June 30, 2021 • 48 mins
The staff of the Rush Limbaugh Show was filled with characters both literally and figuratively, and in this episode, host James Golden (a.k.a. Bo Snerdley) introduces you to two of them. As Executive Producer and Vice President of Digital, respectively, Kathleen and George (known as “Cookie” and “Koko” on the air to millions of Rush Limbaugh fans) worked with Rush for almost the entirety of his broadcasting career. They share behind-the-scenes stories of the early days of the Rush Limbaugh radio show, in addition to their time working with him on his TV show. What’s it like to spend Thanksgiving at Rush Limbaugh’s house? Cookie and Koko can and will tell you that too. This episode also features a special appearance from renowned Political Consultant Mary Matalin, who narrates a feature on Rush Limbaugh’s career trajectory through the Bill Clinton administration.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you missed any episodes of Russia Limbaugh The Man
behind the Golden E I B Microphone, you've missed more
great stories from some of Russia's closest friends, family, and colleagues.
All previous episodes are available now on I Heart Radio
or wherever you listen to your podcast. On this episode
(00:21):
of Russia Limbaugh The Man behind the Golden E I
B Microphone, we take you further behind the scenes of
the radio program. So on today's show, you're gonna hear
from two people that are connected with Rush almost for
the entire length of the radio show, but they were
also very involved in Russia Lamba the television show. Both
(00:44):
are very dear friends, both a very dear co workers
of mine. Today you're going to find out who Coco
and Cookie really are. Whether you listened every day you
are at the E I B Network and the Russia
Bot program heard on over six hundred great radio stations
where every now and then nation's leading radio talk show,
(01:05):
the most eagerly anticipated program in Americans are the stories
you've never heard from the people behind the scenes who
knew him best and loved him most. Brushwood Ball having
more fundily human being, it could be allowed to have
Rush Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden E I D microphone,
hosted by James Golden. Hey, James Golden here. You might
(01:26):
remember I told you a few weeks ago that my
Pillow had sent me their entire collection. Well, you know what,
it's amazing. They are so luxurious, and it's time that
you experienced some of that luxury too. My pillow makes
more than pillows. I love the pillow. I sleep on
it every night. But you know what else they have.
They have sheets that are simply incredible. They're smooth, they're soft,
(01:51):
they're comfortable. I look forward to getting to bed every
night under these sheets. Get yourself a set of these.
They're called Geeza sheets. They come with a sixty day
comfort guarantee. You get pillows, you get sheets. Oh did
I mention the slippers. They're incredible slippers. There is a
level of comfort from my Pillow products that you simply
(02:12):
have to experience. Loging to my pillow dot com, click
on the new radio listener specials. Use the promo code
icon that's I C O N. You'll find lots of
incredible offers there right now. That's my pillow dot Com
promo code icon. Well, here we are Rush Limbaugh, the
(02:39):
man behind the Golden e. I B Mike, I'm James
Golden and today it's the Cookie and Coco Show. So yes, Now,
over the years, all of you who have listened to
the Russia Lambus showed have heard him refer endlessly to
both Cookie and Coco. And we have the and this
(03:03):
isn't cocoa like hot Coco. This is cocoa like Ko
Ko Coco. Yeah, GURUO Coco's right? Yeah, Okay, I can
hear media matters right now trying to make something racist
out of that. Oh well, let's explain to everybody Cookie,
(03:25):
how you got the name Cookie? How did that happen? Okay, Well,
when I was working on the Rush TV show, there
was a story in the Washington Post about ABC News
reporter COKEI Roberts that she had to go to a
gala um immediately after her report that evening. So she
(03:46):
put on she had her evening gown under her raincoat,
and they put her in front of a green screen
with the Capital behind her, and she pretended to do
a stand up live from the Capital in front of
you know, the green screen. Well, the story got out
and So on the Rush TV show, we did a
skit where I was the E I B reporter, Cookie Gleason. Uh,
(04:11):
and I did a report for E I B News,
and the green screen behind me kept changing locations. It
went from the Capital to like the NBC News News
car crash too. It just kept they kept changing it.
So from that day on, I was always Cookie, and
(04:32):
you know, Rush always called me Cookie. So that's how
I got the name Cookie. All right, Now, what's your
real name? No, my real name is Kathleen Gleason Priyas.
And so there's gonna be a reveal here soon the second.
So now let's turn to Coco and Coco. How did
(04:56):
you come about the name Coco? And and and and
again that is not cocoa, like hot cocoa. That's like
gorilla cocoa. Okay, okay. Oh. I came to the Rush
TV show in and I was a production assistant and
I was the low man on the totem pole, as
they say, and uh, they were going to do a
(05:18):
skit about Coco the sign language speaking gorilla, and Rush
thought this was hilarious that they people thought a guerrilla
could speak sign language. So the bit was that Russia
was going to do the story on the gorilla and
I was gonna be in the little box in the corner,
signing for other gorillas who were watching. And so they
were looking for somebody to put on the gorilla suite.
(05:39):
It turned out to be me. That'll be a chapter
in my life story and never be afraid to put
on the guerrilla suit. So I put it on, and
I had no idea what was going to happen, And
so we just started the skit and Rush got one
look at me in that guerrilla suit in the corner
of the screen and he just cracked up. He could
not stop laughing. And we did the skit and people
(06:02):
loved it, and he just kept laughing. It was like
one of the few times that Rushed, you know, kind
of lost it, you know, because he always was the
king of cool, you know when he was performing, and
and we just went did this skit and he was
having the greatest time, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
And then from that point on, I was Coco. He
would see me, and he didn't know my name before that,
he didn't know who I was before that. I was
(06:23):
just another guy on the TV show. But after that,
every day I'd see him, Coco, how are you? And
that was it. We were we were friends from that
point on. He just we just clicked and we always
had that memory and I was always Coco. And your
real name is It's George Pryas and there's no Gleam
but yeah, sorry, wait, wait a minute, and let me
(06:47):
go backwards. And Kathleen, you said your real name is
what Karl clean PRIs? I mean Glee in there? But
you know, so there's a story here. So when did
that happen? Well you know how these things happened, Jane, No,
(07:08):
I don't. That's why I oh, my goodness is so personal. Yeah,
you know, we met on the TV show and you know,
became friends. In the beginning. She didn't like me, but
you know, I guess, I you know, was it the
gerrilla suit? It might have been. It might have been
that might have been the turning point. I don't know,
(07:29):
but we became friends and then at some point, you know,
we started, uh you know dating at the very end
when that TV show ended in ninety and then um,
we were together everything one Yeah, it was only fifty
six short months of dating. Yeah, yeah, we always we
(07:53):
hear a lot about that fifty six months and so
so you are you are the E. I B. S
married couple right now? Okay, before TV so the TV show.
Let me just go back Russia Num by the TV
show which is where I met both of you. Was
(08:14):
we were taping at Unitel Studios on Street and Russia's
work day was really amazing during that time as and
and correct me if I'm if I'm losing any of
the details here, Rush would get a normal time. You
you guys were already at the TV show location and
we were at the radio shop, those of us who
(08:36):
were working just on the radio. While working on the
radio show and would later come over to TV with him,
but he would do his show prep for the radio show,
and then there would be a telephone meeting. Is that
how it happened to figure out what was called meet up?
(08:57):
And how long did that meeting run? Usually? Um, well,
I would say about ten minutes because he knew wanted
to do. Yeah, it was all him. He was the
man with the ideas, he was the you know, it
was all him. I mean James, you know, the greatest entertainer,
the greatest performer, you know, the greatest radio showever, Rush
(09:19):
did it all. Yeah, And he would tell us and
which is not regular for producers were supposed to produce.
But with Rush, he you know, he would say I
want to do this this. Yeah, he really was. I mean,
you know, God bless Roger Als and Dick Menser. They
were they were wonderful, and you know, they gave a
(09:40):
lot of great ideas. And but Rush Brush was the man.
It was him, And there were no writers. Rush was
the writer. There were no writers. Rush did it all.
Some of the things that Rush wanted and that you
guys were able to implement and make happen have later
(10:01):
showed up on other TV shows long after Rush decided
he didn't want to do TV anymore. Some of the
concepts that would develop doing Russland while the TV show
went on, and you saw them in various places. I
saw something one day on The Daily Show, which I
rarely watched, and I'm like, wait a minute, first, did
that all that stuff used to do? The thing with
(10:23):
the picture with the changed the lips, remember that that changed?
Then that became like a standard on late nights we
take a picture of Bill Clinton and put somebody else's
mouth there. But it still looked like Bill Clinton talking,
but the mouth would move and say thanks, that wasn't open.
And then we used to put Rush in a box
(10:44):
to react to audio clips that we would play. He
would he would be looking up at those, and then
we would look up at the you know, Clinton or
whoever was saying something stupid, and he'd been making faces
and reacting. It was so funny and the studio audience
loved it. And then remember Robert Reich, whenever we did
(11:04):
a story about him, he had a box. We had
a picture of him and he could barely see over
the bottom of the pure and most of that stuff
James that would come up in the production meeting at
four fifteen. Roger would come into the production meeting and
he could get Rush go on a little bit, you know,
(11:26):
like Rush would say something to him about, you know,
he wanted to do a story and Roger will, it'll
be funny if we did this, you know, like Roger
was outside of the box thinker. I mean, he brought
the Fat Lady in to sing on the fifth day
of the television show because everybody said Russia's show will
never make it. So Roger had this grand scheme and
(11:48):
on the fifth day, we would call our anniversary show.
