Glenn Beck Chokes Up While Guest Hosting Charlie Kirk’s Show: ‘Surpassed Rush Limbaugh by Miles’

Glenn Beck emotionally gifted Rush Limbaugh’s gold microphone to slain friend Charlie Kirk on Wednesday, one week after the conservative activist was murdered, and said Kirk had surpassed the radio icon “by miles” with his nonstop effort promoting Republican politicians and causes.

Beck presented the microphone during a choked-up monologue at the start of The Charlie Kirk Show, which he was guest-hosting.

The veteran right-wing broadcaster placed Limbaugh’s microphone, which he received after Limbaugh died in 2021, right in front of Kirk’s microphone; the camera then panned to the two microphones and the empty chair that Kirk typically sat in during each episode.

Beck told viewers that, when he first met Kirk at the age of 17, Kirk had told him he wanted to be like him — which meant he really wanted to be like Limbaugh, the best conservative radio host ever, Beck said. He then said he regretted that he did not get the chance to give Limbaugh’s microphone to Kirk in person, as he had been planning. But Beck — between long pauses he used to collect himself — said this is what he would have told Kirk:

“What I would have said to Charlie was you were thinking too small,” Beck said. “I want to be Rush Limbaugh someday. I’m a broadcaster, Rush was a broadcaster. But Charlie was a broadcaster and a narrowcaster. Charlie was a pastor and a priest, and listening to the way he could argue and think differently, he was a rabbi as well — and one of the best. He was a political organizer. He was a political think tank himself. He was a compassionate friend. He surpassed Rush Limbaugh by miles.”

He then sent the episode to its first commercial break.

Beck was still visibly rocked by the loss of Kirk on Wednesday. The 61-year-old founder of Blaze Media was brought to tears last week when he and Megyn Kelly learned on a live stream that Kirk had died from a gunshot wound to the neck.

He said he expected Wednesday’s show to be especially difficult to get through, sitting just inches away from Kirk’s chair. “We’re gonna need a tarp,” Beck said early in the show, to handle his tears.

President Donald Trump has said he will speak a memorial service for Kirk, whom he credited with helping win over millions of young MAGA voters, in Arizona on Sunday.

You can watch Beck present Limbaugh’s microphone above, via The Charlie Kirk Show on YouTube.