September 6, 2023 • 43 mins
SEASON 2 EPISODE 28: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: I call for the immediate arrest of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, representative of the 14th district of Georgia, for violating 18 US code 871 – “Threats against the President and Successors to the Presidency.” Greene has posted to social media video of a direct threat to harm or kill Joe Biden, made by a man who when asked about that threat of personal violence replied “I don’t regret nothing I said. I (effing) mean it, bro."
Greene’s own ignorance of the federal code dealing with threats against the President is no defense. 18 U-S code 871 quite clearly states that the threat does NOT have to be first-hand. Greene does not have to have said it, she merely has to have distributed the threat. Though she helpfully began her distribution and promulgation of the threat against Biden’s life with her own statement: “I agree with this man.”
At some point we have to break Greene - and the fascist right's - dance along the cliff-edge of political violence. Just two weeks ago she rightly complained that violent threats against her had gotten a weak three-month sentence. Now, the threat she distributed should be met by her being charged, arrested, convicted, and sentenced to the maximum of five years.
Because occasionally the Justice System works. "Enrique" Tarrio broke the January 6 record with a 22-year sentence (though take the odds and bet on Trump getting more). And let's hear it for my new hero, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, who was born in Cuba and who accused political ignoramus and stunter Tommy Tuberville of more than even endangering national security by holding up military promotions. “For someone who was born in a communist country," said Secretary Del Toro, "I would never have imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world.”
And there is more on the 14th Amendment, now the flavor of the month in the media. Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson makes an interesting revelation: “Secretaries of states of multiple states are having conversations. I’m talking with folks in Pennsylvania, with the secretary of state in Nevada and even in Maine; people in Georgia of course – my colleague Brad Raffensberger – just to get a sense of what the facts are” and she added that a group of states quote “likely need to act in concert, if we act at all.”
B-Block (21:10) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: I'm somewhat limited by a throat infection, but here are Anthony Rendon of baseball's Angels who can't play due to a string of injuries (it happens) but refuses to talk about it (it's inexcusable), Washington Post "Fact Checker" Glenn Kessler, and the Saudi Prince who's trying to choose our president for us and whose exports to this country we should cut off and whose assets here we should seize.
C-Block (29:12) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the night the Republican Party and Tom Brokaw got me fired as the co-anchor of MSNBC’s 2008 Presidential Debate coverage because the Republicans told Brokaw do this or McCain won’t show up for the debate you inherited when Tim Russert died and Brokaw really wanted a second career after Brian Williams had buried his first career alive and threw me under the bus even though I had welcomed him to our MSNBC campaign coverage when NBC had literally benched him for the '08 campaign.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
call for the immediate arrest of congress Woman Marjorie Taylor Green,
(00:26):
representative of the fourteenth District of Georgia, under terms of
eighteen US Code eight seven to one threats against the
president and successors to the presidency. Green has posted to
social media video of an anti vax threat to harm
or kill Joe Biden made by a man, who, when
(00:47):
asked about that threat of personal violence, replied, I don't
regret nothing I said. I fing mean it. Bro and
Green's own ignorance of the federal code dealing with threats
against the president is no defense here. Eighteen US Code
eight seven to one quite clearly states that the threat
does not have to be firsthand. She does not have
(01:09):
to say it herself. She merely has to deliver it.
Though helpfully from my point of view, she began her
distribution and promulgation of the threat against Biden with her
own statement quote, I agree with this man. Unquote. This man,
a self described rapper named Ben Parker, has obviously made
(01:33):
a direct threat against Biden and needs to be arrested
himself today, But so does Marjorie Taylor Green. She has
danced along the cliff edge of political violence in this
country for years, and now she has endorsed presidential assassination quote.