We made it five days, and we would have a tremendous,
huge anniversary party. And we brought a fat lady in
who was gonna sing or not saying if we made
was Roger's idea. We have gotten our own gorilla, and
we will have this gorilla sign language. There it is.
(12:19):
Could you get a eight, jill all just a second?
The gorillas signing and I'm not even saying anything. Okay, Now, this,
Ladies and Gentleman, this is an actual newspaper story, Ladies
and Gentleman, from the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
It's a story about a third grade class and a
(12:39):
third grade stop laughing over there, pleaser disjects the section
that failed a drug test. Over there was that's why
we haven't a little in the dark. Okay. Now, the
teacher of this third grade classes a and named Mike Pincover,
(13:02):
and it is we should take the picture out of
the cameras and there thanks. You know. The sad thing
is that the liberals are understanding this. You know that
liberals are saying it's limball guy makes sense for the
first time. And I've been watching okay on each episode
(13:32):
of Russia Lumba the Man behind the Golden EI B Microphone,
we follow Russia Lymball's biographical journey with the help of
some of his friends, family co workers. Today is a
real treat. We're gonna look at the very impactful, influential
Clinton years. When you hear Russia Lamball in history, in
(13:53):
history books, there's always going to be a link with
President Bill Clinton. Who to walk us through those years
than Mary Mattlin. The Life of Russia Limbaugh, Chapter eight,
narrated by Mary Madaline. You wouldn't note at the time,
but in the election, a battle for the ages is born,
(14:17):
and not between incumbent President George H. W. Bush and
its challenger, a young, smooth talking Democratic governor from Arkansas.
That election was over. Now at this point a political
chess match for the ages began between that very governor,
now President elect Clinton and the hero of this story,
(14:37):
talk radio icon Brush Limbaugh. It is it's fundamental to
remember that here are the Clinton's admitting their paranoia because
they didn't know how to deal with a non supportive media,
and all it was was just me on the radio
and some other local talk show guys in the wall
spreet journal at a Trump age, and they're acting like
it is the biggest threat to their existence ever. In
(14:58):
the process, Rush became the number one voice of Conservativism,
a mantle literally passed on by none other than President
Ronald Reagan himself in a treasured written letter. Russia's political savvy,
combined with an uncanny reality based ability to make the
complex understandable, helped the Party of Reagan get back on track.
(15:20):
In fact, with Russia at the helm, the GOP one
long shot landslide victories across the fooded plane, up and
down the ballot, plus the House majority for the first
time in over a half a century, now known as
a Republican revelutionation in it was the peak. It was huge.
I'll tell you what shocked me, and it really did.
(15:42):
Clinton was flying into St. Louis in on the Air
Force one. He's doing an interview before he arrives with
the morning crew at camel X, our affiliate St. Louisi,
starts complaining about me. You got Russia, Lindball coming up here.
When you guys finished, you get come up at news.
You a three hour three hours everyone and nobody's gonna
say anything other way. No trick detective. Here's the President
(16:04):
of the United States, for the biggest bully pulpit in
the world, complaining about some guy in the radio for
three hours. It's no coincidence that the Rush Limbough program,
as you note, actually began during the Reagan administration, and
though the Clinton years were filled to the brim with
easy fodder for Rush to feast on, he spent the
years after battling a misperception that the show's success was
(16:27):
primarily built on the daily melodrama dished up by the Clintons.
In reality, the show's popularity exploded long before the presidency
was even a twinkle in Bill Clinton's eye. I can't
tell the number of people who believe that this program
arose to its current heights because Bill Clinton won the election.
This program got off the ground and became the most
(16:48):
listened to radio talk show in three years before Bill
Clinton ever fought about running for rof. In the end,
Rush reminded his listeners that his program never depended on
the party that was in power. I've often had a phrase,
my success doesn't depend on who wins elections. I can't
control who's gonna win elections anyway, Regardless who's in the
White House or not. By the way, just because your
(17:10):
team wins doesn't mean they don't screw up the whole objective.
Hears to have a good show, Rush Limbaugh hosted far
more than a good show. In fact, for decades after
the Clinton administration had come and gone, he probably carried
the conservative tords forward, both on the air and off
the air. Through the Stand Up for Betsy Ross campaign,
(17:34):
you changed the lives of dozens of hero families in need.
The campaign benefited the Tunnels Are Towers Foundation. Tunnel to
Towers bills mortgage free smart homes for our nation's most
catastrophically injured veterans and first responders to give them their independence.
For gold Star families and fallen first respond to families
(17:58):
with young children, Tunnel to Towers pays off mortgages in
full for these families and provides them with the comfort
of a home when their world has literally been turned
upside down. And thanks to this campaign to Stand Up
for Betsy Ross campaign, you have seemed to it that
(18:21):
we have been able to send a charitable donation in
total of five million dollars to Tunnel the Towers. Your kindness,
generosity and patriotism brought hope when it was needed. Most
but more of America's heroes in their families need your support.
Donate eleven dollars a month to Tunnel to Towers at
(18:43):
T two T dot org. That's the litter t the
number two T dot org. Let's tell people what you
were responsible for on the russlan Ball radio show and
you came over after TV. That happen? Actually, um what?
(19:04):
Towards the end of the television show, Rush asked me
to bring in my resume and he said to me, listen,
I am looking for an executive assistant like William F.
Buckley has. Her name is Frances Bronson, and she's fabulous.
She reads his mind, she you know, knows his every move.
(19:25):
That's the kind of person I'm looking for. Would you
be interested in work in doing that on the radio show?
And I was like, okay, um, yeah, I would love
to do that. You know, I was grateful to be
able to continue to work with Rush. Uh and now
on the radio show, I got to learn radio. It
was great, you know, great opportunity for me. So I
(19:48):
joined the radio show and I was in my little
cubicle doing my Francis Bronson work, which was like making
calendars and typing things up and getting coffee. And after
about five days I made a list of some other
things that I wanted in my cubicle. It was TV,
(20:10):
cable boxes, VCRs. And I went into him and I said,
do you is there any way you would consider getting
me this list of items for my cubicle. And he
looked at it and he said, well, my business partner,
John Accident is coming over this afternoon. I'll discuss it
with him, uh and and we'll get back to you.
And I was so grateful. I was like, okay, great,
(20:32):
thanks because James, as a as a person working in TV,
I was not used to have a job without TV
like I was always you know, listening watching hear in TV.
So sure enough, after their meeting that day, Russian John
came out of his office and Rush had my list
in his hand and he said, cookie, good news. We've
(20:56):
improved approved the entire list. And I was like yes.
So I got my good friend Frank Jeliah to come down,
use of course, the great engineer bath Hacker to come
down and hook me up. And boy did he hook
me up? Are you putting there as many VCRs as
we could and as many cable boxes, and I got
(21:18):
to record my heart out. So that's how I started
pulling audio for the show. I would try to find
things that were outrageous and that I knew would make
Rush crazy, you know, and that meant recording them on
a VCR tape giving the tape to either. At the time,
it was Marie Wallisburg, who was just a wonderful person
(21:38):
who's at CNN now that she would you know, edit
the tape for me, and we would do a little
cue sheet for Rush, telling him who what went him wear,
and you know, transcribe the sound, and we'd give it
to him. And it was like a little buffet, you know.
It was like he would pick maybe cut one or
cut five or nothing, or all of them, and he
would bounce off of them, you know. And that's how
(22:01):
it started. And then, uh, as as we got going,
there was the famous Gravitas montage, and I'm sure you
remember that. That's when Vice President Dick Cheney appointed himself
to be the running mate for Bush, and the media
all said he brings gravitas, right, George, he brings gravatas.
(22:23):
And so I heard like a few of them, like
four of them, so I strung them together, maybe Sam
Donaldson and you know, Wolf Blitzer and four people saying it,
and then I kept hearing it and hearing it so
that I just continued to make this huge montage. Then
they brought Joe in to do some of the you know,
the editing for me, to do all the editing for
(22:45):
me actually, So yeah, that's where the gravitas, the famous gravitas.
I gotta brag about her a little bit. I mean, now,
you know, when people do montages, there's all kinds of
services out there that you can search keywords and stuff
on the internet. There was no none of the She
used to watch these shows and record them on a
VCR tape and then right down the time, like we'd
(23:05):
be you know, you know, at night at home or whatever,
and and you know, we'd be watching you know, Larry
King Live, and somebody would say something and she'd write
it down and then she, you know, Joe would have
to go rewind that tape eight hours and find that
one word. There's no transcripts or anything. You know. That's
how that all started. And this whole industry now does this,
and there's whole businesses that are devoted to providing these things.
(23:29):
You know, she started it at her desk there with
the VCR. So that's right, Kathleen. I mean those momtages
not only changed the trajectory of the show, they changed
the trajectory of what people on radio started doing. You
had another one. What my favorite? And I love the Gravitas,
but my favorite is the Taurus sell Kathleen, and so
(23:54):
loved it. He loved it. You can see it when
he whenever he played it, it would just light him up.
