Rush Limbaugh is disputing that meant that his listeners should stop watching Fox News when he suggested to a caller to “stop watching these people” because they will “make you question your sanity.”
In the segment in question, "Tony from Tampa" had called in and complained about a panel with Fox News contributor Julie Roginsky, who he described as a “Democrat-Obama-Alinskyite." Rush asked him to clarify: ” Oh, somewhere on Fox?” Tony confirmed, and Limbaugh replied that Tony should “stop watching these people.”
"I mean, they’re designed to get you ticked off," Limbaugh said in the segment. "They’re designed to make sure you question your sanity. You’re gonna watch these people and say, 'How in the world can we have such idiotic people?' and you’re gonna think maybe they’re not crazy and you are."
In a follow-up segment, Limbaugh denied that he meant all of his listeners should stop watching the network. “[Tony from Tampa] was talking very rapidly which made it difficult for me to understand every word he was saying and he started spouting names of people, and I didn’t recognize many of the names," Limbaugh said. "It turns out that he was watching the Fox Business Channel and he was ticked off at listening to all the liberals there. And I said, ‘Well Tony, stop listening to them. Stop watching those people.’"
“I did not tell anybody to stop watching Fox. I said stop listening to these people that make you so mad. What else am I going to say? I don’t watch these people that make me mad anymore, I gave that up years ago,” he said.
Here's the audio, via MediaMatters:
Here's the transcript from the initial show, with "Tony from Tampa":
RUSH: You know, you need to stop watching these people, because they’re not gonna change, Tony, and I really care about you. You’ve gotta stop watching these people. All these names you mentioned, they’re not gonna change, and you’re exactly right: If all of this were happening with a Republican president — which it wouldn’t. It couldn’t, by definition. We don’t believe in these policies. But if it were, you’re right: They’d be raising holy hell about it and they’d be calling the president cold-hearted, mean, extremist, exclusionary, rich.
They’d be all over a Republican president. But that isn’t gonna change. So your blood pressure is gonna suffer if you keep watching these people. I mean, they’re designed to get you ticked off. They’re designed to make sure you question your sanity. You’re gonna watch these people and say, “How in the world can we have such idiotic people?” and you’re gonna think maybe they’re not crazy and you are.
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