I agree with this man. I'm hearing this exact sentiment
(01:57):
from everyone I know. Marjorie Taylor Green has now fallen
off that cliff edge of political violence, and her threats
can no longer be tolerated, and she can no longer
be tolerated. She must be arrested now. With a warning
about the strong, strong language. This is part of the
(02:18):
deranged anti vaccination video by the man calling himself Ben Parker,
which Marjorie Taylor Green posted on Twitter on her congressional account,
not retweeted it, she has posted it under her own name,
and which again she has prefaced with the quote, I
(02:38):
agree with this man.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
A Joe Biden literally saying, y'all need to come They
need to come up with a new vat scene, and
they need to come up with a way that people
have to take it.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
No matter what. I'm gonna explain something very fucking clear
to you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
If the Democrat Party and the Joe Biden administration, I'm
motherfucking serious right now, This ain't no threat.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
This ain't no nothing. This is a fucking prompt.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
If you think for one second you're gonna force me
to take any fucking thing that you tell me to do,
I will fuck you up, homie, You and whatever motherfucking
army you send in the process.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I want you to think you gonna make me take
some shit. Joe. Now see other lines you crossed.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I ain't say shit, but this the line you cross it, bitch,
make me I'm willing to die about.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
This shit again. Marjorie Taylor Green posted a five minute
video version of that slime and wrote, quote, I agree
with this man. Eighteen US Code eight seven to one.
Threats against the President and successors to the presidency reads,
in part, whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in
(03:55):
the mail, or for a delivery from any post office,
or by any letter carrier, any letter, paper, writing, print, missive,
or die document containing any threat to take the life of,
to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President
of the United States, the President elect, the Vice president,
or other officer next in the order of succession to
(04:17):
the office of President of the United States, or the
Vice president elect or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any
such threat against the President, president elect, vice president, or
other officer next in the order of succession to the
office of President or vice president elect shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than five years,
(04:39):
or both unquote. Arrest Marjorie Taylor Green today and this
Ben Parka. He has posted a second video which uses
the Green tweet as his video background. I don't know
(05:00):
that you or I need to hear him again. I
don't know that the Secrets needs to hear him again. Quote.
I appreciate everywhere my video is going, he says, I
appreciate every effing person that's reposting my video because guess what, Joe,
I don't know where the f you at and I
can't get near you. But I'm not that mother effer.
(05:23):
It'll be a cold day in hell unquote. So arrest
this man on two charges of threatening the life of
the President of the United States. After eight years of
letting the psychopaths and sociopaths of this nation leech the
moral fiber out of our government, out of our culture,
(05:43):
out of our baseline of what is acceptable and what
is not, we must finally say enough. This creature Green
is a clear and present danger to the President and
indeed all the members of his party, politicians and civilians
like and her willingness to traffic in violence and the
threat of violence is danger to the United States of
(06:06):
America itself and especially going is that just two weeks ago,
a New York man was sentenced to three months in
jail for leaving multiple threatening voicemails towards Marjorie Taylor Green.
And her reaction was not to say I agree with
this man, not to say she's heard this sentiment everywhere,
(06:29):
not to waive the free speech flag and the political
rights flag in which she so often wraps herself and
her fellow insurrectionists, but to complain that that sentence was
too lenient, and she was right, and the sentence against
Marjorie Taylor Green, the co conspirator handling the publication and
(06:51):
promulgation side of the threat to harm or kill the
President of the United States made by the man who
calls himself Ben Parker, that sentence should also be as
severe as eighteen US Code eight seven one allows five years.
With Trump willing to use any means to regain power
in this nation, any means the sooner we begin finally
(07:14):
to take action against those who use political violence or
the threat of it, to try to intimidate and manipulate
this country at its good citizens, the better. And we
can only do that with the proverbial short sharp shock
and charging this deranged, dangerous, irresponsible, fantasy driven mediocrity would
(07:35):
be an excellent start. Arrest Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green today,
because surprise, surprise, sometimes the justice system works. The Trumpest
insurrectionist Henry Tario, who calls himself Enrique, and on whom
(07:59):
it continues to seem it has never dawned that he
is exactly the kind of person the Trumpests want to
expel from this country, was sentenced yesterday to twenty two
years in prison after his conviction on siditious conspiracy. The
judge invoked the terrorism sentencing enhancement. Tario was the head
of the Proud Boys, who are looking both for a
(08:22):
new leader and after four of their members were sentenced
to a combined sixty four years, probably a new name
to inscribe over their clubhouse door and among those actively
and currently undermining the government of the United States of America.