He'd smile. It was explained the Tauris Selly bit to people,
Oh my gosh, that is so funny. Well, John Booty
helped me with that, I have to say, and we
talked about what I wanted to do, and that was
taking the prosecutor right, George listing the charges against Torres
(24:17):
Sally Sally then Senator Torres Sally from New Jersey correct,
and he had given a very passionate speech on the
Senate floor denying it all. And you know when I
was crying, Yeah, I go crying about his childhood. And
we interspersed the prosecutor listening all the things that he did,
(24:40):
you know, watch of cash gold watches. And then you
have Touris Sally saying something like when I was a boy.
This goes back a eighteen two thousand one. This is
a This is a montage of Senator Toura Sally, the
guy you had just heard a press conference where he
denied corruption charges. What we did after every denial, we
(25:04):
we inserted cut ins of a lawyer for the guy
who had corrupted trus Eli brand Simon, who was listing
this is not ts Eli's lawyer, it's the guy who
tried to buy trs Eli. It's his lawyer documenting what
trus Eli did while torris Elli is denying it, all
(25:27):
to challenge my integrity is beneath contempt. I do not
deserve this treatment. She watches a Rolex watch, diamond earrings
for his girlfriend. I have never television set ever, Oriental rug,
grandfather claw, other antique items, done anything suits at any time.
Parks to me fourteen deliveries of the envelopes of cash
(25:50):
to tors Eli's house to betray the trust of the
people of the state of New Jersey. Now let's move
over to the internet side. George, you were over at
Fox and then you were with us. How did that happen.
Kathleen had said to me that, you know, they're looking
for somebody. You know, it was there was two thousand
(26:10):
and they were looking for somebody to start a website
for Rush because you know Rush, he wanted to be
on the cutting edge of everything and websites were starting
to get popular then, and so she said, you know,
you should go for this job. And I thought about it,
and I I said sure. So um, I had worked,
as I said, with Matt Rudge, so I knew a
little bit. He taught me a lot about what he
(26:31):
did and and you know, the news business, and and
so I went and I interviewed with John Axton and
they decided to give me the job. So basically, at
that time Rush's website there was a website. It was
that picture of Rush where he's standing pointing to the
golden EIB microphone, and that was it. It was just
that picture. That was a still thing. I started in
(26:52):
June of two thousand and I. Um, my first day,
I sat with John Acton and Brian Click click and
they had a you know, plans for how we're going
to build a website. And I was gonna be in
charge of the content, and so, you know, they really
had no idea what I was gonna do. They said, well,
why don't you go listen to the show. You know,
they had a little room for me. Um. I didn't
(27:13):
even have an office then, we barely had the internet
in the office that we were in. UM. And I,
you know, I sat and I listened to Rush for
three hours with I made a word file and I
still have it someplace, and I just kind of my
concept was that, you know, we're gonna just cut up
Rushes radio show in in like the form of a
website with articles, and so I would just listen and
to what he was doing, his topics, and I wrote
(27:34):
the headlines down on this word file. And then my
idea was, also you incorporate his nicknames and the things
that he said. So I'd say the truth detector, Clinton
says this, or or you know, uh, doctor of Democracy,
you know, blah blah blah. And I made this little sheet,
like a little you know, eight or nine story sheet.
And after the show, I went back into John and
(27:55):
Brian and I showed them what I did and they
were like, wow, this this looks pretty good. Let's send
it to Rush. And so we sent it to Rush
and he says, I like it, go for it. And
that's how it stard And so then we built a
website from the bottom up, and um, you know, I
started hiring some staff. I hired Dean and Mojoe, and
that was at the beginning there. Um, and we just started,
(28:17):
um translating Russia's UH radio show to the to the Internet.
Every day. Yeah, we gotta transcribe, you gotta transcribe. Well,
in the beginning, we didn't have a transcriber. We were
we were recording the show on cassette tapes and like
playing it back and trying to write down what Rush said,
and then we would do like little intros into the
into audio. And then one day Russia is like, let's
(28:38):
just transcribe the show. I want full transcripts on the website.
And the suits at Premier at that time they weren't,
you know, too thrilled with that, because you know, they
thought that that might add fodder to the people that
were you know, media matters was just starting then, and
you know, they were a little leary about translating everything
Rush said for people to pick it over and find
(28:58):
things to object to. But Rush had the opposite view,
which was that if we printed transcripts of everything he said,
he would be proven, you know, he'd be able to
prove that he was taken out of context. And he
was really visionary in that because, you know, we started
printing transcripts of the show and we have a great
transcriber who did it for us for twenty years, Mark
kissling Berry. He's like the Babe Ruth of caption erst Yeah,
(29:25):
he's the fastest. He's in the Guinness Book, were all
the records. He's great um. And so we had the
greatest radio show host of all time with the greatest
caption er, and we would just translate it to the web.
Every day we print those transcripts, we cut them up
into different articles with headlines, and then we later we
added the Ditto cam and we added the Rush twenty
four seven subscriber service, and we had one of the
(29:45):
first podcasts, and we just built that site into something
that Rush was really really proud of and we were
really proud of, and it was it was a very
unique experience to be able to have one job was
to listen to one man talk for three hours every
day thing about Russia's you know, James and Kathleen knows
is there. There were no meetings, there was no direction given.
(30:06):
He just assumed that I was going to get it right.
Maybe every once in a while he'd say, hey, uh,
I like this headline better, or do this different way,
but hardly ever, it was just, you know, he let
us go, He let us add graphics to what he said,
and he trusted us that we weren't going to do
something that was out of step with what his he
was doing, and it just really became like this kind
(30:27):
of like symbiotic thing where we'd listened to him and
we'd know what to do and and you know, we
did it for for twenty years. The greatest just the
greatest boss. The kind of job does your boss just
let you just you know, let you do what you
want to do and not you know, just you have
(30:48):
an idea, you come up with an idea, you're able
to illustrate it, and when he does it, he does
your idea hundred fifty times better then you did it.
And it's it's amazing. It's a great feeling. It's a
great feeling. Yeah, it just he was the greatest that
now this is where I want to, uh to ask
(31:10):
you guys, we've talked about what you did. And by
the way, with the website, George, you know, for years
rush always told us he's not going to do a
website until he can understand himself how to monetize it properly,
because this is a business. And and that's what he did,
and that's what you brought to the table, a way
to do it in such a way that it became
(31:33):
part of the enterprise and it wasn't a loss leader away.
It was actually added to the bottom line. And that
was one of the things everybody in the radio industry
then the TV industry, websites were thought of to be
loss leaders and Rushi did not want that. And that
was one of the mandates when I when I came
in there was that, you know, we were going to
(31:54):
make this a business that worked. And the reason it
did was because rush knew that the content was what
was gonna make it, and he was gonna make it
and that that's what you know. People thought that they
wouldn't pay for the rest twenties four seven subscription service
when you can listen to free on the radio, um,
but rush knew that people would because we were providing
(32:16):
them something that was unique. You could only get Rush
in one place and uh, and it worked. And he
was visionary as as he always was. He like you said,
he didn't want to just do something that everybody else
was doing. He wanted to try to blaze a new
new path and we did. And then after that a
lot of radio show hosts would try to do you know,
a lot of people did what we did, but rushed
(32:38):
it at first. I see, this is the thing that
that that blows my mind. And and with you too.
Everybody that works for Rush could have done something different
and been highly successful at it because they have so
much talent. But when they came on with Rush, this
is where they called home and it became a family,
and it became we want to all do the best
(33:01):
for us. She's that you're feeling on it too. Oh yes,
And I you know, I I sort of ran the
I don't know why, but I just sort of tried
to run the website the way Rush ran things, which
was we were going to just improv it the way
he did. And we weren't going to have tons of meetings.
I mean we had some, but we didn't have many,
(33:21):
and we just knew the mandate was that Rush comes
first and that we're gonna follow Russia's lead because Rush
was gonna know what was gonna work. And that's what
we did. And so it was such a great atmosphere
and it was such a great little team. Ali came on,
(33:43):
you know, I think a year or two after the
rest of us, and because we were doing we needed
more people. It was it was too hard. Rush said
too many things in three hours. We had this close
knit team, and like everybody else in the organization, there
was very little turnover. We were all there for twenty years.
We were there because Rush kept us there. The Rush
is so compelling. He was so and some of these
(34:03):
people weren't even conservatives or or I don't even know.
We never even talked about that. It was just he's
just you know, once you start listening to him every day.
For everyone, who would want to do anything else. I mean,
it was a great job. I mean, what who would
It's no, I don't I don't know if any other
job like it, and you know, I don't think I'll
ever see another job like it. It. It's just because
nobody else is compelling enough to say so much in
(34:26):
three hours that you know, really you could. You could
write a whole newspaper based on what he he said.
And that was sort of one of the things we
we thought about the website. You know, we're not any
different than the New York Times or the Wall Street
Journal of the Washington Post were rush, you know, and
we're doing it with four people and they're doing it
with five thousand people. But you know, what he's saying is,
(34:47):
you know, to us and to the audience, is is
just as important, if not more important, because he's the
only one saying it. You can go to it, like
he used to say, you can go to the New
York Times, Washington Post, ABCC. He has, but there was
only one Rush slumba dot com and that's where you
where you you got those his opinion on things, which
was groundbreaking. Turns out I knew this was happy. You
(35:07):
can just sensed these things. November was our biggest traffic
month of the year at Russia Limbaugh dot com. We
had a record number of millions and millions and millions
of page views. So that is continuing to just go gangbusters.
