“Twenty years ago when, uh, we won the first Republican majority in 40 years, there was one radio talk show host that nobody’d ever heard of. Uh, there was one cable news channel that just did news. And you look at t-today, you’ve got hundreds of radio talk show hosts all trying to outdo themselves, right — going further right and further right and further right. Uh, you’ve got all these cable news channels, and all they do are politics, and it’s tending to either push or pull people into one of two camps.”

If I go down to see President Obama, the right begins to wonder what I’m up to; the left begins to wonder what the president’s up to. The president’s suggested, “Hey, you think it’s too much trouble if we play golf again?” (snickers) And I have to look at him and say, “Yes!” RUSH: So Boehner can’t play golf with Obama ’cause of us. He can’t play golf because he’s afraid talk radio and Fox News are gonna wonder what he’s up to and maybe — well, I don’t know, reading his mind — think that we’re gonna say he’s selling out or that Obama’s doing whatever.

Some people were pushing me to run for the Senate. I decided I didn’t want to do that, and I made a decision that the rest of my career was gonna be in the US House. So the team said to me, “All right, well, the rest of your career’s gonna be in the House. What’s your goal?” I didn’t know! So I said, “Well, if you don’t shoot for the top (snickers), why shoot for anything?” So I set my goal to be speaker.”