Limbaugh was an unexpected guest of the president and Trump praised him during the speech.

“Rush Limbaugh: Thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country. Rush, in recognition of all that you have done for our nation, the millions of people a day that you speak to and inspire, and all of the incredible work that you have done for charity, I am proud to announce tonight that you will be receiving our country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” the president said.

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Limbaugh has been one of the most divisive figures in broadcasting, accused of racist and sexist remarks. He promoted the debunked birther claim that former president Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

Earlier in the day, during the two-hour, off-the-record lunch, several participants said the president was in a good mood and predicted a speech of about one hour and 25 minutes.

The president covered a wide range of topics at the luncheon.

When asked whether he made any mistakes related to Ukraine or whether he would have done anything differently, the president said he had done nothing wrong. “It was a perfect call,” he said, apparently referring to his July 25 phone conversation with the Ukrainian president. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said Tuesday she was voting to acquit Trump in part because he had learned a lesson.

The scene at President Trump's third State of the Union address share Share View Photos View Photos Next Image

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Trump said he would participate in the general election debates in the fall, after weeks of indecision within his campaign and complaints from the president himself.

He claimed his approval numbers among black voters climbed higher after he hosted rapper Kanye West at the White House in 2018. Trump also suggested that he would win by a large margin in November if numbers among black voters continued to rise.

On the 2020 Democratic race, Trump said that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was “nastier and smarter” than the other contenders and that he couldn’t quite figure out why former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg was gaining strength, attendees said. The president said he was not sure who his general-election opponent would be and that a brokered convention might be the outcome among the Democrats.

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At one point, Vice President Pence, who attended the lunch, said the state of Indiana had stepped in and helped Buttigieg with an economic grant when his city was struggling and while Pence was governor, attendees said.

Trump expressed frustration with former national security adviser John Bolton, who the president said had turned on him.

Trump also mocked Bolton by saying that he always wanted to be called “ambassador,” even internally at the White House, and that his ambassadorship to the United Nations in the mid-2000s was a recess appointment.

Trump also said he wanted to block Bolton’s forthcoming book from being published, according to two people familiar with knowledge of the lunch. The White House has only said that the book has classified information and that Bolton needs to make changes to the book. Bolton is said to allege that Trump tied aid to Ukraine to politically motivated investigations of his opponents, and people familiar with the project say it is unflattering to the president.

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The president told the anchors that Bolton could have written the book once Trump left office but that doing it while Trump is still in office “is not right.”

The president also touched on foreign policy. He said that he believed Iran did not seek to inflict maximum damage when it launched a strike last month on bases used by U.S. troops in Iraq but that war with Tehran was “closer than you thought.”

Among the anchors who attended the luncheon were CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, PBS’s Judy Woodruff, Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, ABC News’s David Muir and George Stephanopoulos and NBC News’s Lester Holt, the people familiar with the meeting said.