Not so much a truth leak as a truth explosion
from a Washington television studio yesterday when the Secretaries of
(08:44):
the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force vivisected Senator
Tommy I'm all ears Tubberville over his continuing interference with
military defense placing holds on the confirmation of more than
three hundred promotions. They had written an op ed accusing
him of putting our national security at risk. But that
(09:06):
was nothing compared to my new hero, Secretary of the Navy,
Carlos del Toro, who was born in Cuba, and who
said yesterday, for someone who was born in a communist country,
I would never have imagined that actually one of our
own senators would actually be aiding and a betting communists
(09:29):
and other autocratic regimes around the world. He directly accused
Senator Tuberville of aiding and the betting communists, and of
course by that he means China aiding and betting communists.
(09:52):
A Senator Dumbo, could you hear that it has been
noted that Enrique Tarrio's sentenced twenty two years is now
the record for any January sixth defendant. But I would
like to note that the favorite in this tournament probably
hits last Trump. This obviously is separate from the issue
(10:17):
I underscored yesterday Trump's sudden, panicky discovery of the fourteenth Amendment.
You can hear him, can't you wait? There's a fourteenth Amendment.
Trump may have moved on to his next ingenious fantasy
that Jack Smith not only destroyed January sixth Committee evidence,
but he destroyed the evidence that exonerated Trump. Again. Trump
(10:38):
could not have come up with a more ludicrous theory
if he had eaten a box of magic mushrooms or
borrowed something from his son. But it is ingenious and
his idiots will believe it, even though, as usual, he
spoiled it by writing at the end of his post
quote dismiss suit, which underscores the Trumpian panic. I noted yesterday,
(10:59):
It's not a suit, it's a case. This is not
a civil suit on trial. You'd think that if you
had spent your life in courtrooms, you would have noticed that.
Then again, the blooper could have owed to sheer volume.
By eight pm last night, Trump had made no less
than fifty eight separate posts on his social media site.
(11:23):
I guess he has to to interrupt the ads for
gold and the Terrible truth of Tommy Chong. Trying to
identify specific causes for each of Trump's spasms of public
irrationality is like trying not only to number each rain drop,
but to give each one of them a name. Still,
(11:44):
I cannot shake this idea that his latest step away
from reality tracks back to that Wall Street Journal editorial
Monday night about the fourteenth Amendment. I am confident it
is the first time anything like this has ever occurred
to him. Well, god knows, fourteen three is now the
number of the month in journalism. The Washington Post had
lengthy and useful analysis of the process by which disqualification
(12:08):
could be pursued legally New Jersey and Illinois. The Post
notes have administrative agencies in place to assess a candidate's eligibility,
and you, the voter at home, can trigger it. In Pennsylvania, you, Joe,
local voter, have seven days after it would be candidate
applies to be on the ballot there to challenge his
eligibility in Pennsylvania. Of most use in the Greg Sergeant piece,
(12:31):
he quotes sources that say that the long awaited legal
actions to enforce fourteen three against Trump by citizens for
responsibility and ethics in Washington Crew and free speech for
people will take place this fall, which is less of
askew when you realize right fall starts in seventeen days. Sergeant,
(12:53):
though also healthfully quotes Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller
seriously he had to quote one named Muller. Professor Muller
says that while many state Supreme court where it may
rule Trump eligible or ineligible based on their own laws
and the court's interpretation of fourteen to three quote, the
odds are high that at least one gets to the
(13:14):
merits and decides whether Trump participated in an insurrection that
disqualifies him. Muller says that decision at a state Supreme
court level will be easily appealed to the Federal Supreme Court,
which is not an automatic l if the case gets there.
While Alito and Thomas are on a plane with Harland
(13:36):
Crow over the North Pole or something much more practical.
