Al Roker goes after Limbaugh over hurricane comments - and Rush hits back hard

In a segment that was widely criticized, right-wing talk icon Rush Limbaugh appeared to imply that the media was hyping up Hurricane Irma and exaggerating the threat. But when talk show host Al Roker slammed him over his comments, Limbaugh lashed out at him from his golden EIB microphone.

Roker took Limbaugh to task from his Twitter account, tweeting, "To have [Rush Limbaugh] suggest the warnings about #Irma are #fake or about profit and to ignore them borders on criminal," adding the hashtag "shame on Rush."

He added, "Do not listen to "Rush Limbaugh" when he says #Irma is not a dangerous #storm and is hype. He is putting people's lives at risk."

Limbaugh struck back Wednesday, saying on his radio show that he never claimed the hurricane was fake.

"I never said fake, Al," he retorted. "I never used the word 'fake.'"

"I didn’t tell anybody to ignore anything, Al," he added. "I myself gave my own warnings! I just detailed how the world works, Al, which is undeniable."

To embarrass Roker, Limbaugh later brought up audio from 2015 when Roker admitted to have an unfortunate accident while visiting the White House.

"Cookie went back to the Grooveyard of Forgotten Sound Bites, is what we call our archive, to January 6, 2015" Limbaugh continued. "So four and a half years ago, this is Al Joker, who has said that my suggesting that weather warnings on the hurricane are fake news is near criminal."

"I didn’t say the warnings are fake," he said.

"Anyway, Cookie was offended by that. Cookie is very offended when people lie about me," he added, "so she went back to our archives, our Grooveyard of Forgotten Sound Bites, found Al Joker from NBC’s Dateline. It was a report about his gastric bypass surgery and a trip to the White House."

Limbaugh played audio of Roker describing how he had an accident in his pants while visiting the White House after gastric bypass surgery. "It told me that I’ve gotta be very vigilant as to what I eat," Roker said on the audio.

"You might want to try being vigilant about what comes out of your mouth, too, Al!" Limbaugh responded.

"For crying out loud, you’re on NBC graphically describing in the White House," Limbaugh continued. "Wait a minute, Dawn, are you suggesting this had value for gastric bypass? Oh, she feels bad because this happened to him while at the White House. Fine. How many of you tell NBC and a national audience the things that are unfortunate that happened to you as a means of helping others? I would never admit — but, anyway, that’s Al Joker who thinks that I have been behaving in a criminal way by referring to hurricane warnings as fake. I didn’t do that."

Hurricane Irma developed into a category 5 hurricane, and has already devastated islands in the Caribbean. It has already registered the strongest winds of any hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, and is expected to hit landfall in the United States soon.