Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said Monday that journalist Ted Koppel tried to interview him in the CBS "Sunday Morning" piece on modern media, in which the former "Nightline" host told Sean Hannity he is "bad for America."
But Limbaugh told his audience he knew it would be a hit-piece on conservative media and turned the offer down — even though his own staff implored him to do the interview.
When he heard about the exchange between Hannity and Koppel after the piece aired on Sunday, he said he knew his instincts were right.
Limbaugh said his staff was told the piece would be about "the divide in the media today" and that Koppel sees Limbaugh as "a key element."
But what happened with the Hannity interview was "easily predictable," he said, noting Hannity's response on Twitter that CBS used only two minutes of the 45-minute sit-down. Hannity has called on CBS to release the full interview.
"The premise of the program was not the divide," Limbaugh said, adding that mainstream media producers typically mislead conservatives about what a piece will be about in an effort to get them to do their shows.
"What it was was how conservative media is bad for America," Limbaugh said. "Conservative media has destroyed the news. Conservative media is the reason that people don't trust the media anymore."
Koppel told Hannity the reason he is "bad for America" is that his audience places ideology over facts.
"Now, what does that mean?" Limbaugh asked. "It means that you listen here not because what I'm gonna tell you is the truth or not. You listen here because you're conservative and I'm conservative, and that's odd. To them, conservatism is odd. To them, liberalism is not an ideology . . . Liberalism is just the way things are. Liberalism is au natural. Liberalism just is. It's like the air just is. Conservatism is the odd, kooky, weird, offset thing."
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