RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I need to beg your indulgence for a few moments here before we get to the news of the day, the special counsel, the… Well, just the daily tack that is occurring here as the establishment in Washington attempts to regain what it believes is rightfully its, rightful theirs. One of my closest and dearest friends and colleagues passed away at six minutes after eight o’clock this morning here in south Florida: Roger Ailes, 77 years old. Roger and I were passengers in history. I met Roger in around 1990 one night at dinner at the 21 Club in New York, and my life was never the same thereafter.
But I think the way I would rather do this is to go back and replay some comments I made in a speech in honor of Roger back in 2009. It was in Tarrytown, New York. This was the Westchester-Putnam Council of the Boy Scouts of America up in New York, and Roger was their annual award winner. In addition to the roster of speakers, somebody from the Boy Scout Council reached out to me and asked if I would come up and make some remarks, and I was flattered and honored to do so. And I want to play it. I don’t think we’ve ever played the speech.
I’m not gonna play the entire length of the remarks I made, but I’m gonna play more than we have played in the past on the program here. Because what I would like for people know is the Roger Ailes that I know, the Roger Ailes that I knew: The brilliant, inspiring, motivating, compassionate, funny — the most naturally funny human being I have ever met. I’ve never encountered Roger Ailes in despair. He wouldn’t allow himself to be. I’ve never been around him when he was fatalistic or even depressed. Quite the opposite. He had virtually every characteristic of great leadership.
And he knew it, and he was aware of it, and he used to it as best he could to try to get the best out of everybody that worked for him and worked with him. You’ll read all the things about how he got started on the Mike Douglas Show, essentially, in the mail room; ended up producing the program. You’ll read about the stories of him taking over the campaign successfully of Richard Nixon and George Bush. And I have my own stories of Roger Ailes and American presidential politics, such as: It’s 1992, the first year of the Rush Limbaugh television show that Roger Ailes executive produced for four years.
The television show had not yet begun. It was slated for fall production. That would have been in September. This happened to be in June. So I get a call; Roger says, “Hey, we’re going to Washington. Pack a bag. We’re staying overnight.” And I said, “Wuh wuh wuh wuh what’s going on?” He said, “We’re going to the White House. What?” “Yeah, we’re going to the White House. The president wants to talk to you.” What?” “President Bush wants to talk to you! Pack a bag and meet me at so and so.” So we flew to Washington. We were to have dinner at the White House with president and Mrs. Bush. When we arrived, we arrived early on purpose and we went to the Old Ebbitt Grill, which is a restaurant just across the street from the White House.
She’s looking at me like, “Please, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t…” I could just see it in her eyes so I just sort of faked picking up a spoon. “No, no, no, no, no! It’s a finger bowl.” I said, “I knew. I knew. I’m just trying to lightening things up.” After dinner we piled in a limousine; we went over to the Kennedy Center where the president attended a performance of something or other. When the president arrived, everything is stopped and he’s introduced. So was I. I’m so embarrassed, I can’t begin to tell you. Roger is off outside the spotlight. Roger is nowhere to be seen. He’s there, he’s in the same row, but he’s off out of the spotlight.
The crowd’s looking up (chuckling) with the same opinion I had: “What am I doing there?” We go backstage, meet the cast and the crew of the production, head back to the White House after it’s over in the presidential limousine and discussed the presidential campaign of 1992. It was really at the peak moment of Perot. I slept that night in the Lincoln Bedroom. Ailes slept across the hall in the Queen’s Bedroom. I got a total history lesson of the White House, the residence, the Lincoln Bedroom. Such as: It was never his bedroom.
It was always his office in the Civil War. There was no West Wing. Lincoln never slept in this room, but they carry forward a tradition. They call it the Lincoln Bedroom, but it’s only a bedroom for guests now. I didn’t go to bed that night. I didn’t want to lose consciousness while there. So we left the next morning, hopped a plane, shuttled back up to New York. I did the radio show and talked about it. Roger Ailes made that happen. Roger was able to open doors for people and willingly and happily did so, and it was never for his benefit.
Not directly. It was always in furtherment of a cause or helping somebody else. But what I want to play for you — and I’ve got countless stories like that, that I could share with you. But I think I’d rather play for you a portion of the tribute that I delivered back on the 11th of November of 2009. This is shortly after Obama has just been elected, by the way, and it’s, again, the Westchester-Putnam Council of the Boy Scouts of America, Roger Ailes the 2009 Good Scout Award ceremony. Here’s a portion of what I said…
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RUSH: One man has established a culture for 1,700 people who believe in it, who follow it, who execute it. Roger Ailes cannot do everything. Roger Ailes is not on the air. Roger Ailes does not ever show up on camera, and yet everybody who does is a reflection of him. He has the ability to inspire, to motivate, to enthuse. People around Roger Ailes are not negative. If they are, he sends out a memo. The memo says, “Negative people make healthy people sick.”
