Watch: Trump Posts Loving Tribute to Rush Limbaugh on Fifth Anniversary of His Death, Says 'There Will Never Be Another Rush Limbaugh'
Tuesday marked five years since the man who had talent on loan from God went back to meet his Maker.
On Feb. 17, 2021, the voice of Rush Limbaugh was silenced forever upon this earth at the age of 70. Limbaugh, who had been battling cancer for a year, had told his listeners months before that the disease was likely terminal. Two weeks earlier, he’d made his final broadcast.
Many voices have, of course, tried to fill the vacuum left by Limbaugh. It would take many voices to fill the void left by the very singular El Rushbo, a man whose radio program was like a cannon shot across the bow of American popular political culture when it went national in 1988. Reagan handed the torch of conservatism to him, and boy, did he run with it.
He was still firing cannon shots until the very end — and five years later, much of what he said about the issues in February 2021 (COVID, cultural elites, Joe Biden, Donald Trump) would be vindicated a half-decade after his passing.
And, in honor of Rush, the man whose three presidential candidacies arguably couldn’t have been popular without his anti-elite populism — Trump himself — paid tribute to Limbaugh on Truth Social.
“Well, this is the fifth anniversary of the loss of a really great man, a great conservative, somebody that loved our country, loved his family, loved a lot of things. But he was a friend of mine: Rush Limbaugh,” Trump said in the video.
“I’d never met Rush when I announced that I was running. I’ll never forget, 2015, and I got a call, we’re all excited that Rush Limbaugh just endorsed you. I’d never met him,” he continued. “He liked my opening speech. He liked when I got up in June and I said, ‘You know, we got bad borders, we got bad crime, we got bad everything.’ And he liked it.
“I came down the escalator with … our first lady. And he thought it was great. And he endorsed me. And then I got to know him. And I realized what a great guy he was. But it’s five years that we miss Rush.
“As Sean Hannity would often say, there will never be another Rush Limbaugh. So to his family, his great wife and family, I just want to say, we miss you all. We miss him. And there’ll never be anybody like him,” he concluded.
🚨 BREAKING: President Trump just posted a BEAUTIFUL tribute to Rush Limbaugh on the 5-year anniversary of his passing
“Well, this is the fifth anniversary of the loss of a really great man, a great conservative, somebody that loved our country, loved his family, loved a lot of… pic.twitter.com/medxSb2Oab
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 18, 2026
Now, it’s worth noting that, as with many of Trump’s statements, he smooths over some wrinkles in the historical narrative. Rush had originally endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the 2016 presidential primaries, although he stood up for Trump through many of his controversies and criticized Cruz’s lukewarm concession at the Republican National Convention that year, comparing it to Ted Kennedy’s infamous DNC speech in 1980 that many felt cost President Jimmy Carter a shot at a second term.
And while he may have endorsed Cruz, he also felt that Trump had ruffled the right feathers, even when he courted controversy. From a July 2015 New York Times report on the comments he’d made about Sen. John McCain, for which he’d refused to apologize:
Mr. Trump is not following the typical protocol for public figures who are scorned by the establishment, Mr. Limbaugh said.
Advertisement - story continues below“The American people haven’t seen something like this in a long time,” the radio host said, speaking to the unique nature of the emerging 2016 Republican presidential contest, in which harnessing anger and money may be crucial ingredients for success. “They have not seen an embattled public figure stand up for himself, double down and tell everybody to go to hell.”
“Trump can survive this, Trump is surviving this,” Mr. Limbaugh said at the start of his three-hour program on Monday, two days after Mr. Trump took issue with the description of Mr. McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war, as a “war hero.” “This is a great, great teachable moment here, this whole thing with Trump and McCain.”
And fast-forward to after the 2020 election, where Rush aptly predicted what would happen a few years down the road:
They can’t separate you from Trump
They can’t separate you from the ideas
They can’t separate you from MAGAThank you Rush pic.twitter.com/NG87xpmNMx
— Lauren3ve (@Lauren3veMemes) February 17, 2026
Amen. And, similarly, they can never separate us from the ideas that Rush put forward, even with half his brain tied behind his back just to make it fair.
Rest in peace, Mr. Limbaugh. And know that there will never be another Reagan, Rush, or Trump. But we will continue to raise up new champions, because while the great ones pass over time, we never will. We will always be here, fighting just as they did. We will never give up this wonderful country.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