And I'm really proud of it because we're proud of
(35:27):
the website. It is a plethora of data and information.
It's a it's a it's its own encyclopedia set when
you get down to it. Just the daily content of
every brother, the transcript, the voluminous content in this program,
documented and preserved each and every day, and researchable by
everybody who goes to the website. If you heard me
(35:48):
say something on a previous program, you can't quite remember
what it is, you can keyword search it and find
the exact thing that I said. The literal voluminous content
at russi lumbaw dot com. I'll stack it up against
any media website in terms of actual substantive content, not
just what the news was, but what I thought of it,
(36:10):
not a daily basis. Let me just ask you this
and we'll we'll we'll end on this note. I want
both of you to think about for the second some
of your favorite memories of Russia. And if there's one
thing in particular that you want the world to know
about Russian law, what would it be. Let's start with you,
Kathleen m h. I mean twenty nine years I have,
(36:32):
that's it's hard. Um. I would say my favorite memory
was after my daughter Grace was born in two thousand
and seven after she was born. That Thanksgiving, Rush invited George,
Grace and I to spend Thanksgiving with the Limbos in
Palm Beach. And it was spectacular because we got to
(36:58):
meet all of his wonderful family and spend time with them.
And he used to invite seventy five or eighty family
members and he put them up at the Breakers and
he would entertain them for the entire weekend. And he
invited us UH to attend, and he was so generous
(37:19):
to us, right, George, it was unbelievable. Like we had
had a dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving at the
golf club, the local golf club that he belonged to,
and he before dinner, he invited George and I uh
to to come up to the front of the room
and he was crying and carrying on, and there were
(37:39):
there were some other people. Matt Drudge was there, there
was some other you know friends was there, and and
Coulter and Rush stood up and he spoke about George
and I and our contributions to the show and the
people that we were, and it was unbelievable and unexpected
and amazing. I mean, can you imagine games you know
(38:01):
what that was like for us. And then the next
day he invited us over to his home to watch
a football game, a college football game, and George and
I we were supposed to be there at one o'clock.
We were scrambling around at the breakst time to get up.
We were late as always, and we're on our way
and I said, George, we're going to his house for
the first time, and we don't have a gift. We
(38:22):
got to bring a house warming gift or something to
say thank you. So George said, we'll stop at Green's Pharmacy.
So he ran into green Swarms. I said, by the
best thing you could buy to bring, you know, because
Rush like like the best. So George came out with
a beautiful five pound box of Whitman chocolates. It was
(38:42):
the sampler, you know, you get a little plate, and I,
I know, I know, we're late, and I'm like, we
really we're gonna so embarrassing. Yeah, and I'm looking out.
You got when you go to somebody's house, you have
to bring something, even if it's rush limball. So we
pull up at the gate and we were let in,
(39:05):
and we didn't realize that that at that time when
we were let into the gate and we parked, we
took a little longer in the car to get ourselves
together and to get out of the car, and we
rang the doorbell. The door opens and it's rushed and
he's like, welcome. It sure took you a lot of
time to get out of the car. And we were like, yeah, yes,
(39:27):
we bought you this box of candy. And he's like, wow, well,
thank you. And he proceeded to take George and I
out to the terrors where all of his entire family
and he said, everybody, everybody, can I have your attention?
All of you people comment Thanksgiving and you never bring
(39:48):
me anything, and came for the first time and they
bought nice box and candy and that was just that
was the great day. I think that was one of
the greatest days in my life. That's just funny. He
was so funny, and he was so funny, and he
was so and he loved the tease. Oh he would
(40:10):
tease me to I mean, and I loved it. I
loved it. I mean, I'm just James unbroken that he's
that he's gone, and he suffered so terribly because he
was just the greatest man just that my life is.
You know, I feel like such a big loss, you know,
and I'm sure the listeners feel the same way, you know.
(40:31):
I mean, he loved the audience. He would stand after
the television show every single night and greet every audience member.
What other you know, talk show host performer would greet
every audience member, Rush Limbaugh did, That's right. He would
sign autographs, he would Oh, James, I can't tell you.
(40:52):
He was just the most professional, wonderful person. Just I'm sorry,
and you and me and George, you talk about a guy,
I just you know, there was just nothing like him.
He was just, you know, so generous. Everybody that you've
(41:13):
talked to us said that. But he can't say it enough,
just how generous he was with his his time and
his just the way he his nature with you and
just I don't know, we we had such a unique
relationship with him because we, you know, being married and
having the same job, and Kathleen's job was to watch
(41:34):
all of the know when Rush was used to say
on the air, um, you know, I don't have to
watch these cable shows. I pay people to do it. Well,
we were those people, yeah, you know, but George I'm
sorry to interrupt, but even the thing people don't realize
about him was that Rush was a very shy person,
(41:55):
and he was a very private person, but he was
unbelievably generous, so much to the point where he would
be in his office doing show prep. He would open
the New York Post and he would see that maybe
something happened to a firefighter or a policeman, and he
would come out and he would say, Cookie, I want
you to find this family. I want you to find
(42:17):
the widow, and I want to know how much money
I can give them to help. I want to write
them a check so that every one of those children
their home is paid off and they all go through college.
So I want you to get that number and come
back to me with it, and you must tell the family.
They're never allowed to tell anybody that I did that
(42:37):
for that And he did that numerous times. He did
that so many times. You know, he just was amazing, right,
I mean, we're just blessed. I mean we wouldn't be together,
we wouldn't have our family if it wasn't for you know,
if we didn't come together with him, and he gave
us the opportunity to work together as we wouldn't know you.
(43:03):
We love you an inspiration to us. I mean, you're amazing.
You represent us. You know you fearlessly represented us on
those dark days in February. You know you're amazing what
you're just let me just say something. You know. Something
(43:23):
else Rush did for me too, was allowing all of
us to come together, and Kathleen let me um, let
me just in in today with us with another story. Um.
Through meeting you, Kathleen, and of course George, but through
meeting you, Kathleen, I got a chance to meet your
family too. You got a chance to meet your mom.
(43:46):
And your mom was a saint and I'm not saying that,
like what a beautiful, wonderful human being who was just
so gentle. Her spirit was just so so warm and loving.
And your mother gave me a hand painted I don't
(44:08):
even know what you call, and it goes over your doors.
It's flowers, It's right, It's a door, hand and hand
painted it. And she gave me, she gave me one
of her hand painted door. And every place that I
have been since then, one of the first things I
have ever done when I moved into a new place
was put that above my front door. Mama Gleason is
(44:32):
above my front door right now, because she and I
will never ever ever forget your mother either, for just
what is. And we can see where your love and
where you come from, and where you're from, where your
family comes from. And now you and George have this
wonderful family and we know where that's going. So thank
(44:56):
you so much. But you know, just so we I
don't end crying. Can just tell you one short little thing, um,
just one more thing. And I have to tell you
Rush's family and James you and your family too. I mean, god,
just beautiful people. But Russia's mother, Millie, Oh what a
fabulous lady. She was right, and she of course I
(45:19):
got to be friends with her right away on day
five of the television show. So we were always keeping
in touch as you did too. And one day she
called the office to speak to Rusty, which wanted, you know, hi,
this mill In Limbaugh. How are you, Kathleen. I want
to speak to Rusty and uh, and you know, we
got talking and talking and she said, how's your mother?
(45:39):
And I said, oh, you know, Millie, she's great. She's
about to go on a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi,
and she she said, she is, well, I'm gonna go
down and greet the boat. When is that? And I'm like, well,
I don't know. I'll call my mother, but you don't
have to do that. You don't have to greet her boat.
She's just gonna be on the boat going on. Well, no, oh,
(46:00):
that's what we do. That's what we do. We go
down and we waved to the people as they go
along the Mississippi. We greet the boats. Well, sure enough, James,
I told my mother, and my mother is like, Cathy,
that is so nice. I can't believe it. And I
told my mother to make sure when you get to
(46:20):
Cape Gerardo, you go to decide the boat and you wave.
And sure enough there was Milly. She was there with
all her blue haired friends, a whole bunch of them waving.
Joni waven and my mother's waving. And you know, James,
that was that generation. They were. They were just the best,
(46:41):
right they. I mean, if I said to George, George,
We're gonna go down to the rat and River and
go wave at a boat, Georgia said, okay, exactly so,
but I think you know that was million. Yeah, but
(47:01):
thank you James, thank you, thank you, thank you both
for me dumb memory. It really has been and I'm
sure I'm sure that the that our audience is going
to absolutely love it. So thank you both of you.
I love both of you so dearly. We love to change.
You're a love. Thank you so much for joining us
(47:31):
for this episode of Rush Limbaugh The Man Behind the
Golden E I B Microphone and are very special thanks
to my dear friends, my dear co workers Coco and Cookie,
George and Kathleen. On our next episode, you're going to
hear from the most famous political odd couple in American
political history, James Carvel and his wife, the lovely Mary Madlin.
(47:57):
That's coming up in our next episode, Old Russia. Limbaugh
The Man Behind the Golden E I B Microphone is
produced by Chris Kelly and Phil Toward the best producers
in America. Production assistant Mike Mamone and the executive producers
Craig Kitchen and Julie Talbot. Our program distributed worldwide by
(48:18):
Premier Networks, found on the I Heart Radio app or
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. This is James Golden,
This is both Snrving. This is James Golden. I'm honored
to be your host for this and every single episode
of Russia. Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden E I
B microphone, thank you for being with us.