(Audience applause) A personal story. We all grow up wanting to be loved. None of us are raised to be hated. And I was the same way. I mean, many of us will alter our own personalities to be accepted by people. We’ll try to figure out what people want us to be and then be that so that we’ll be liked. In the process of doing that we deny who we really are. Now, when I was growing up nobody hated me and nobody thought that I hated anybody else.
“You can’t let that story stand,” and if I responded to it the critics thought they’d hit a home run and just mounted even more criticism because I had reacted to it. Other people said, “You gotta ignore it. All you do by responding to it is elevate it. More people hear about it than otherwise would have.” This went on for three years. I had to learn — which was a tough psychological thing for me — I had to learn how to take being hated as a measure of success. Nobody’s raised for that. And the person that taught me to deal with this and to remain psychologically healthy was Roger Ailes.
And had that not happened I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am tonight.
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RUSH: And I don’t say that, and I didn’t say that, lightly. It was a really confusing time. As I say, I’d not been hated or didn’t hate anybody. But simply because I was on the radio now and effectively espoused criticism that automatically made me, you know, all the isms: Racism, sexism, homophobic. And it’s a tough thing to have to turn to being hated and convert that into a measure of success ’cause we’re not raised that way. Nobody is. Nobody’s raised to want to be hated, quite the opposite. And to take being hated as a measure of success is a psychological challenge?
It was Roger Ailes that gave me advice and lessons he had learned himself, but basically how just to overcome all that with confidence, self-esteem, and recognize the people saying that don’t know what they’re talking about and don’t know you. The people who do know you know who you are. That’s all you can do and that’s all that matters. Seek your happiness from the people that love you and you love them, ’cause you’re never gonna be loved by people that never know you. It was much more detailed and involved than that, but it was extremely essentially helpful. Here’s the next little segment from the speech.
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RUSH: My relationship with Roger has been more deeply personal on a friendship level and a professional level than I’ve never experienced with anybody else that I’ve worked for or worked with. And even though Roger has had nothing to do with my radio show — he was the exec producer of my TV show for four years — the things I’ve learned from him about being a man, about the country, about how to be a professional, nobody else taught me.
Nobody else was capable of teaching me. It was a crapshoot on whether I would have learned it on my own. Maybe I would have but I didn’t have to because I had Roger behind me telling me how to react, how to be. I remember one night on my TV show, for some reason I said, “I can’t do it, Roger. I can’t. I can’t do it. This is not me. I can’t do it.” “Of course you can! What do you mean, you can’t do it? Nobody says you can’t do it! You’re Rush Limbaugh! You can’t do it?”
He sent me out, and I did it. A lot of people would have said, “Yeah, you can’t do it. Oh, you can’t do it? You don’t want to do it? Okay, okay! Well, maybe we’ll cancel tonight’s show.” But Roger does not tolerate or accept failure in people, nor does he accept people feeling secondary. He is a genuine human being who is able to bring out the absolute best in everyone who works for him and works with him. I have never met anybody in my life who was able to do that.
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RUSH: And especially in a large organization like Fox News that, at that time, in 2009, had 1,700 people. Stop and think about it, folks. Think about establishing a culture that no matter when you tune in to Fox News as a consumer — as an audience member with expectations — that you’re gonna get what you expect from a man who’s never on camera. Who’s not writing scripts, who’s not on the phone with producers and demanding this or that. Hiring the right people, vetting the right people, inspiring them and motivate and turning them loose.
Not many people can do it. Roger Ailes has accomplished things in life that few people will ever even attempt, and it’s one of the reasons why there’s so many people that are jealous, so many people who are envious, and so many people who want to knock all of this down and characterize it as something other than what it is. And what it is — what it was — was greatness. There’s more. I appreciate your indulging me in this. Just a little bit more.
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RUSH: At the time of the scout dinner in New York, Roger’s son Zach was nine. He was in the audience that night.
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RUSH: Zach, I want you to come up here just a second. This is Roger’s son, Zach. You’ve heard him addressed here tonight.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: Now, you’ve heard a lot of things about your dad tonight. How old are you?
ZACH: Nine.
