Rush Limbaugh
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh predicts that gay marriage will become legal 'nationwide.' Reuters

Rush Limbaugh, the popular right-wing pundit, said Friday that “the left has beaten us” in U.S. politics, a day after he made headlines by claiming he was “ashamed of [his] country.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my life, I am ashamed of my country,” the radio personality said on “The Rush Limbaugh Show” Thursday. Speaking of the U.S. budgetary sequestration on track to begin March 1, he added, “To be watching all of this, to be treated like this, to have our common sense and intelligence insulted the way it's being insulted? It just makes me ashamed.”

Limbaugh soon drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

In response to conservatives who demanded clarification of his statements and liberals who saw him as unpatriotic, Limbaugh said on his show Friday that he feels the left wing in America has overpowered the right wing. Limbaugh said “the left has beaten us” by controlling the country’s media and allegedly dumbing down the nation’s discourse and entertainment.

Read the relevant portions of Limbaugh’s statements Friday below:

“[M]y point with all this is that for 25 years, folks, we've been dealing with the same premise: 'Unless we spend another dime, the country is going to cease to exist.' And for 25 years I have responded to each premise on what I call an intellectual, point-by-point basis refuting every claim. The purpose of this program has been to create as large a body of informed voting citizens as possible. While we've been largely and profoundly successful at that, the left has beaten us.

“They have created far more low-information, unaware, uneducated people than we've been able to keep up with. We've had a profound impact in improving, increasing that universe of people -- citizens -- who are in the arena of ideas now, who are informed and educated. I've always had a Civics 101 view of the country: People get what they want, they vote what they want, and they get the way they vote.

“And if a majority of people are educated and informed and know what's going on, liberalism -- and these powerful forces that have ill intent to the country -- can be defeated. Yet despite overwhelming success in creating more and more people who are informed and active and involved, the left has control of the education system -- control of the pop culture, movies, TVs, books, music. We've just been outnumbered.”

Many have criticized Limbaugh for his “ashamed of my country” statement, but high-profile conservatives Sean Hannity and Herman Cain supported it.

“I thought about this, and I read his comments in total, and I started thinking myself about what he was saying,” Hannity said on his eponymous Fox News Channel show “Hannity” during a discussion with Cain. “Here we live in the greatest country that God gave man -- you believe it, Juan [Williams] believes it, I believe it, Rush believes it. It is embarrassing, Herman, that so many people are suffering needlessly.”