If you missed any episodes of Russia Limbaugh The Man
behind the Golden E I B Microphone, you've missed more
great stories from some of Russia's closest friends, family, and colleagues.
All previous episodes are available now on I Heart Radio
or wherever you listen to your podcast. On this episode
(00:21):
of Russia Limbaugh The Man behind the Golden E I
B Microphone, we take you further behind the scenes of
the radio program. So on today's show, you're gonna hear
from two people that are connected with Rush almost for
the entire length of the radio show, but they were
also very involved in Russia Lamba the television show. Both
(00:44):
are very dear friends, both a very dear co workers
of mine. Today you're going to find out who Coco
and Cookie really are. Whether you listened every day you
are at the E I B Network and the Russia
Bot program heard on over six hundred great radio stations
where every now and then nation's leading radio talk show,
(01:05):
the most eagerly anticipated program in Americans are the stories
you've never heard from the people behind the scenes who
knew him best and loved him most. Brushwood Ball having
more fundily human being, it could be allowed to have
Rush Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden E I D microphone,
hosted by James Golden. Hey, James Golden here. You might
(01:26):
remember I told you a few weeks ago that my
Pillow had sent me their entire collection. Well, you know what,
it's amazing. They are so luxurious, and it's time that
you experienced some of that luxury too. My pillow makes
more than pillows. I love the pillow. I sleep on
it every night. But you know what else they have.
They have sheets that are simply incredible. They're smooth, they're soft,
(01:51):
they're comfortable. I look forward to getting to bed every
night under these sheets. Get yourself a set of these.
They're called Geeza sheets. They come with a sixty day
comfort guarantee. You get pillows, you get sheets. Oh did
I mention the slippers. They're incredible slippers. There is a
level of comfort from my Pillow products that you simply
(02:12):
have to experience. Loging to my pillow dot com, click
on the new radio listener specials. Use the promo code
icon that's I C O N. You'll find lots of
incredible offers there right now. That's my pillow dot Com
promo code icon. Well, here we are Rush Limbaugh, the
(02:39):
man behind the Golden e. I B Mike, I'm James
Golden and today it's the Cookie and Coco Show. So yes, Now,
over the years, all of you who have listened to
the Russia Lambus showed have heard him refer endlessly to
both Cookie and Coco. And we have the and this
(03:03):
isn't cocoa like hot Coco. This is cocoa like Ko
Ko Coco. Yeah, GURUO Coco's right? Yeah, Okay, I can
hear media matters right now trying to make something racist
out of that. Oh well, let's explain to everybody Cookie,
(03:25):
how you got the name Cookie? How did that happen? Okay, Well,
when I was working on the Rush TV show, there
was a story in the Washington Post about ABC News
reporter COKEI Roberts that she had to go to a
gala um immediately after her report that evening. So she
(03:46):
put on she had her evening gown under her raincoat,
and they put her in front of a green screen
with the Capital behind her, and she pretended to do
a stand up live from the Capital in front of
you know, the green screen. Well, the story got out
and So on the Rush TV show, we did a
skit where I was the E I B reporter, Cookie Gleason. Uh,
(04:11):
and I did a report for E I B News,
and the green screen behind me kept changing locations. It
went from the Capital to like the NBC News News
car crash too. It just kept they kept changing it.
So from that day on, I was always Cookie, and
(04:32):
you know, Rush always called me Cookie. So that's how
I got the name Cookie. All right, Now, what's your
real name? No, my real name is Kathleen Gleason Priyas.
And so there's gonna be a reveal here soon the second.
So now let's turn to Coco and Coco. How did
(04:56):
you come about the name Coco? And and and and
again that is not cocoa, like hot cocoa. That's like
gorilla cocoa. Okay, okay. Oh. I came to the Rush
TV show in and I was a production assistant and
I was the low man on the totem pole, as
they say, and uh, they were going to do a
(05:18):
skit about Coco the sign language speaking gorilla, and Rush
thought this was hilarious that they people thought a guerrilla
could speak sign language. So the bit was that Russia
was going to do the story on the gorilla and
I was gonna be in the little box in the corner,
signing for other gorillas who were watching. And so they
were looking for somebody to put on the gorilla suite.
(05:39):
It turned out to be me. That'll be a chapter
in my life story and never be afraid to put
on the guerrilla suit. So I put it on, and
I had no idea what was going to happen, And
so we just started the skit and Rush got one
look at me in that guerrilla suit in the corner
of the screen and he just cracked up. He could
not stop laughing. And we did the skit and people
(06:02):
loved it, and he just kept laughing. It was like
one of the few times that Rushed, you know, kind
of lost it, you know, because he always was the
king of cool, you know when he was performing, and
and we just went did this skit and he was
having the greatest time, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
And then from that point on, I was Coco. He
would see me, and he didn't know my name before that,
he didn't know who I was before that. I was
(06:23):
just another guy on the TV show. But after that,
every day I'd see him, Coco, how are you? And
that was it. We were we were friends from that
point on. He just we just clicked and we always
had that memory and I was always Coco. And your
real name is It's George Pryas and there's no Gleam
but yeah, sorry, wait, wait a minute, and let me
(06:47):
go backwards. And Kathleen, you said your real name is
what Karl clean PRIs? I mean Glee in there? But
you know, so there's a story here. So when did
that happen? Well you know how these things happened, Jane, No,
(07:08):
I don't. That's why I oh, my goodness is so personal. Yeah,
you know, we met on the TV show and you know,
became friends. In the beginning. She didn't like me, but
you know, I guess, I you know, was it the
gerrilla suit? It might have been. It might have been
that might have been the turning point. I don't know,
(07:29):
but we became friends and then at some point, you know,
we started, uh you know dating at the very end
when that TV show ended in ninety and then um,
we were together everything one Yeah, it was only fifty
six short months of dating. Yeah, yeah, we always we
(07:53):
hear a lot about that fifty six months and so
so you are you are the E. I B. S
married couple right now? Okay, before TV so the TV show.
Let me just go back Russia Num by the TV
show which is where I met both of you. Was
(08:14):
we were taping at Unitel Studios on Street and Russia's
work day was really amazing during that time as and
and correct me if I'm if I'm losing any of
the details here, Rush would get a normal time. You
you guys were already at the TV show location and
we were at the radio shop, those of us who
(08:36):
were working just on the radio. While working on the
radio show and would later come over to TV with him,
but he would do his show prep for the radio show,
and then there would be a telephone meeting. Is that
how it happened to figure out what was called meet up?
(08:57):
And how long did that meeting run? Usually? Um, well,
I would say about ten minutes because he knew wanted
to do. Yeah, it was all him. He was the
man with the ideas, he was the you know, it
was all him. I mean James, you know, the greatest entertainer,
the greatest performer, you know, the greatest radio showever, Rush
(09:19):
did it all. Yeah, And he would tell us and
which is not regular for producers were supposed to produce.
But with Rush, he you know, he would say I
want to do this this. Yeah, he really was. I mean,
you know, God bless Roger Als and Dick Menser. They
were they were wonderful, and you know, they gave a
(09:40):
lot of great ideas. And but Rush Brush was the man.
It was him, And there were no writers. Rush was
the writer. There were no writers. Rush did it all.
Some of the things that Rush wanted and that you
guys were able to implement and make happen have later
(10:01):
showed up on other TV shows long after Rush decided
he didn't want to do TV anymore. Some of the
concepts that would develop doing Russland while the TV show
went on, and you saw them in various places. I
saw something one day on The Daily Show, which I
rarely watched, and I'm like, wait a minute, first, did
that all that stuff used to do? The thing with
(10:23):
the picture with the changed the lips, remember that that changed?
Then that became like a standard on late nights we
take a picture of Bill Clinton and put somebody else's
mouth there. But it still looked like Bill Clinton talking,
but the mouth would move and say thanks, that wasn't open.
And then we used to put Rush in a box
(10:44):
to react to audio clips that we would play. He
would he would be looking up at those, and then
we would look up at the you know, Clinton or
whoever was saying something stupid, and he'd been making faces
and reacting. It was so funny and the studio audience
loved it. And then remember Robert Reich, whenever we did
(11:04):
a story about him, he had a box. We had
a picture of him and he could barely see over
the bottom of the pure and most of that stuff
James that would come up in the production meeting at
four fifteen. Roger would come into the production meeting and
he could get Rush go on a little bit, you know,
(11:26):
like Rush would say something to him about, you know,
he wanted to do a story and Roger will, it'll
be funny if we did this, you know, like Roger
was outside of the box thinker. I mean, he brought
the Fat Lady in to sing on the fifth day
of the television show because everybody said Russia's show will
never make it. So Roger had this grand scheme and
(11:48):
on the fifth day, we would call our anniversary show.
We made it five days, and we would have a tremendous,
huge anniversary party. And we brought a fat lady in
who was gonna sing or not saying if we made
was Roger's idea. We have gotten our own gorilla, and
we will have this gorilla sign language. There it is.
(12:19):
Could you get a eight, jill all just a second?
