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Talk Radio, Media Bans and the Limbaugh Standard: Jim Pfaff on The Peter Boyles Show | Sep 19, 2026

Published: September 19, 2026
Network: 710 KNUS, Denver
Analysis: Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff

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Peter Boyles opened his Saturday show on 710 KNUS in Denver with a question about who controls the mic. On the September 19, 2026 edition of The Peter Boyles Show, Boyles put two stories to Conservative Caucus President Jim Pfaff: President Trump’s move against CNN, MS NOW and Politico at the White House, and Robert Kraft’s move against a rapper at NFL stadiums. From there the hour turned to talk radio itself — Charlie Kirk, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and objective truth. On the press ban, Pfaff called it a gray one for him: open the door, answer the questions, and he is not sure the ban is a good move.

Pfaff’s bio set up the conversation. He got into politics in 1992 running campaigns in Indiana, joined Focus on the Family in 2005, spent 4 years with a daily show on KLZ in Denver, and went to Capitol Hill in 2010 to work for Congressman Tim Huelskamp of Kansas. He later worked for Congressman Thomas Massie. Today he is president of The Conservative Caucus, the nation’s oldest conservative grassroots organization, founded by Howard Phillips in 1974 — the man TCC has called DOGE before DOGE.

Topics Covered

• The Press Ban: Answer the Question, Don’t Ban Them
• Charlie Kirk and the Courage to Explain Why
• Rush Limbaugh and the Talk Radio Standard
• Media Concentration and What to Think About
• Tucker Carlson and the Problem With Framing
• Objective Truth, El-Sayed, and a Proverb a Day
• Key Takeaways

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The Press Ban: Answer the Question, Don’t Ban Them

Boyles framed the news himself. President Trump, he said, had vowed on Friday to ban CNN, MS NOW, Politico and other outlets from White House coverage. Boyles said he is no fan of the mainstream media, but banning them was another matter. He saw a parallel in Robert Kraft’s move against the rapper Macklemore, urging fellow NFL owners who control their stadiums not to allow it, and said Ed Sheeran’s band had quit. Were the two tied together?

Pfaff said there might be a slight tie — Kraft and Trump are friends and supporters of one another — and called the White House question a gray one for him. He noted that Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, standing there at the time, made the point that reporters were asking the president questions right then, so what was the problem.

“In all these things, I’ve never worried about anyone asking me a question, trying to corner me. I felt it was my obligation to be ready for that. And Donald Trump’s mostly done that, so I think it’s a little bit of an emotional thing.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

He did not defend the outlets. He called the three of them pretty useless, and said Politico and The Hill are insider DC rags. Ban them, Boyles said, and you make them more important. Pfaff agreed.

“Keep it rolling. You open the door up, answer the questions. I think he’s very effective at countering these people. I’m not sure that it’s a good move, honestly.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Boyles, a fan of Jefferson, raised the First Amendment: in Jefferson’s framing it protects not what you like but what you don’t like. Pfaff called that one of the most important statements any founding father made about the First Amendment. Then he drew the line: what Robert Kraft is doing is private business, though he does not know that it is a good idea. On the White House, he pointed to what the country just went through under the Biden administration.

“We just went through a situation under the Biden administration where you had this outrageous concept that it’s really dangerous for people to have disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. I mean, it was such a bullcrap argument.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

His prescription: be excellent at what you do and stay focused, because that is what wins in politics.

Charlie Kirk and the Courage to Explain Why

Boyles turned to Charlie Kirk, whom he believed was on his way to going beyond talk radio, and mentioned a guest convinced that Kirk’s murder was a conspiracy. Pfaff said he has not seen anything that is more than interesting on that front and personally does not see the conspiracy. What he sees is how much anger there has been on the left about the issues Kirk talked about.