Information was supplied by a state roundup put together at
Talking Points Memo yesterday, Ohio with a wildly smarmy Trumpist
as Secretary of State dismisses fourteen to three as a
quote fringe legal theory like democracy New Mexico spokesman for
(13:58):
the Secretary of State Oliver we are aware of and
reviewing the legal theories regarding the fourteenth Amendment that conclude
Trump is ineligible to run for president. Any determination about
a specific candidate's eligibility for the ballot will be made
after the candidate filing day in February. Wisconsin and North
Carolina said nothing has been brought to their attention, so
(14:19):
they have nothing to comment on. Arizona's secretary has basically
suggested he will have to wait until somebody sues him
to keep Trump off. Most interesting of all was the
response on a podcast from Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Secretaries of states of multiple states, she says, are having conversations.
(14:41):
I'm talking with folks in Pennsylvania, with the secretary of
State in Nevada, and even in Maine, people in Georgia.
Of course, my colleague Brad Raffinsburger, just to get a
sense of what the facts are. She added that a
group of states quote likely need to act in concert
if we act at all. And yes, you just saw
(15:03):
it off on the Horai. Brad Raffensberger gets that rarest
of things the second bite of the apple, the apple
being Trump's backside. Yet it was Greg Sergeant in the
Washington Post who raised inadvertently a critical point quoting them again,
(15:24):
Some argue that citizen challenges risk undermining Trump voter's faith
in our institutions unquote. Wait, what Trump's brand is undermining
faith in our institutions? He attempted to illegally and unconstitutionally
retain power by undermining faith in our institutions weekly, daily, hourly.
(15:49):
He still demands that his cultists maintain the fiction that
he had an election stolen from him by undermining faith
in our institutions. How can actions based on an amendment
to the Constitution that was ratified one hundred and fifty
five years ago undermine Trump voter's faith in our institutions,
(16:10):
even if they somehow really do have any faith left
in the institutions of the United States of America, as
urinated on for eight years without a break by their
Lord and Master. My thanks, by the way to the
(16:32):
Midas Touch Network for bringing the Marjorie Taylor Green threat
towards President Biden to my attention. Also of interest here
if I sound a little different, Yeah, throat infection I'm
going to barely make the finish line here by doing
just a new worst Person's list and then an anniversary
for things I promised not to tell and in the
(16:53):
Worst Persons. Yeah, the Saudis are trying to manipulate the
oil supply in order to interfere with the election. So
here's an idea. Let's cut them off, diplomatically, freeze their
worthless assets in this country, keep their money, and cut
them off. That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Still ahead on Countdown. As I mentioned, throat bad better
than I thought, but I'm still going to shorten the
back half of the podcast. This is more of a
struggle than it sounds. That's why I get the big bucks.
So there will be a things I promised not to tell,
and it's timely. Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of the
(17:51):
night the Republican Party and Tom Brokaw got me fired
as the co anchor of MSNBC's two thousand and eight
presidential debate coverage because the Republicans told Brokaw do this
or McCain will not show up for that debate. You
inherited when Tim Russert died, and Brokaw really wanted a
second career at NBC after Brian Williams had buried his
(18:13):
first career at NBC Alive plus I got enough voice
left to give you the daily roundup of the miss grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. The Bronze Anthony Rendon, third basement
of Baseball's Los Angeles Angels. Well, we think that's still
(18:33):
his job. He's played in exactly two hundred games since,
having signed a seven year, two hundred and forty five
million contract as a free agent in twenty twenty. It's
two hundred games four years. What is that, it's like
fifty a year. It's not a lot. Athletes get hurt
all the time, and next to none of them, next
(18:54):
to none of them are malingerers. Nothing rends and athlete's
soul more or more quickly than when his body betrays
him having a sore throat throughout your body. On the
other hand, a high priced athlete who has a series
of devastating injuries has an obligation to understand that he's
not the only one interested in his own health. Spotted
(19:17):
in the team's clubhouse Tuesday, Rendon was asked for an
injury update. His answer, no, abla ingles today, and then
he left the clubhouse. Everybody has a bad day, and
you do get tired of talking about it. On the
other hand, on August sixth of this year, when he
was asked how he was doing, Anthony Rendon answered that
(19:37):
since he was on the quote dead list unquote, he
doesn't have to do interviews anymore, and then he left
the clubhouse. On July nineteenth, Rendon was asked by reporters
how he was feeling, and he answered, quote, I'm not here,
and then he left the clubhouse. On June twenty ninth,
Rendon was asked by reporters how his wrist was doing,
and he replied, I have two and then he left
(20:00):
the clubhouse. By the way, the Los Angeles Angels of
Anthony Rendon took their team photo yesterday. The injury ridden
Shohe Otani will appear in the finished product, though he
was not actually in the photograph as it was taken.