The gorillas signing and I'm not even saying anything. Okay, Now, this,
Ladies and Gentleman, this is an actual newspaper story, Ladies
and Gentleman, from the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
It's a story about a third grade class and a
(12:39):
third grade stop laughing over there, pleaser disjects the section
that failed a drug test. Over there was that's why
we haven't a little in the dark. Okay. Now, the
teacher of this third grade classes a and named Mike Pincover,
(13:02):
and it is we should take the picture out of
the cameras and there thanks. You know. The sad thing
is that the liberals are understanding this. You know that
liberals are saying it's limball guy makes sense for the
first time. And I've been watching okay on each episode
(13:32):
of Russia Lumba the Man behind the Golden EI B Microphone,
we follow Russia Lymball's biographical journey with the help of
some of his friends, family co workers. Today is a
real treat. We're gonna look at the very impactful, influential
Clinton years. When you hear Russia Lamball in history, in
(13:53):
history books, there's always going to be a link with
President Bill Clinton. Who to walk us through those years
than Mary Mattlin. The Life of Russia Limbaugh, Chapter eight,
narrated by Mary Madaline. You wouldn't note at the time,
but in the election, a battle for the ages is born,
(14:17):
and not between incumbent President George H. W. Bush and
its challenger, a young, smooth talking Democratic governor from Arkansas.
That election was over. Now at this point a political
chess match for the ages began between that very governor,
now President elect Clinton and the hero of this story,
(14:37):
talk radio icon Brush Limbaugh. It is it's fundamental to
remember that here are the Clinton's admitting their paranoia because
they didn't know how to deal with a non supportive media,
and all it was was just me on the radio
and some other local talk show guys in the wall
spreet journal at a Trump age, and they're acting like
it is the biggest threat to their existence ever. In
(14:58):
the process, Rush became the number one voice of Conservativism,
a mantle literally passed on by none other than President
Ronald Reagan himself in a treasured written letter. Russia's political savvy,
combined with an uncanny reality based ability to make the
complex understandable, helped the Party of Reagan get back on track.
(15:20):
In fact, with Russia at the helm, the GOP one
long shot landslide victories across the fooded plane, up and
down the ballot, plus the House majority for the first
time in over a half a century, now known as
a Republican revelutionation in it was the peak. It was huge.
I'll tell you what shocked me, and it really did.
(15:42):
Clinton was flying into St. Louis in on the Air
Force one. He's doing an interview before he arrives with
the morning crew at camel X, our affiliate St. Louisi,
starts complaining about me. You got Russia, Lindball coming up here.
When you guys finished, you get come up at news.
You a three hour three hours everyone and nobody's gonna
say anything other way. No trick detective. Here's the President
(16:04):
of the United States, for the biggest bully pulpit in
the world, complaining about some guy in the radio for
three hours. It's no coincidence that the Rush Limbough program,
as you note, actually began during the Reagan administration, and
though the Clinton years were filled to the brim with
easy fodder for Rush to feast on, he spent the
years after battling a misperception that the show's success was
(16:27):
primarily built on the daily melodrama dished up by the Clintons.
In reality, the show's popularity exploded long before the presidency
was even a twinkle in Bill Clinton's eye. I can't
tell the number of people who believe that this program
arose to its current heights because Bill Clinton won the election.
This program got off the ground and became the most
(16:48):
listened to radio talk show in three years before Bill
Clinton ever fought about running for rof. In the end,
Rush reminded his listeners that his program never depended on
the party that was in power. I've often had a phrase,
my success doesn't depend on who wins elections. I can't
control who's gonna win elections anyway, Regardless who's in the
White House or not. By the way, just because your
(17:10):
team wins doesn't mean they don't screw up the whole objective.
Hears to have a good show, Rush Limbaugh hosted far
more than a good show. In fact, for decades after
the Clinton administration had come and gone, he probably carried
the conservative tords forward, both on the air and off
the air. Through the Stand Up for Betsy Ross campaign,
(17:34):
you changed the lives of dozens of hero families in need.
The campaign benefited the Tunnels Are Towers Foundation. Tunnel to
Towers bills mortgage free smart homes for our nation's most
catastrophically injured veterans and first responders to give them their independence.
For gold Star families and fallen first respond to families
(17:58):
with young children, Tunnel to Towers pays off mortgages in
full for these families and provides them with the comfort
of a home when their world has literally been turned
upside down. And thanks to this campaign to Stand Up
for Betsy Ross campaign, you have seemed to it that
(18:21):
we have been able to send a charitable donation in
total of five million dollars to Tunnel the Towers. Your kindness,
generosity and patriotism brought hope when it was needed. Most
but more of America's heroes in their families need your support.
Donate eleven dollars a month to Tunnel to Towers at
(18:43):
T two T dot org. That's the litter t the
number two T dot org. Let's tell people what you
were responsible for on the russlan Ball radio show and
you came over after TV. That happen? Actually, um what?
(19:04):
Towards the end of the television show, Rush asked me
to bring in my resume and he said to me, listen,
I am looking for an executive assistant like William F.
Buckley has. Her name is Frances Bronson, and she's fabulous.
She reads his mind, she you know, knows his every move.
(19:25):
That's the kind of person I'm looking for. Would you
be interested in work in doing that on the radio show?
And I was like, okay, um, yeah, I would love
to do that. You know, I was grateful to be
able to continue to work with Rush. Uh and now
on the radio show, I got to learn radio. It
was great, you know, great opportunity for me. So I
(19:48):
joined the radio show and I was in my little
cubicle doing my Francis Bronson work, which was like making
calendars and typing things up and getting coffee. And after
about five days I made a list of some other
things that I wanted in my cubicle. It was TV,
(20:10):
cable boxes, VCRs. And I went into him and I said,
do you is there any way you would consider getting
me this list of items for my cubicle. And he
looked at it and he said, well, my business partner,
John Accident is coming over this afternoon. I'll discuss it
with him, uh and and we'll get back to you.
And I was so grateful. I was like, okay, great,
(20:32):
thanks because James, as a as a person working in TV,
I was not used to have a job without TV
like I was always you know, listening watching hear in TV.
So sure enough, after their meeting that day, Russian John
came out of his office and Rush had my list
in his hand and he said, cookie, good news. We've
(20:56):
improved approved the entire list. And I was like yes.
So I got my good friend Frank Jeliah to come down,
use of course, the great engineer bath Hacker to come
down and hook me up. And boy did he hook
me up? Are you putting there as many VCRs as
we could and as many cable boxes, and I got
(21:18):
to record my heart out. So that's how I started
pulling audio for the show. I would try to find
things that were outrageous and that I knew would make
Rush crazy, you know, and that meant recording them on
a VCR tape giving the tape to either. At the time,
it was Marie Wallisburg, who was just a wonderful person
(21:38):
who's at CNN now that she would you know, edit
the tape for me, and we would do a little
cue sheet for Rush, telling him who what went him wear,
and you know, transcribe the sound, and we'd give it
to him. And it was like a little buffet, you know.
It was like he would pick maybe cut one or
cut five or nothing, or all of them, and he
would bounce off of them, you know. And that's how
(22:01):
it started. And then, uh, as as we got going,
there was the famous Gravitas montage, and I'm sure you
remember that. That's when Vice President Dick Cheney appointed himself
to be the running mate for Bush, and the media
all said he brings gravitas, right, George, he brings gravatas.
(22:23):
And so I heard like a few of them, like
four of them, so I strung them together, maybe Sam
Donaldson and you know, Wolf Blitzer and four people saying it,
and then I kept hearing it and hearing it so
that I just continued to make this huge montage. Then
they brought Joe in to do some of the you know,
the editing for me, to do all the editing for
(22:45):
me actually, So yeah, that's where the gravitas, the famous gravitas.
I gotta brag about her a little bit. I mean, now,
you know, when people do montages, there's all kinds of
services out there that you can search keywords and stuff
on the internet. There was no none of the She
used to watch these shows and record them on a
VCR tape and then right down the time, like we'd
(23:05):
be you know, you know, at night at home or whatever,
and and you know, we'd be watching you know, Larry
King Live, and somebody would say something and she'd write
it down and then she, you know, Joe would have
to go rewind that tape eight hours and find that
one word. There's no transcripts or anything. You know. That's
how that all started. And this whole industry now does this,
and there's whole businesses that are devoted to providing these things.
(23:29):
You know, she started it at her desk there with
the VCR. So that's right, Kathleen. I mean those momtages
not only changed the trajectory of the show, they changed
the trajectory of what people on radio started doing. You
had another one. What my favorite? And I love the Gravitas,
but my favorite is the Taurus sell Kathleen, and so
(23:54):
loved it. He loved it. You can see it when
he whenever he played it, it would just light him up.
He'd smile. It was explained the Tauris Selly bit to people,
Oh my gosh, that is so funny. Well, John Booty
helped me with that, I have to say, and we
talked about what I wanted to do, and that was
taking the prosecutor right, George listing the charges against Torres
(24:17):
Sally Sally then Senator Torres Sally from New Jersey correct,
and he had given a very passionate speech on the
Senate floor denying it all. And you know when I
was crying, Yeah, I go crying about his childhood. And
we interspersed the prosecutor listening all the things that he did,
(24:40):
you know, watch of cash gold watches. And then you
have Touris Sally saying something like when I was a boy.
