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Why I Don’t Often Tell You to Call Congress

by Rush Limbaugh - Nov 30,2017

RUSH: To Rochester, New York. This is Steve. It’s great to have you, sir. How are you doing?

CALLER: Very good. Thank you. This is the best birthday present ever.

RUSH: Well, happy birthday. Is your birthday today?

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: How old are you?

CALLER: I am 64.

RUSH: Sixty-four years old. Congratulations.

CALLER: Which is how I know what I know. I used to listen to you before old Mick from the high mountains used to call in with his favorite stew recipe.

RUSH: (laughing) Mick from the high mountains of New Mexico.

CALLER: Yeah. He was great.

RUSH: He was. Sadly, no longer with us.

CALLER: No. Anyway, in the first hour, you said that you never asked us to call in. But we had. You asked us to call in sometime in the nineties, and for the life of me, I cannot remember what it was. But you wanted to show Congress what would happen if we did, because they had kept saying that “Rush is telling his people to call in and that’s why we’re getting so many calls.”

RUSH: You have an excellent memory. He’s exactly right. I think it was on a budget deal or something going on, and I made it a point when this program started not to use activism. I was not the guy telling you to cut up your credit cards and send ’em to Mobil or Exxon. I did not urge people to call Washington. I didn’t want it to be seen as artificial. And yet the media kept explaining overrun phone calls in Capitol Hill ’cause I was telling my audience to call.

So one day, for a journalist, Steve Roberts, who is the husband of Cokie Roberts at ABC News… That’s exactly right, it was Steve Roberts. I said, “Let me show you what will happen when I do.” And I did. He’s right. One day I urged everybody to call Congress about something, and shut down the Capitol Hill switchboard. You are exactly right. And to this day I get requests from individual members of the House and Senate to do it, and I don’t do it.

CALLER: (laughing)

RUSH: I don’t do it, because once a bunch of phone calls can be said to be artificially generated by a talk show host, then they’re discounted, and that I don’t want. Look, it’s your birthday here. I want to give you the opportunity of some gifts. Would you like a new iPhone?

CALLER: Oh, wow. Great. Sure.

RUSH: I have a bunch of ’em. I have a iPhone 8 Plus or an iPhone X. The iPhone X is the hotshot. That’s the newest, that’s the state-of-the-art. I assume that’s what you want?

CALLER: Oh, yeah, fabulous. Thank you.

RUSH: All right. Now, I’m also gonna give you a one-year complimentary subscription to The Limbaugh Letter and the Rush 24/7 website.

CALLER: Whoa!

RUSH: That’s right. Happy birthday. Hang on just a second here. Do not hang up, because Mr. Snerdley needs to get some questions answered to you about your carrier and your address to send this stuff to you.