“I don’t think any rational person could listen to the things Charlie Kirk said and come up with some conclusion that he was, as he’s accused of, a racist or a homophobe or transphobe. I mean, the guy spoke so respectfully.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Kirk pushed back when he disagreed, Pfaff said, but respectfully, even to people who disagreed with him rabidly; the real problem was how people treated him. Pfaff called Kirk an autodidact with a broad base of knowledge. “That was a tragedy.”

Boyles read listener texts to show what the talk radio business has become: labels like hate monger and anti-Semite used to shut people up. Pfaff agreed those are ways to shut people up, but said the country is coming to the back end of it. It is not gone, but the American people finally got fed up, and once the debate moves past Trump’s personality he expects people to say they are not putting up with wokeism anymore. He added that some people on the right try the same tactic.

“What can be healthy in any society is enough shame to say, to have the courage to say, your idea is really, really bad and I’m going to explain why. That’s what Charlie Kirk did.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

When texters went after both men, Pfaff called it an honor to be attacked alongside Boyles. They were on opposite sides of the 2006 Marriage Amendment in Colorado and are still friends.

Rush Limbaugh and the Talk Radio Standard

Boyles has a thesis about the business: all politics is local, as Tip O’Neill said, and all talk radio is local too — an electric barroom, an electric backyard fence. In his telling there has been only one truly successful syndicated affiliate, Rush Limbaugh, who made KOA money and made his EIB money, while most syndicated shows break even. Boyles traced Limbaugh’s cadence to his years as a Top 40 disc jockey.

Pfaff agreed the cadence came from that disc jockey experience, and told a story from Indianapolis. He got his introduction to politics through Mike Pence, then on WIBC. One day in an elevator Pfaff asked what station owner Jeff Smulyan — no conservative at all — thought of carrying Limbaugh. Pence said he had asked, and Smulyan told him he did not agree with Limbaugh very much, but it was really damn good radio.

Pfaff said listeners made sure to get at least Limbaugh’s first hour. He added the business case: when Limbaugh arrived, being a salesperson at a radio station suddenly became a relatively easy job, because the local station had inventory on his show — the simplest sell in the world. Boyles said the sales staff became order takers.

“He didn’t just set the standard for conservative media, he set the standard for media, period. And it was entertaining, but it was also truly informative.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Asked who fills that void, Pfaff said he does not know; some who followed are okay, Dan Bongino among them, but nobody meets what Limbaugh did. The difference between Limbaugh and most politicians, he said, is intent: politicians on both sides mostly want you to buy what helps them get reelected. Limbaugh was kind to everybody, Pfaff said; he had Elton John, a confirmed left-of-center guy, at his wedding.

Media Concentration and What to Think About

A talk radio caller, Dave in Littleton, told listeners to unplug from Fox News and look to independent media. Boyles warned about corporate ownership and concentration of the media, and what is now called soft censorship. Pfaff said he hates holding companies back from being entrepreneurial, but concentration of media can be a very big problem, because only rare people keep an independent approach inside it. Newspapers used to insist on a bright line between the publisher and the editorial side, he said, as the Denver Post did for a long time.

“When you look at the media, the media doesn’t teach you or tell you what to think, but I believe they tell you what to think about.”
— Peter Boyles, Host, The Peter Boyles Show

Pfaff called it a very key insight, and said it is not only a left-wing media thing. Fox News, he said, takes a precisely Paul Ryan approach to what is important to them. The remedy is range: a potpourri of approaches, hopefully many of them honest, so an average American hears a multitude of viewpoints or can at least go access them. The golden age of television news is gone, he agreed, with one exception he named: his friend Charlie Gasparino of Fox Business, a straight-arrow beat reporter.

Tucker Carlson and the Problem With Framing

Boyles raised Tucker Carlson, once Rupert Murdoch’s man. Pfaff said he would not claim to know what happened, but described the result: Carlson got so angry about the war and Israel’s part in it that he changed his filter, from the logical argument and the facts to everything filtered through the Iran war and Israel. Pfaff said he is a Christian, not a dispensationalist, and not part of the Israel-can-do-no-wrong crowd — but not anti-Israel either; Israel is an ally worth being close to. Trump, he said, has done everything except what Tucker claims.