They used per reporters on the scene a body double,
(20:21):
and they will photo shop Otani in later Fun Group
runner up Glenn Kessler fact checker of The Washington Post
that's a brand name. Fact checker. Kessler has devoted oney
nine hundred and eleven words to criticizing Joe Biden's anecdotes
because the details sometimes vary or are not precisely true.
(20:44):
He gets on Biden telling the Milwaukee audience this year
that he was born in the same hospital at which
his grandfather had died just before he was born. That is,
just before Biden was born. In fact, one of his
grandfathers did die fourteen months before Biden was born, but
it was at a different hospital. The other one died
fifteen years later at the same hospital at which the
(21:06):
president was born. There are about a dozen of these
stories in the Kessler article, including one in which, as
a boy, Biden sees two gay men in suits kissing
in Delaware, and he asks his father to explain this
and is told it's simple, they love each other. Kesser writes, quote,
he describes this exchange with his father usually is taking
(21:26):
place in nineteen sixty one, but back then gay men
generally did not kiss in public. Many people regarded homosexuality
as deviant unquote. These and similar Kessalarian facts earned the
president this headline in the Washington Effing Post, Biden loves
to retell certain stories, some aren't credible. The irony here,
(21:50):
of course, is anybody reading the story would then think
of the number of times they have heard family members
conflate grandfathers, or add or subtract details from a sixty
year old anecdote, or done it themselves. There's also no
mention in the piece of Biden's history as a stutterer,
and the fact that in the stress of public speaking,
(22:11):
not only do details often get confused, but random words
sometimes appear unintentionally in a person's speech. In fact, nearly
all of Kessler's analyzes of nearly all of Biden's stories
in the article are interpretations. They're not fact checking, so
that when Kessler writes the piece and identifies himself as
quote the fact checker, that isn't credible and it's not factual.
(22:36):
But our winner. Prince Muhammed Ben Salman and the dictatorship
of Saudi Arabia. Starting in July, it cut oil production
by a million barrels a day on a month by
month basis. It has now extended that to the rest
of the year. Little imagination is required to understand why
Saudi Arabia has done this. Six months after the Trump
regime fell in this country, Ben Salmon gave Jared Kushner
(23:00):
two billion dollars in investment money, and ever since, Saudi
Arabia has worked against Biden and against the Democrats in
hopes of getting Trump re elected. Their most direct contribution
raise American gas prices and maybe even cause a shortage
so Trump can blame Biden for it. What Biden should
do is cut off relations with the Saudis. That nation
(23:22):
enabled nine to eleven, and a recently released FBI report
indicates a Saudi diplomat assigned an employee to look out
for two of the hijackers when they arrived in Los
Angeles in two thousand. The Saudis have been interfering with
our economy, with our nation since the nineteen seventies. They
assassinated and cut up the body of a Washington Post journalist.
(23:42):
They have now purchased the American golf tour so they
can sports wash their money and their evil, and frankly,
other than their gasoline, they have absolutely no value to
this nation. So maybe what President Biden could do would
be to declare the climate emergency. Somebody is going to
have to declare maybe this president, maybe this year, and
at this rate, maybe this month, and pull us the
(24:05):
Saudi's fifth biggest oil customer, out of their gas bank roll.