This goes back a eighteen two thousand one. This is
a This is a montage of Senator Toura Sally, the
guy you had just heard a press conference where he
denied corruption charges. What we did after every denial, we
(25:04):
we inserted cut ins of a lawyer for the guy
who had corrupted trus Eli brand Simon, who was listing
this is not ts Eli's lawyer, it's the guy who
tried to buy trs Eli. It's his lawyer documenting what
trus Eli did while torris Elli is denying it, all
(25:27):
to challenge my integrity is beneath contempt. I do not
deserve this treatment. She watches a Rolex watch, diamond earrings
for his girlfriend. I have never television set ever, Oriental rug,
grandfather claw, other antique items, done anything suits at any time.
Parks to me fourteen deliveries of the envelopes of cash
(25:50):
to tors Eli's house to betray the trust of the
people of the state of New Jersey. Now let's move
over to the internet side. George, you were over at
Fox and then you were with us. How did that happen.
Kathleen had said to me that, you know, they're looking
for somebody. You know, it was there was two thousand
(26:10):
and they were looking for somebody to start a website
for Rush because you know Rush, he wanted to be
on the cutting edge of everything and websites were starting
to get popular then, and so she said, you know,
you should go for this job. And I thought about it,
and I I said sure. So um, I had worked,
as I said, with Matt Rudge, so I knew a
little bit. He taught me a lot about what he
(26:31):
did and and you know, the news business, and and
so I went and I interviewed with John Axton and
they decided to give me the job. So basically, at
that time Rush's website there was a website. It was
that picture of Rush where he's standing pointing to the
golden EIB microphone, and that was it. It was just
that picture. That was a still thing. I started in
(26:52):
June of two thousand and I. Um, my first day,
I sat with John Acton and Brian Click click and
they had a you know, plans for how we're going
to build a website. And I was gonna be in
charge of the content, and so, you know, they really
had no idea what I was gonna do. They said, well,
why don't you go listen to the show. You know,
they had a little room for me. Um. I didn't
(27:13):
even have an office then, we barely had the internet
in the office that we were in. UM. And I,
you know, I sat and I listened to Rush for
three hours with I made a word file and I
still have it someplace, and I just kind of my
concept was that, you know, we're gonna just cut up
Rushes radio show in in like the form of a
website with articles, and so I would just listen and
to what he was doing, his topics, and I wrote
(27:34):
the headlines down on this word file. And then my
idea was, also you incorporate his nicknames and the things
that he said. So I'd say the truth detector, Clinton
says this, or or you know, uh, doctor of Democracy,
you know, blah blah blah. And I made this little sheet,
like a little you know, eight or nine story sheet.
And after the show, I went back into John and
(27:55):
Brian and I showed them what I did and they
were like, wow, this this looks pretty good. Let's send
it to Rush. And so we sent it to Rush
and he says, I like it, go for it. And
that's how it stard And so then we built a
website from the bottom up, and um, you know, I
started hiring some staff. I hired Dean and Mojoe, and
that was at the beginning there. Um, and we just started,
(28:17):
um translating Russia's UH radio show to the to the Internet.
Every day. Yeah, we gotta transcribe, you gotta transcribe. Well,
in the beginning, we didn't have a transcriber. We were
we were recording the show on cassette tapes and like
playing it back and trying to write down what Rush said,
and then we would do like little intros into the
into audio. And then one day Russia is like, let's
(28:38):
just transcribe the show. I want full transcripts on the website.
And the suits at Premier at that time they weren't,
you know, too thrilled with that, because you know, they
thought that that might add fodder to the people that
were you know, media matters was just starting then, and
you know, they were a little leary about translating everything
Rush said for people to pick it over and find
(28:58):
things to object to. But Rush had the opposite view,
which was that if we printed transcripts of everything he said,
he would be proven, you know, he'd be able to
prove that he was taken out of context. And he
was really visionary in that because, you know, we started
printing transcripts of the show and we have a great
transcriber who did it for us for twenty years, Mark
kissling Berry. He's like the Babe Ruth of caption erst Yeah,
(29:25):
he's the fastest. He's in the Guinness Book, were all
the records. He's great um. And so we had the
greatest radio show host of all time with the greatest
caption er, and we would just translate it to the web.
Every day we print those transcripts, we cut them up
into different articles with headlines, and then we later we
added the Ditto cam and we added the Rush twenty
four seven subscriber service, and we had one of the
(29:45):
first podcasts, and we just built that site into something
that Rush was really really proud of and we were
really proud of, and it was it was a very
unique experience to be able to have one job was
to listen to one man talk for three hours every
day thing about Russia's you know, James and Kathleen knows
is there. There were no meetings, there was no direction given.
(30:06):
He just assumed that I was going to get it right.
Maybe every once in a while he'd say, hey, uh,
I like this headline better, or do this different way,
but hardly ever, it was just, you know, he let
us go, He let us add graphics to what he said,
and he trusted us that we weren't going to do
something that was out of step with what his he
was doing, and it just really became like this kind
(30:27):
of like symbiotic thing where we'd listened to him and
we'd know what to do and and you know, we
did it for for twenty years. The greatest just the
greatest boss. The kind of job does your boss just
let you just you know, let you do what you
want to do and not you know, just you have
(30:48):
an idea, you come up with an idea, you're able
to illustrate it, and when he does it, he does
your idea hundred fifty times better then you did it.
And it's it's amazing. It's a great feeling. It's a
great feeling. Yeah, it just he was the greatest that
now this is where I want to, uh to ask
(31:10):
you guys, we've talked about what you did. And by
the way, with the website, George, you know, for years
rush always told us he's not going to do a
website until he can understand himself how to monetize it properly,
because this is a business. And and that's what he did,
and that's what you brought to the table, a way
to do it in such a way that it became
(31:33):
part of the enterprise and it wasn't a loss leader away.
It was actually added to the bottom line. And that
was one of the things everybody in the radio industry
then the TV industry, websites were thought of to be
loss leaders and Rushi did not want that. And that
was one of the mandates when I when I came
in there was that, you know, we were going to
(31:54):
make this a business that worked. And the reason it
did was because rush knew that the content was what
was gonna make it, and he was gonna make it
and that that's what you know. People thought that they
wouldn't pay for the rest twenties four seven subscription service
when you can listen to free on the radio, um,
but rush knew that people would because we were providing
(32:16):
them something that was unique. You could only get Rush
in one place and uh, and it worked. And he
was visionary as as he always was. He like you said,
he didn't want to just do something that everybody else
was doing. He wanted to try to blaze a new
new path and we did. And then after that a
lot of radio show hosts would try to do you know,
a lot of people did what we did, but rushed
(32:38):
it at first. I see, this is the thing that
that that blows my mind. And and with you too.
Everybody that works for Rush could have done something different
and been highly successful at it because they have so
much talent. But when they came on with Rush, this
is where they called home and it became a family,
and it became we want to all do the best
(33:01):
for us. She's that you're feeling on it too. Oh yes,
And I you know, I I sort of ran the
I don't know why, but I just sort of tried
to run the website the way Rush ran things, which
was we were going to just improv it the way
he did. And we weren't going to have tons of meetings.
I mean we had some, but we didn't have many,
(33:21):
and we just knew the mandate was that Rush comes
first and that we're gonna follow Russia's lead because Rush
was gonna know what was gonna work. And that's what
we did. And so it was such a great atmosphere
and it was such a great little team. Ali came on,
(33:43):
you know, I think a year or two after the
rest of us, and because we were doing we needed
more people. It was it was too hard. Rush said
too many things in three hours. We had this close
knit team, and like everybody else in the organization, there
was very little turnover. We were all there for twenty years.
We were there because Rush kept us there. The Rush
is so compelling. He was so and some of these
(34:03):
people weren't even conservatives or or I don't even know.
We never even talked about that. It was just he's
just you know, once you start listening to him every day.
For everyone, who would want to do anything else. I mean,
it was a great job. I mean, what who would
It's no, I don't I don't know if any other
job like it, and you know, I don't think I'll
ever see another job like it. It. It's just because
nobody else is compelling enough to say so much in
(34:26):
three hours that you know, really you could. You could
write a whole newspaper based on what he he said.
And that was sort of one of the things we
we thought about the website. You know, we're not any
different than the New York Times or the Wall Street
Journal of the Washington Post were rush, you know, and
we're doing it with four people and they're doing it
with five thousand people. But you know, what he's saying is,
(34:47):
you know, to us and to the audience, is is
just as important, if not more important, because he's the
only one saying it. You can go to it, like
he used to say, you can go to the New
York Times, Washington Post, ABCC. He has, but there was
only one Rush slumba dot com and that's where you
where you you got those his opinion on things, which
was groundbreaking. Turns out I knew this was happy. You
(35:07):
can just sensed these things. November was our biggest traffic
month of the year at Russia Limbaugh dot com. We
had a record number of millions and millions and millions
of page views. So that is continuing to just go gangbusters.
And I'm really proud of it because we're proud of
(35:27):
the website. It is a plethora of data and information.
It's a it's a it's its own encyclopedia set when
you get down to it. Just the daily content of
every brother, the transcript, the voluminous content in this program,
documented and preserved each and every day, and researchable by
everybody who goes to the website. If you heard me
(35:48):
say something on a previous program, you can't quite remember
what it is, you can keyword search it and find
the exact thing that I said. The literal voluminous content
at russi lumbaw dot com. I'll stack it up against
any media website in terms of actual substantive content, not
just what the news was, but what I thought of it,
(36:10):
not a daily basis. Let me just ask you this
and we'll we'll we'll end on this note. I want
both of you to think about for the second some
of your favorite memories of Russia. And if there's one
thing in particular that you want the world to know
about Russian law, what would it be. Let's start with you,
Kathleen m h. I mean twenty nine years I have,
(36:32):
that's it's hard. Um. I would say my favorite memory
was after my daughter Grace was born in two thousand
and seven after she was born. That Thanksgiving, Rush invited George,
Grace and I to spend Thanksgiving with the Limbos in
Palm Beach. And it was spectacular because we got to
(36:58):
meet all of his wonderful family and spend time with them.