“If Trump’s wrong, say why. If he’s right, be honest about it. But don’t try to frame things. Framing is not a good thing. Critical thinkers don’t frame arguments. They look at how arguments are framed and then break them down accordingly.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

Being critical is fine, he said; framing the argument into “now I’m mad at Trump, so I’m going to take him down” is the mistake.

Objective Truth, El-Sayed, and a Proverb a Day

Pfaff’s explanation for the shout-down culture went to human nature. It shows up far more on the left right now, he said, though some of that rabid thinking is emerging on the right.

“I always say that 6,000 years of recorded human history proves the moral depravity of man.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

That puts everyone on the same footing, he said, and it means doing good takes work: to be humble, to be courageous, to stop being nice and be kind — having someone’s good in mind while finding what will actually help them. He believes the Judeo-Christian ethic helps a culture do that, and asks atheists: take away the first two commandments — which of the others don’t you like? Boyles added his own pairing of the Ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments. Pfaff tied it to the courts: the country needs a rule of law with an objective truth standard. Objective truth made the Western experience strong, he said, and that is repeatable.

Boyles then brought up Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat running for the Senate, who Boyles said had been endorsed by Tucker Carlson. TCC has covered that race in our look at Michigan as the DSA’s next test case. Pfaff’s answer went to the ideas.

“I think he’s dangerous, to be candid with you. When I say dangerous, not to the point I’m wanting to throw him in jail. I just think his ideas are dangerous.”
— Jim Pfaff, President, The Conservative Caucus

He said El-Sayed shields his real thinking and is minimizing his association with Hasan Piker, whom Pfaff called a whacked-out individual. He called that fake politics — and said neocon Mike Rogers, the Republican in the race, can be fake too. He supports Rogers but holds his nose a little, because the neocon fringe is really problematic. He finds the El-Sayed fringe even worse.

Boyles recalled reading Lenin in graduate school — in Boyles’ paraphrase, give me a monarchist and give me an anarchist, because they know what they want, while liberals do not. Pfaff answered with his favorite theologian, R.C. Sproul, who said materialists anchor their feet in thin air. On Capitol Hill he told even the atheists on his staff to read a proverb a day, because there is wisdom people shut out when they stop thinking critically.

Key Takeaways

1. Answer the question, don’t ban the outlet – On talk radio, Pfaff called the White House ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico a gray one, said he is not sure it is a good move, and said Trump is very effective at countering these people when he opens the door and answers.
2. Private business is not government – Robert Kraft’s decision on Macklemore is private business, Pfaff said. The White House question comes right after the Biden administration’s disinformation, misinformation and malinformation concept, which he called a bullcrap argument.
3. Charlie Kirk argued with respect – No rational person could call Kirk a racist or homophobe after listening to him, Pfaff said; Kirk had the courage to say your idea is really bad and explain why.
4. Limbaugh set the standard for media, period – On talk radio he was entertaining and truly informative, and made local ad sales the simplest sell in the world.
5. Critical thinkers don’t frame arguments – Pfaff’s lesson from Tucker Carlson’s shift: if Trump is wrong, say why; if he is right, be honest about it.
6. Objective truth is the foundation – 6,000 years of recorded history prove the moral depravity of man, Pfaff said; the Judeo-Christian ethic and a rule of law with an objective truth standard are how a culture raises human nature up.

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About The Conservative Caucus:
The Conservative Caucus is a grassroots public policy action organization, formed in 1974. Headed by President Jim Pfaff, the Caucus is committed to advancing free enterprise, limited government, and traditional values.

Originally broadcast Sep 19, 2026 on The Peter Boyles Show with Peter Boyles, 710 KNUS Denver.