Rush Limbaugh, highly influential conservative radio host, dies at 70

With millions of listeners at his back, Rush Limbaugh gained such power and authority by the mid1990s that he was made an honorary member of the Republican-held House, where his far right-leaning ideas, laments and bombast helped steer the party toward its fractious future.

The GOP had just taken back the chamber for the first time in decades and Newt Gingrich, then speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was so indebted to the fiery conservative radio personality that he and other Republicans called themselves the “Limbaugh Congress.” Limbaugh, the speaker said, had given them the courage to “take back our country.”

Limbaugh remained a sure-fire friend of the American right, and listeners faithfully heeded his advice and political gospel over the decades. In ways both big and small, it was Limbaugh who arose as an architect of the deep political and cultural divides in America that came into full focus during the Trump era.

In poor health for years, Limbaugh died Wednesday of lung cancer, his wife confirmed on his radio show. A longtime cigar smoker, Limbaugh had announced in

2020 that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer and he had recently been hospitalized. He was 70 and had his last broadcast Feb. 2.

He was admired by millions and remembered fondly by many.

“Rush will forever be the greatest of all time. Rush was an extraordinary man. A gentle giant. Brilliant, quick-witted, genuinely kind. Extremely generous. Passionate. Courageous. And the hardest working person I know,” his wife, Kathryn Limbaugh, said.

Former President Donald Trump spoke to Fox News about Limbaugh’s death, saying, “He was very brave. He could, in theory, have been gone four months ago. Really. He was fighting until the very end. He was a fighter.”

The right-wing talkradio host began his career in the 1980s as a disc jockey. In Sacramento, California, in the mid-’80s, Limbaugh adopted a radio format that weaved political and news commentary and listener calls, all with a conservative slant.

He started at WABCAM in New York City later that decade, where he built a national platform and became an eminent media personality.

Limbaugh first broadcast the nationally syndicated “The Rush Limbaugh Show” in 1988 and quickly exploded onto radio stations. At the peak of his influence in the 1990s, he had amassed as many as 20 million listeners a week, with about 12 million daily across 600 radio stations throughout the country. His radio show – which he hosted from Palm Beach, Florida, after moving there in the late 1990s – was as big as the top-rated TV series on cable and networks.

“All it takes is the mention of my name and the predictable leftwing groups have a cow,” he once boasted.

His loyal, tuned-in clan affectionately called themselves “dittoheads” – shorthand for a person who enjoyed listening to or agreed with the ideas and opinions of Limbaugh.

A staunch supporter of the former president, Limbaugh was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom during Trump’s 2020 State of the Union address, a day after the radio host announced he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer.

Trump called him

“the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet” and thanked him for his “decades of tireless devotion to our country.”