Welcome, folks, to Volume 4026.3 of “Crazy Things You Never Imagined a President Doing.” Today’s New York Times reported that The Man Who Lost The Popular Vote recently came up with a plan to host a radio show, one that would broadcast two hours a day, seven days a week. On a Saturday in early March, Trump brought this harebrained scheme to a meeting of the White House coronavirus task force, which meets daily.
As the impeached president pitched it, people would simply call in and he’d answer their questions about the virus, kind of like Dr. Ruth, except without, you know, any actual knowledge or expertise on the subject at hand. Calls would not be screened. It would just be the Orange Julius Caesar and his, er, adoring public. I’ll leave it to you all to imagine the looks on the task force members’ faces—especially Dr. Fauci’s—as they pondered the possibilities.
Then, almost as quickly as the idea appeared, it was gone. Why, you ask? Because Trump suddenly realized that he did not want to “compete” with his good buddy, radio host Rush Limbaugh. Whiplash must be a common job hazard in this White House. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at that meeting, which The Times article described in some detail.
No one in the room was sure how to respond, two of the officials said. Someone suggested hosting the show in the mornings or on weekends, to steer clear of the conservative radio host’s schedule. But Mr. Trump shook his head, saying he envisioned his show as two hours a day, every day. And were it not for Mr. Limbaugh, and the risk of encroaching on his territory, he reiterated, he would do it.
One of the officials involved directly in the effort said it wasn’t the first time Mr. Trump had discussed hosting a radio show from the White House. But if some in the room were unsure whether the president’s proposal was a joke, they knew his deference to Mr. Limbaugh was anything but.
When it comes to the president’s favored media figures, most observers tend to fixate on the Fox News lineup of Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. But several people close to Mr. Trump say that in the midst of a pandemic, he has come to keenly appreciate the extent of Mr. Limbaugh’s reach, and the fact that his show, perhaps more than any other source, offers a real-time metric of how the president’s decisions are playing with his supporters.
As The Times notes, Limbaugh has the largest audience of any radio host, at 15.5 million listeners each week. In fact, he’s always had the largest audience since such figures started being calculated by Talkers magazine back in 1991.
This was something I learned working on my new book, in which I detailed how Limbaugh’s racist rhetoric and all-around ‘othering’ of President Obama on matters ranging from Black Lives Matter to immigration helped pave the way for Trump to find his way into the Oval Office. I also detailed how Trump’s own hatemongering on the campaign trail and in the White House paralleled that of Limbaugh.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19—and before that as well—Limbaugh has backed Trump with the full force of his voice. When Trump downplayed the virus as a health risk, and called it a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats, Limbaugh was right there with him.
But I’m telling you, folks, I have — there’s so many red flags about things happening out there. This coronavirus, they’re just — all of this panic is just not warranted. This, I’m telling you, when I tell you — when I’ve told you that this virus is the common cold. When I said that, it was based on the number of cases. It’s also based on the kind of virus this is. Why do you think this is “COVID-19”? This is the 19th coronavirus. They’re not uncommon. Coronaviruses are respiratory cold and flu viruses. There is nothing about this, except where it came from, and the itinerant media panic that — you can’t blame people reacting the way they’re reacting, if they pay any, even scant attention to the media.
If you read just two or three media headlines a day — pick one, pick two, pick three at random — you’re going to think that if you leave your home you’ve got a good chance of dying — and you don’t. But I can’t — there’s no way we here can stop a panic. There’s no way we can talk sense into a panic. I wouldn’t even try. But I’m telling you, just — to me, this is just a gigantic series of question marks and red flags, all this stuff that is — it’s just the timing of it, the objective — the gleeful, gleeful attitudes in the media about this, the gleeful attitudes that Democrat leaders have about this.
Trump’s deference to Limbaugh on the matter of starting his own radio show—an idea he took seriously enough to bring to the coronavirus task force, whose meetings he otherwise rarely attended—makes clear the depth of the two men’s ties. This pr*sident knows exactly how much of the credit for his Electoral College victory goes to Limbaugh. That’s why he rewarded the toxic, racist host with the Medal of Freedom—tarnishing that great honor forever.
These two individuals deserve each other. They peddle hate and revel in the suffering—directly caused by one but celebrated by both—of people they believe deserve nothing better. According to The Times article, Trump actually thought his show would help ease the American people’s fears, yet still decided not to go forward because he valued his relationship with Limbaugh even more. That choice alone tells you where this shitgibbon’s priorities lie.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)