Former President Donald Trump in his first public comments since leaving office praised conservative talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh following the broadcaster’s death from lung cancer and pointed to his friend’s vast reach and support.
Trump last talked to Limbaugh three or four days ago, he said during an interview with Fox News shortly after Limbaugh’s wife announced his death.
“He was very brave. In theory, he could have been gone four months ago. He was a fighter,” Trump said. “His fight was very, very courageous.”
Trump praised Limbaugh’s “record” number of listeners and fans.
“Thirty-nine million people — that’s an audience you don’t hear about anymore,” the former president added, calling the experience for listeners “religious.”
“That’s an audience that you don’t get anymore,” Trump said. “He had an insight few people had. He got it. He was very street-smart.”
Trump said he didn’t know Limbaugh before running for president in 2015. He awarded the longtime radio host the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year.
Asked repeatedly what the two talked about recently, Trump noted that Limbaugh spoke lovingly about his wife and was a “future” thinker, but he declined to say what, if anything, the conservative opinion-maker advised about his possible political future.
Trump contended Limbaugh, during private conversations, backed his claim that he won the presidential election – despite his loss to President Joe Biden and his own Justice Department announcing it found no evidence of the widespread voter fraud alleged by the 45th president.
“Rush thought we won, and so do I, by the way,” he said. “I think we won substantially. Rush thought we won. He thought it was over at 10:00-10:30 p.m.” on the night of the election.
“A lot of other people feel that way too, but Rush felt that way strongly. Many people do,” Trump said. “Many professionals do. I don’t think that could have happened to a Democrat. You would’ve had riots going all over the place if that happened to a Democrat. We don’t have the same support in certain levels of the Republican system, but we have a great people as Republicans. Rush felt we won. He was quite angry about it.”
In a statement, Trump called Limbaugh “a patriot, a defender of Liberty, and someone who believed in all of the greatness our country stands for.”
“Melania and I express our deepest condolences to his wonderful wife, Kathryn, his family, and all of his dedicated fans. He will be missed greatly,” the former president added.
At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki shared Biden’s sympathies for the Limbaugh family.
“His condolences go out to the family and the friends of Rush Limbaugh, who have, of course, have lost him today,” Psaki said of the current president. Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015.
But that is likely to be the extent of the new administration’s public response.
“I don’t know that I anticipate a statement from the president,” Psaki said.
Biden has spoken about Limbaugh’s fight with cancer before, last year empathizing with his diagnosis before stating that he didn’t think the broadcaster appreciated “the American code of decency and honor.”
“I do feel badly, I mean this sincerely, that he’s suffering from a terminal illness,” Biden told CNN after Limbaugh received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 2020, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
“Rush Limbaugh will spend his entire time on-air dividing people, belittling people,” Biden said at the time. “If you read some of the things that Rush has said about people, their backgrounds, their ethnicities, how he speaks to them — I don’t think he understands the American code of decency and honor.”
