reason that Trump was so effective with fake news,

"don't believe journalism"...

It started with Limbaugh.

-Trump came along in 2016.

Why was he so able to so easily demagogue?

Because he came along to a group of people

who were perfectly okay being lied to.

-Then, in 2020,

Rush Limbaugh announces that he has Stage 4 lung cancer

and that he won't be spending as much time on the air.

-There's an immediate outpouring from the radio industry

and the conservative media worlds wishing him well,

and Trump gives him the Medal of Freedom

at the 2020 State of the Union Address.

-The first lady of the United States

to present you with the honor, please.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-That to me is an insult to gay people,

women, people of color.

It's just an insult. And no one cares.

The modern Republican Party

has been reshaped in Limbaugh's image.

That's what has to be understood.

-After 30 years of that guy on the radio

spewing disinformation and lies to the point where

the entire base of the Republican Party right now

no longer believes in basic truths...

I mean, think about that.

-Six weeks before his death in February 2021,

Limbaugh is still at it,

claiming election fraud on behalf of Trump

and helping incite the insurrection on Capitol Hill.

-There's simply no way Joe Biden

was legitimately elected president.

-When you talk about the extremism of the American right,

Limbaugh probably played a bigger role

than anyone alive or dead to do that, to shape that.

-I have fond memories, and, um, I've never said a bad word

about the guy and I never would.

Um, he's...

You can disagree with him. Uh...

Good people can disagree with him,

and have, and... And will continue.

-His legacy is division. He purposely divided America.

He's not the only one,

and there's plenty of blame to go around,

but he had a huge microphone.

America right now is dangerously divided.

-Jews will not replace us!

-Rush Limbaugh played a huge hand in that.

-It's immeasurable, the... the damage

that Rush Limbaugh has caused to society.

♪♪