Rush Limbaugh expressed "gratitude" and thanked listeners Wednesday during his final 2020 broadcast as he battles terminal lung cancer.
Limbaugh, 69, was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer in January. President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom at February’s State of the Union address.
"My point in all of this today is gratitude," Limbaugh said on Wednesday's show, per Fox News. "My point in all of this is to say thanks and tell everybody involved how much I love you from the bottom of a sizable and growing and still-beating heart."
Widely considered one of the most influential media members of the past 50 years, Limbaugh singled out wife Kathryn and other family members who have supported him in both his career and health struggle.
Limbaugh told his audience he hadn’t been expected to live to late December.
"I wasn't expected to make it to October, and then to November, and then to December,” he said. "And yet, here I am, and today, got some problems, but I'm feeling pretty good today."
Saying he initially was stunned by the cancer diagnosis, Limbaugh added the plight had been very hard on those close to him.
"I can't be self-absorbed about it, when that is the tendency when you are told that you've got a due date," an emotional Limbaugh said. "You have an expiration date. A lot of people never get told that, so they don't face life this way."
Limbaugh praised President Trump for criticizing the latest coronavirus relief bill and took exception to President-elect Joe Biden's Tuesday statement that America's "darkest days" in the COVID-19 fight were ahead.
"What a bleak way of looking at things," Limbaugh said. "It's never time to panic, folks. There's never, ever going to be time to give up on our country ... It'll never be time to give up on yourself. Trust me."
Limbaugh began his radio show in 1988 and since has played a major role in conservative politics.
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