Oh and then shut off diplomatic relationships with them, freeze
their money here, blocked the golf sale, and generally f
them anyway possible. Prince Muhammed bin Salmon and the dictatorship
of Saudi Arabia economic terrorists. Two days worst persons.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Finally our number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic me. I missed the exact anniversary by day,
but it's close enough. The demand for spots in the
Shae Stadium press box that night was so great that
there was a signed seating. I had no real reason
to be there, but as usual, the New York Mets
took care of me, and so on Friday, the fifth
(25:03):
of September two and eight, I was shouldered to shoulder
with reporter friends watching the Mets begin to blow their
three game Pennant race lead against the Philadelphia Phillyes. Sorry
Mets fans for bringing this up again. Brett Myers had
just struck out New York's David Wright looking when my
phone rang. It was my agent, Gene Sage. They just called.
She said, flatly, you and Matthews have been fired from
(25:26):
anchoring the presidential debates because of what you said. What
I had said had been said. Three nights previously, Chris
Matthews and I were co anchoring the Republican Convention on MSNBC.
He was there in Minneapolis. I was in the studios
in New York, ostensibly so I could also anchor hurricane coverage,
although it was pretty clear that at least half the
(25:47):
reason I was not in Minneapolis was because the Republicans
had threatened NBC or said they couldn't guarantee my safety
or something like that, and NBC folded. So I was
the one during MSNBC's coverage of the two thousand and
eight Republican Convention who had to throw it to a
video they were introducing that we had been told by
(26:07):
the Republicans was a quote tribute to the dead of
nine to eleven. It was, in fact a snuff film.
All of the images that all of the networks had
stopped showing within weeks or even days of the attacks,
all of those images were in this video, people jumping
and falling to their deaths from the World Trade Center
(26:28):
on nine to eleven, endless replays of the planes hitting
the towers, dismembered bodies in the plaza, the building collapses,
the equally terrifying scenes at the Pentagon, and all with
a grotesque Robert Dove voiceover emphasizing that this was all
the Democrats fault. The message was simple, elect Obama and
(26:50):
you will die like this. I was angry just on
that base level. For the five and a half years
I had been back at MSNBC, we had been rigorous
about not showing any.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Of that video.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
There were rules that if we had had to for
some reason, we should show only the skill images, and
even then only with extensive warnings to the viewers. But
I knew from my conversations with the president of MSNBC,
Phil Griffin, who I'd only known for twenty eight years
at that point, that he would insist that on the
scene in Minneapolis, Matthews and Tom Brokaw, whose career at
NBC I had resurrected after Brian Williams had buried him
(27:26):
alive two years earlier, that one or both of them
would rebuke the GOP for showing not a nine to
eleven tribute, but as I just said, a nine to
eleven snuff film. The video ended, and we came out
to Brokaw with Matthews, and Brokaw kind of coughed, and
Matthews said wow. And he turned to Brokaw and said,
(27:48):
in that loose fire hose delivery of his tom that
kind of Hunderscorn's terrorism. Big thing for Republicans, says they
Tristop Obama. Brocaw droned on approvingly, the Republicans sneaking a
snuff film, a banned video, onto MSNBC and by the way,
also onto CNN, onto NBC, onto CBS, onto ABC without
(28:10):
any warning. That was not mentioned by Brokaw or Matthews.