RUSH: You’re nine years old. You’ve heard a lot of things about your dad tonight, and you’ve heard them described in flowery terms. I want to make it real simple for you: Your father is a great man. Your father is one of the greatest Americans who has ever lived, and I don’t want you to ever forget that. I want you to understand exactly what that means.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: I have never had that experience. I mean great, Zach! Your father loves you. You can’t believe the stories and how proud he’s been talking to me about you and the things that he was looking forward to being able to do with you and has been able to do. So I wanted you to know it from me personally. You’ve heard all the flowery language. Your father is a great man. You’ll know that for the rest of your life.
ZACH: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: I have never had that experience. And this is often said as a cliche. In Roger’s case, it’s true. He is a great man but his greatness has been enhanced and expanded because of Beth and their relationship.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: I have never had that experience. Well, Beth understands who Roger is and lets Roger be Roger.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: I have never had that experience. (laughs)
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
RUSH: I have never had that experience. But it really is a treasure it happened. I thank the Lord for all the people I’ve met. I thank the Lord for people here doing the Lord’s work in the Boy Scouts and promoting American values. I’m one of the luckiest people in the world. I wish everybody could know the Roger Ailes I know and be personally impacted by his knowledge, his advice, his attitude, his optimism, his enthusiasm, his sense of humor, because when Roger Ailes is on your team, you do not lose. Zach, congratulations.
AUDIENCE: (sustained applause)
END ARCHIVE CLIP
RUSH: And it’s true. Roger was honored one year by the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement Foundation, and they let me speak for five minutes that night, and I closed with the same point. Roger Ailes is on your team. He didn’t lose. America needs many more like Roger Ailes, not less.
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RUSH: I just have a couple more things here that I want to share with you on this, the day that Roger Ailes passed away at age 77. When I had finished speaking, I think there was one more speaker, and then Roger got up, and I just want you to hear a little bit of Roger Ailes himself as he was that night. Roger was not on camera. People did not… One of the great sadnesses for me is that he was one of the most naturally funny people. He reminded me of my dad in a way. When we’d go to dinner, a bunch of us, everybody would want to go if they found out Roger was gonna be there. It was just an education.
It was an interactive education to sit there and listen to whatever was being discussed. It was going to be entertaining and funny and informative and enlightening. There just aren’t enough people like him. And, in recent years, there hasn’t been a lot of Roger in public. He’s always been a behind-the-scenes person. It’s amazing. His job has been to make others larger than life on television. His job is to secure victory for other people, and he did it over and over. He was the man that revived Richard Nixon’s career. I don’t know how many of you remember. It was 1968, and I don’t remember why I happened to be watching television.
My memory tells me it was a Saturday night, and Richard Nixon was doing a town hall in the round. It was just Nixon and a bunch of voters, a big group of people. I remember watching it and concluding, “I’ve never seen this!” Now, I’m 17 years old, but I’m advanced for my years in terms of political awareness. “I’ve never seen Richard Nixon so likable. I’ve never seen him so engaging. I’d never seen people so interested in what Nixon had to say.”
That was all Roger Ailes, who had arranged that night, put it together, structured it, and advised Nixon on the circular format, set, and taking open-ended questions with no script. If Roger trusted you, that in itself… I mean, to perform. If he trusted you to send you out, that itself was a vote of confidence that was worth as much as you’d get from anybody else. So here’s a little of Roger responding to the award that he was given on November 11, 2009, by the Westchester-Putnam Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
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AILES: He flew up all the way to do that. He was a Boy Scout, but they had a Girl Scout camp across the lake.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: So they chained Rush to the cot at night, and he said it took him 20 minutes longer to swim with that thing hanging off of him.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: What’s little-known about Rush are the things he does for charity with absolutely no fanfare. The other thing is that he creates 15 hours a week of original material because he has talent, he has a sense of humor, and he has risen to the highest places in radio because he has a brilliant mind. And so people who don’t know Rush don’t understand that about him. What he does is hard work and he’s able to go out there every day and win, and that’s very hard to do. So, Rush, thank you.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: Here’s a little more from the — I told Cookie to cut the applause there, but, you know, she’s biased toward me, so she kept it.
AILES: We have Republicans and Democrats here, as you know, and there’s a tremendous difference between the two.
RUSH: Where are the Democrats?
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: Geraldo!
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
GERALDO: (unintelligible)
AILES: There is a difference. There’s a —
END ARCHIVE CLIP
RUSH: Wait. Stop that just a second. Cue that back up. Stop there for just a second and cue that back up to the top. When Roger stated, “We have Republicans and Democrats here, as you know, and there’s a tremendous difference between the two.” I shouted, “Where are the Democrats?” I’m looking around the room. And that’s when Roger said, “Geraldo.” I don’t know if you could hear me. (interruption) You could. I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear me. So if I think I couldn’t hear… Okay. Here it is from the top once again…
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AILES: We have Republicans and Democrats here, as you know, and there’s a tremendous difference between the two.
