laura ingram and this is the ingram
angle from a mournful but a grateful
washington tonight well we're mournful
because we lost a giant today
a great and unparalleled radio icon
of course rush limbaugh but we're also
grateful for having heard his voice and
wisdom for as long as we did now i know
a lot of you heard a lot about rush
today
of course the conservative media pioneer
the fearsome defender of freedom
and patriotism but speaking as his
friend what
i think i'll remember first and foremost
about rush
is his uproarious sense of humor and his
kid-like obsession with all things
technology especially apple products
and his ability to make time for those
of us who
just looked up to him for who he was as
a person
so i'm going to have a lot more to say
about my friend throughout the hour but
i want to begin tonight with my
colleague sean hannity
um sean i think both
you and i and i watched your whole show
tonight and i cried
i think i had to do my makeup over a
couple of times because i started crying
watching it
but i think the two of us knew rush
longer
than most because he he was an
inspiration to both of our careers and
and talk radio and beyond but i know you
have so many funny stories
about rush and i know he would want us
to laugh as we remembered
his family tonight catherine and david
and everyone
but also as we remembered him so give us
a funny story
you know it's um there was this side of
him and
and i don't know if i captured it as
well as i wanted to tonight laura
you know you always wish you said this
this and this when you talk about
somebody
that you love and admire so much and
he had this mischievous
side of him i mean the fact that he'd
say talent on loan from god and liberals
would melt like snowflakes now that we
use that term
i mean he just got a got a kick out of
it half my brain tied behind my back
just to make it fair and he's got his
tongue
gently placed in his cheek and and
people are reacting to it with
with fire and fury and anger and rage
and
and the audience is in on the joke they
they
they understood it um i i just told the
story
this was like the worst moment of my
life when uh
the first time i filled in for him on
his show which was a
big help for me in my career i just come
up to work at fox and i did a late night
radio
show then afternoon drive came on right
after him
and it was it was a pretty you know
intimidating experience because all
right 21 million
listeners 6 million 600 stations
i start the opening monologue and as you
know the
microphone is golden it was a golden eib
microphone
and i'm in the middle of the opening
monologue i'm just beginning to slightly
feel comfortable
boom a thud it just dropped and i'm like
all right so i'm like down here on my
desk talking into the microphone
now i'm sweating profusely thank god it
wasn't tv right
having a panic attack and uh and then he
comes back
and somebody had told him about it and
the first thing he says is
sean hannity dented the golden eib mic
and
he loved it i'll tell you one other
funny story so
when i first started here at fox and
when it went on the air 96 in october
i would do late night radio which i
really loved and then a year later i was
in afternoon drive but
i i kind of loved it and it was fun but
my station was my my studio is adjacent
to his
i remember and you've been there many
times
and and his calling board
lit up all night long so in other words
like for fun you know we started doing
it like off the air
and and people you say you're on the eib
network and they start to
mega dittos rush and then one night i
don't know if
that side of me came out the air of me
trying to be rushed yes uh
uh you're on the rush limbaugh show i
can't do a very good giant fuzz ball i'm
just a giant football ball
giant lovable fuzzball and and kit
carson
you know the next day he was all his
team
great protectors of rush and you know
the next day he goes really
you know he kind of gave me a stern
pushback
not not in a bad way he's a wonderful
person too and we miss him
and rush then heard about it and i told
him about it i said i'm sorry i didn't
mean to and he goes
oh that's brilliant i wish i would have
done that
so it showed a sight of him that you
know was just
lighthearted charming loving um
you know if we're going to fight for
liberty and freedom i you know
it's sort of like hank williams we
celebrate freedom
and fun americans are fun americans
tailgate american
americans like football they like
baseball you know we're often entangled
in this political world all the time
yeah you know you know what he said to
me uh yeah one of the last times i've i
talked to him
he said ingram don't forget
the pursuit of happiness is part of this
whole deal
yeah life liberty is the pursuit of
happiness and this pursuit of
so everyone wants to say it's over for
america it's done
we're finished by biden president
he never saw it that way america is a
continuing experience that has to be
fought for and loved it has to be you
have to have a love affair with america
to save america and he had a love affair
with his listeners
his family of course but america and
that
is the man that i think everybody has to
remember and if you've never heard a
show
oh you just have to go online and listen
to everything you can on youtube
you have to do it because he was so darn
funny too
i'm telling you i just want to tell rush
jokes for the rest of the hour because
it's so many things there really is so
many things you know what's amazing
though too
and and i don't think we can highlight
this enough we know
this because we're in this business
shows if they don't watch this show we
don't work
i mean that's just the bottom but you
know
i mentioned earlier i talked about the
movie the bucket list with
morgan freeman and jack nicholson it's a
great movie
and you know i've talked to people i've
had conversations that go on a whole
dinner about
what you're on your bucket list what
would you like to do if you know
like he was doing it he was loving it
yeah he was living his bucket list
he was loving it but think about that he
would go through these
these the harshest of treatments they
have to kill you to save you
when you have advanced stage four lung
cancer
and i knew he wasn't feeling well every
day but he would
he'd find the strength because his
bucket list was to
be on the air to do what he was born to
do
it wasn't to go travel to here or there
or see a mountain or climb mount everest
no
he his bucket list was to get back to
the audience
he loved yeah that's amazing yeah
sean uh living the dream and he always
said i'm living the dream
ingram it says this is what i want to do
the
wise ass you or rush you both you know
have that same quality i don't know
that's why
that's why we got along it was like one
up i'm gonna one up for you i'm gonna
one-up you oh he loved you sean and uh
great show i enjoyed every minute of
your show tonight thanks
thank you we will miss out he's in
paradise i have no doubt
thank you you bet i