And he used to invite seventy five or eighty family
members and he put them up at the Breakers and
he would entertain them for the entire weekend. And he
invited us UH to attend, and he was so generous
(37:19):
to us, right, George, it was unbelievable. Like we had
had a dinner on the Friday after Thanksgiving at the
golf club, the local golf club that he belonged to,
and he before dinner, he invited George and I uh
to to come up to the front of the room
and he was crying and carrying on, and there were
(37:39):
there were some other people. Matt Drudge was there, there
was some other you know friends was there, and and
Coulter and Rush stood up and he spoke about George
and I and our contributions to the show and the
people that we were, and it was unbelievable and unexpected
and amazing. I mean, can you imagine games you know
(38:01):
what that was like for us. And then the next
day he invited us over to his home to watch
a football game, a college football game, and George and
I we were supposed to be there at one o'clock.
We were scrambling around at the breakst time to get up.
We were late as always, and we're on our way
and I said, George, we're going to his house for
the first time, and we don't have a gift. We
(38:22):
got to bring a house warming gift or something to
say thank you. So George said, we'll stop at Green's Pharmacy.
So he ran into green Swarms. I said, by the
best thing you could buy to bring, you know, because
Rush like like the best. So George came out with
a beautiful five pound box of Whitman chocolates. It was
(38:42):
the sampler, you know, you get a little plate, and I,
I know, I know, we're late, and I'm like, we
really we're gonna so embarrassing. Yeah, and I'm looking out.
You got when you go to somebody's house, you have
to bring something, even if it's rush limball. So we
pull up at the gate and we were let in,
(39:05):
and we didn't realize that that at that time when
we were let into the gate and we parked, we
took a little longer in the car to get ourselves
together and to get out of the car, and we
rang the doorbell. The door opens and it's rushed and
he's like, welcome. It sure took you a lot of
time to get out of the car. And we were like, yeah, yes,
(39:27):
we bought you this box of candy. And he's like, wow, well,
thank you. And he proceeded to take George and I
out to the terrors where all of his entire family
and he said, everybody, everybody, can I have your attention?
All of you people comment Thanksgiving and you never bring
(39:48):
me anything, and came for the first time and they
bought nice box and candy and that was just that
was the great day. I think that was one of
the greatest days in my life. That's just funny. He
was so funny, and he was so funny, and he
was so and he loved the tease. Oh he would
(40:10):
tease me to I mean, and I loved it. I
loved it. I mean, I'm just James unbroken that he's
that he's gone, and he suffered so terribly because he
was just the greatest man just that my life is.
You know, I feel like such a big loss, you know,
and I'm sure the listeners feel the same way, you know.
(40:31):
I mean, he loved the audience. He would stand after
the television show every single night and greet every audience member.
What other you know, talk show host performer would greet
every audience member, Rush Limbaugh did, That's right. He would
sign autographs, he would Oh, James, I can't tell you.
(40:52):
He was just the most professional, wonderful person. Just I'm sorry,
and you and me and George, you talk about a guy,
I just you know, there was just nothing like him.
He was just, you know, so generous. Everybody that you've
(41:13):
talked to us said that. But he can't say it enough,
just how generous he was with his his time and
his just the way he his nature with you and
just I don't know, we we had such a unique
relationship with him because we, you know, being married and
having the same job, and Kathleen's job was to watch
(41:34):
all of the know when Rush was used to say
on the air, um, you know, I don't have to
watch these cable shows. I pay people to do it. Well,
we were those people, yeah, you know, but George I'm
sorry to interrupt, but even the thing people don't realize
about him was that Rush was a very shy person,
(41:55):
and he was a very private person, but he was
unbelievably generous, so much to the point where he would
be in his office doing show prep. He would open
the New York Post and he would see that maybe
something happened to a firefighter or a policeman, and he
would come out and he would say, Cookie, I want
you to find this family. I want you to find
(42:17):
the widow, and I want to know how much money
I can give them to help. I want to write
them a check so that every one of those children
their home is paid off and they all go through college.
So I want you to get that number and come
back to me with it, and you must tell the family.
They're never allowed to tell anybody that I did that
(42:37):
for that And he did that numerous times. He did
that so many times. You know, he just was amazing, right,
I mean, we're just blessed. I mean we wouldn't be together,
we wouldn't have our family if it wasn't for you know,
if we didn't come together with him, and he gave
us the opportunity to work together as we wouldn't know you.
(43:03):
We love you an inspiration to us. I mean, you're amazing.
You represent us. You know you fearlessly represented us on
those dark days in February. You know you're amazing what
you're just let me just say something. You know. Something
(43:23):
else Rush did for me too, was allowing all of
us to come together, and Kathleen let me um, let
me just in in today with us with another story. Um.
Through meeting you, Kathleen, and of course George, but through
meeting you, Kathleen, I got a chance to meet your
family too. You got a chance to meet your mom.
(43:46):
And your mom was a saint and I'm not saying that,
like what a beautiful, wonderful human being who was just
so gentle. Her spirit was just so so warm and loving.
And your mother gave me a hand painted I don't
(44:08):
even know what you call, and it goes over your doors.
It's flowers, It's right, It's a door, hand and hand
painted it. And she gave me, she gave me one
of her hand painted door. And every place that I
have been since then, one of the first things I
have ever done when I moved into a new place
was put that above my front door. Mama Gleason is
(44:32):
above my front door right now, because she and I
will never ever ever forget your mother either, for just
what is. And we can see where your love and
where you come from, and where you're from, where your
family comes from. And now you and George have this
wonderful family and we know where that's going. So thank
(44:56):
you so much. But you know, just so we I
don't end crying. Can just tell you one short little thing, um,
just one more thing. And I have to tell you
Rush's family and James you and your family too. I mean, god,
just beautiful people. But Russia's mother, Millie, Oh what a
fabulous lady. She was right, and she of course I
(45:19):
got to be friends with her right away on day
five of the television show. So we were always keeping
in touch as you did too. And one day she
called the office to speak to Rusty, which wanted, you know, hi,
this mill In Limbaugh. How are you, Kathleen. I want
to speak to Rusty and uh, and you know, we
got talking and talking and she said, how's your mother?
(45:39):
And I said, oh, you know, Millie, she's great. She's
about to go on a riverboat cruise on the Mississippi,
and she she said, she is, well, I'm gonna go
down and greet the boat. When is that? And I'm like, well,
I don't know. I'll call my mother, but you don't
have to do that. You don't have to greet her boat.
She's just gonna be on the boat going on. Well, no, oh,
(46:00):
that's what we do. That's what we do. We go
down and we waved to the people as they go
along the Mississippi. We greet the boats. Well, sure enough, James,
I told my mother, and my mother is like, Cathy,
that is so nice. I can't believe it. And I
told my mother to make sure when you get to
(46:20):
Cape Gerardo, you go to decide the boat and you wave.
And sure enough there was Milly. She was there with
all her blue haired friends, a whole bunch of them waving.
Joni waven and my mother's waving. And you know, James,
that was that generation. They were. They were just the best,
(46:41):
right they. I mean, if I said to George, George,
We're gonna go down to the rat and River and
go wave at a boat, Georgia said, okay, exactly so,
but I think you know that was million. Yeah, but
(47:01):
thank you James, thank you, thank you, thank you both
for me dumb memory. It really has been and I'm
sure I'm sure that the that our audience is going
to absolutely love it. So thank you both of you.
I love both of you so dearly. We love to change.
You're a love. Thank you so much for joining us
(47:31):
for this episode of Rush Limbaugh The Man Behind the
Golden E I B Microphone and are very special thanks
to my dear friends, my dear co workers Coco and Cookie,
George and Kathleen. On our next episode, you're going to
hear from the most famous political odd couple in American
political history, James Carvel and his wife, the lovely Mary Madlin.
(47:57):
That's coming up in our next episode, Old Russia. Limbaugh
The Man Behind the Golden E I B Microphone is
produced by Chris Kelly and Phil Toward the best producers
in America. Production assistant Mike Mamone and the executive producers
Craig Kitchen and Julie Talbot. Our program distributed worldwide by
(48:18):
Premier Networks, found on the I Heart Radio app or
wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. This is James Golden,
This is both Snrving. This is James Golden. I'm honored
to be your host for this and every single episode
of Russia. Limbaugh, the man behind the Golden E I
B microphone, thank you for being with us.
Popular Podcasts
1. The Podium
The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast. Join us for insider coverage during the intense competition at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In the run-up to the Opening Ceremony, we’ll bring you deep into the stories and events that have you know and those you'll be hard-pressed to forget.
2. In The Village
In The Village will take you into the most exclusive areas of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games to explore the daily life of athletes, complete with all the funny, mundane and unexpected things you learn off the field of play. Join Elizabeth Beisel as she sits down with Olympians each day in Paris.
3. iHeartOlympics: The Latest
Listen to the latest news from the 2024 Olympics.