RUSH: Where are the Democrats?
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: Geraldo!
AUDIENCE: (laughter and applause)
GERALDO: (unintelligible)
He said, “Well, everything you told me is technically correct but I have no idea what to make of your information. The fact is I’m still lost — and, frankly, you haven’t been very much help so far.” The other guy said, “You must be a Democrat.” He said, “I am. How did you know that?” He said, “Well, you don’t know where you’re going or where you’ve been. You’ve risen to where you are on hot air. You made a promise which you have no idea how to keep. You expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you’re in the same place you were before we met and now it’s my fault!”
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: You met my beautiful wife Beth who resurrected the Putnam County Courier and the Putnam County News and Recorder. She transferred her television skills from running CNBC to rebuilding two newspapers along with our editor-in-chief Joe Lindsley, who is here tonight. We all…
AUDIENCE: (applause)
AILES: You guys know where we’d be without the wives. Remember, behind every successful man is a surprised wife.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: Marriages are, of course, full of surprises. I knew a man who was very, very ill. He was going in and out of a coma. And his wife stayed at his bedside every day. One day, he motioned to her to come a little closer. And he said, “My dear love, you’ve been with me through all the bad times. When I got fired, you were there to support me. When my business failed, you were there. When I got shot, you were by my side. When we lost the house, you stayed right here — and when my health started failing, you were still by my side. You know what?” His wife leaned in closer to hear his words, and he said, “I think you’re bad luck.”
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: I’d like to acknowledge my son, Zach, who came here tonight. I told him it was a Boy Scout event so he was certain there would be a fire somewhere. He’s going through that fire stage. Warren Vandeveer. My son’s watching the old MacGyver episodes because we won’t let him watch whatever’s on now. But Warren Vandeveer is our MacGyver at Fox News. You know, he’s the guy that gets a wad of bubble gum and a spring from an old cot and a twig and a string and he blows up an entire block. You know, Zach’s very fascinated by that.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
AILES: My dear friend Peter Johnson is here. He told you about, we go back a long way. He’s my personal attorney and then I see over here I could yell at my real estate attorney and I see the judge who’s helped me there and Dianne is our corporate attorney. I didn’t realize I was in this much trouble to be honest.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: And I’d like to thank Rosanna. She’s a great television star and a great person. One reason I decided to accept this award is because it’s not a lifetime achievement award. Don’t ever accept a lifetime achievement award because there’s a hearse right outside.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
AILES: Actually, there are a lot of other famous people here. In fact, you’re all famous so let’s just give yourselves a hand so I can get on to this speech, okay?
AUDIENCE: (applause)
AILES: We’re meeting tonight at one of the most challenging times in American history. I’m always in awe when I meet fine young people like the ones here tonight. For all we know one of the scouts in this room could easily end up being president of the United States someday, which is better than a lot of guys we have who only know how to tie the country in knots. These kids actually know what they’re doing. I want to clear up a misconception that it’s difficult to succeed. It’s actually easy to succeed if you can combine your individual talent with persistence, common sense, and the knowledge of right and wrong. There will be tough times, but as Thomas More once said, “You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds.”
Of course the winds will blow, change will come. The most important thing is to learn to adapt to change without wavering on your personal principles. My experience has taught me that those who believe in God not only have a more successful life, but a happier one. The premise of God will be challenged throughout your lifetime. Higher education institutions challenge it all the time. The media has begun to question openly whether people’s belief in God is real, even making fun of people who have core beliefs. I was on a television show once and another guest made fun of the fact that I said God exists.
And he said, “How could you believe in some fantasy? Miracle birth, life after death. It’s unrealistic.” And I said, “Let me tell you what I think is unrealistic. I think it’s unrealistic to believe that somewhere in outer space two big rocks crashed together with a bang and now I have a wonderful family, freedom, and opportunity.” We’re gathered here with love and fellowship and friends. You can bang rocks together all you want; you cannot create what we have here. Maybe God can create life from big bangs, but rocks can’t.
You will also hear your country criticized. Stand firm on that. We live in a country where we believe individuals are innocent until proven guilty. I believe we owe that same courtesy to our country. This country is only 230 years old. It’s small, it’s young, it needs protection. Who better to protect it than the people who enjoy the freedoms it provides? And that’s us. Of course things can be criticized. Things could be better. Things could be improved. But in the end, the United States of America has fed more and freed more people on earth than all of the other countries put together.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
AILES: When they tear down your country, be sure to point out that we have a heroic history with traditional values and institutions like scouting, which have been a steady beacon of light in the universe. American exceptionalism does exist because we believe in freedom. Remember one thing about America: Everybody is trying to get in and nobody is trying to get out.
