(AllHipHop News) There were a lot of questions directed at The Breakfast Club for conducting a simulcast with Rush Limbaugh. The on-air discussion with the über-conservative radio personality took place as the country was dealing with the murder of African-American George Floyd by white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.
Veteran broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien was a guest on a recent episode of The Breakfast Club. O’Brien immediately asked DJ Envy, Angela Yee, and Charlamagne Tha God why they chose to provide a platform to a person critics believe purposely downplays white supremacy and anti-black racism.
“What happened was, we all work for iHeartMedia. So being that we all work for iHeartMedia that was a corporate call,” admitted Charlamagne. “Corporate convinced us that it would be a good idea because Rush had the whole thing about George Floyd [being killed] was wrong and police need to be held accountable and he wants this to change, he wants George Floyd to be the last one. They were like it would be like a building of bridges, two different worlds coming together.”
The Breakfast Club/The Rush Limbaugh Show conversation made national news headlines, but not for promoting unity. Media outlets focused more on Limbaugh claiming that white privilege and white supremacy does not exist and his specific partisan targeting of liberals and the Democratic Party.
Charlamagne also told O’Brien, “The problem with somebody like Rush is he doesn’t want to deal with the reality of white privilege and the reality of systemic racism and white supremacy. So, therefore, you can’t ever get to what the real issue is.”
Angela Yee added, “It wasn’t us pitching like, ‘We would love to get Rush on the show.’ But the idea was we are all interested about what happened to George Floyd and wanting to make sure that those police officers do end up getting charged. So the idea was we all believe that this should happen, so it was supposed to be just about that one thing we do agree on – those police officers need to be charged. And [Limbaugh] wanted to have us on [his show] because he doesn’t engage with people like us.”
Earlier this month, Charlamagne Tha God also addressed the controversial Rush Limbaugh interview while appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Charlamagne conceded that The Breakfast Club exchange with the right-wing commentator felt like a waste of time.
