We are about to be joined, I understand, by the president, the former president of the United States.

Wednesday afternoon, former president Donald Trump called in to Fox News to give his first interview since leaving office.

Not about his impeachment trial, not about the arrests of his supporters

who stormed the Capitol on January 6th.

President Trump, are you with me?

I am.

This interview was about Rush Limbaugh,

the conservative media icon,

who died this week at age 70.

He was very brave. I mean, he, in theory, could have been gone four months ago, really.

He just, he was fighting till the very end. He was a fighter.

It was this moment that showed you just how integral, not just Fox News, which has often been the center

of the conversation about Trump and right-wing media, but how central right-wing radio has

been to Donald Trump's career.

Nicole Hemmer chronicles the way pundits like Limbaugh have inserted themselves into American

politics in her book, Messengers of the Right.

She says, in a universe of conservative kingmakers, Limbaugh reigned supreme.

Because, sure, curing favor with him would help you reach constituents.

But in another way, Rush Limbaugh looms even larger as the person who pioneered this blend of

entertainment and politics and bigotry and insults as a conservative rhetoric that audiences have been

consuming since 1988. And so by the time Donald Trump comes along, even though he might

have seemed very bizarre and over the line and incomprehensible to many people who don't

...