AUDIENCE: (applause)
AILES: Don’t back off on traditional values. It’s important to show respect and tolerance for others, but they must show the same respect for your values. Tolerance is a two-way street. Don’t be afraid of challenges. Much of your success will come from taking on difficult situations.
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He had a hardscrabble upbringing, and he was a tough-as-nails individual and tough-as-nails competitor. And I could tell you stories about battles we had with media during the four years of Rush Limbaugh: The Television Show, and maybe I will someday as things unfold. But, for now, I just wanted to do what little I could to help give a proper remembrance of a great American who has done more for his country and his family than he is likely to be acknowledged and given credit for. Precisely because of the overwhelming and profound success, he represented and constituted an ongoing threat, which is…
I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to even acknowledge such a thing exists in our country. I understand in totalitarian regimes where certain points of view or opinions make you an enemy of the state, subject to imprisonment or constant ridicule. You lose your job or whatever. But it’s still… Even though I know it happens, and even though I know it’s out there, and even though I see it and have experienced it, it still boggles my mind that that kind of bigotry and prejudice that is rooted in tyranny exists in our own country. That simply an opposing point of view — and succeeding at spreading it and implementing it, when it is rooted in individual liberty and freedom — can make you an enemy of the state.
Scary times — and we’ve lost a great warrior in the battle, in the war.
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RUSH: Getting to Kernersville, North Carolina, to start. This is Nick. Great to have you Nick. How you doing, sir?
CALLER: Good Rush, how are you?
RUSH: Fine, dandy.
CALLER: And talent on loan from God dittos to you, but I want to offer my condolences to you on losing a friend in Mr. Ailes. I wanted to see if, in order to honor his memory, to see if you could expand a little bit more on specifically how he taught you to view the vast amount of criticism directed toward you as a measure of your success. It just seems so relevant in our political climate today.
RUSH: It is. So you want to know what it was he told me? I just want to make sure I understand your call.
CALLER: Yeah, yeah. Or if there’s a story or what it was he told you. I just wanted to see if you’d expand on if. You had mentioned it.
RUSH: Well, let me give you a little context for it. The radio show starts in August of 1988, and it didn’t take six months, and in markets all over the country where the show is heard, all of a sudden I’m espousing “hate and racism and bigotry and homophobia” and all these other things. And this stuff is being used to harm my efforts to get my radio show on other radio stations. We were trying to grow the EIB Network and were not, at this point, in the top-ten markets.
And eventually, you have to be in top-ten markets if you’re going to have commercial and financial success, unless you’re gonna ask for donors like the Democrats do, which we were never, ever, gonna do. It never even entered our minds to go the fundraising route. So we had to get ourselves cleared on these stations. And, as these stories mounted that I was this, that, and the other thing, it immediately put you on the defensive. And then I started getting advice. One person would say, “You can’t let that charge of racism stand! You can’t! If you don’t bat that down, that’s gonna stick and you’re gonna be forever damaged. You’ve gotta reply to it.”
So I said, “That advice sounds good,” and I respond to it. And it didn’t help at all. For the moment, at the moment I did it I felt triumphant. But then when I saw the reaction of the critics? They loved it! They thought that it had gotten my attention. “Why, here’s a big radio host and he’s paying attention us in this little market?” They accused me or reveled in punching me down. So they thought, A, this guy can be distracted, B, he can be taken off his game, and he can be put on the defensive. The worst thing you can do is to be placed on the defensive trying to justify yourself.
There’s no win, because you’re acknowledging the allegation. You’re acknowledging the claim by making it appear that it might be true. And so you have to bat it down. So the way to deal with this has to be in other ways. Some people came along and said, “Just ignore it. It’ll go away if you ignore it and you’re not gonna give the critics any satisfaction that they got to you.” And that carried a little bit more weight with me. But the psychological advice was basically just giving me tools here and there to ignore it and not let it actually affect my own opinion of myself and affect my self worth.
In other words, not to let other people define me — and this goes for anybody. Most people end up being defined by others, because they’re obsessed with what people think of them. And the best thing… It didn’t happen overnight. It took a while, but I’ve arrived at the point that I don’t care what people think. I’m lucky. I’ve got a microphone here every day where I can prove who I really am each and every day, and that allows me to end the day feeling very satisfied with my efforts. A lot of people don’t have that, which is unfortunate.
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