Back to New York and Keith. I was supposed to
add liberates about what we were expecting from the Republican
convention for the rest of the night and then throw
to a commercial. Instead, I said, and this is a paraphrase,
the original tape disappeared that night that before we moved on,
(28:30):
I felt I needed to apologize that we at MSNBC
and for that matter, NBC News had extremely strict rules
about not showing that video. The Republicans had just shown
you without any warning, without any context, and we certainly
would not have shown the horror and death and blamed
it on the Democrats, or for that matter, blamed it
on the Republicans. I said, if we had done such
(28:50):
a thing ourselves, there would have been people fired at
NBC News. The public program the GOP provided said that
was going to be a nine to eleven tribute film,
I said, and so did the private conversations with the network,
which included the reminder from NBC and MSNBC that we
had rules against showing the scenes of the horrible death,
the mutilation, and destruction. So I apologized on behalf of
(29:13):
whoever trusted the Republicans to live up to their word
that MSNBC viewers were forced to see the video our
network had long before vowed never to show again. So
three nights later, without as much as an email, this
Griffin guy had called my agent and told her I
was fired Matthews two from our further coverage of the
(29:35):
upcoming McGain Obama debates. She related these details to me
as I walked down the many ramps in the back
of Shaye Stadium towards the subway. I told her to
call Griffin back and tell him I had quit on
the spot right then, and he could work his way
out of the ensuing disaster. Liberal network MSNBC fires liberal
host Olberman for criticizing conservatives for sneaking nine to eleven
(29:58):
snuff film onto MSNBC. He could figure that out any
way he wanted, and he could hear my response on
I DON Morning America, CBS, This Morning, the PBS News Hour,
and any other news program that bothered to ask me
to stop by and talk. I phoned my live in girlfriend,
Katie Turr and told her I was on my way home,
and I made a few phone calls to friendly voices
(30:20):
within the NBC management structure and got from them a
clear picture of what had happened. And despite the spotty
cell service along the elevated line heading back to Manhattan,
I got a message from a newspaper reporter friend who
neatly tied together all that I was hearing elsewhere. Tom
Brokaw is going around NBC saying he got you fired
from the debates because the Republicans told him to. Nine
(30:44):
maybe ten months earlier, Phil Griffin had come to me
and asked me if I would be okay with this
guy who had been kind of disappeared by the network.
Tom Brokaw was his name appearing during our weekly coverage
of the Democratic and Republican primaries. Just a couple of minutes,
like from a prospective desk. That's all he wants to do.
(31:05):
He's really Tom's really unhappy Brian has frozen him out
of everything. Brian Williams. Of course, I was appalled, but
not surprised. The power had gone to Brian's head, and
of course there it had not met much resistance. Plus,
as I said to Griffin, you're asking me if I'd
like to add Tom Brokaw's experience and Tom Brocaw's gravitas
(31:28):
to stuff I'm anchoring when I'm not sure I know
as much as I really need to know to do
this right. You're asking me this. Tom fit in beautifully,
and twice after those long Tuesday evenings in the primary season,
he sent me brief emails awarding me what he called
the game ball because he was so impressed by my
ability to balance the roles of political anchor and political commentator,
(31:51):
having tried this myself. One of them read, I know
what a perilous tight rupeless is. Game Ball to Ko,
I'm mocking him now, but these meant so much to me.
I printed the emails out and carried them in my wallet.
And now he was claiming he had gotten me fired because,
as my newspaper friend said, the Republicans told him to.
(32:15):
That was not hard to unpack either. Tim Russard had
died on June third of that year. I anchored that
night until two in the morning. It was still an
open wound, there were still tears. We didn't know it then,
but the structure of NBC News and the perilous tie
group balancing NBC and MSNBC had died with Tim Russard.
(32:35):
So did the role of moderator of the second debate
between John McCain and Barack Obama, scheduled for about a
month after my subway ride on October seventh in Nashville.
Tim had not even been buried yet when Brokaw began
to angle to get that assignment, along with brushing away
the dirt of his penny Ante role on the MSNBC
Perspective desk, we never saw him again in order that
(32:57):
he could take Tim's spot as Brian Williams sidekick on
Big NBC. The month before August. It was a story
coming out of the east end of the third floor
at thirty Rock, where NBC News management sat around not
doing much of anything, that a Republican goon named Ed
Gillespie had been in there with Griffin and the NBC
News president Steve Cappus trying to get me silenced or
(33:20):
fired or off the convention coverage or something, and that
somebody prominent within NBC News was in there with Gillespie
or was invoked by Gillespie. The rumor mill wasn't certain.
As I switched from the elevated seven train to the
underground F train. The whole thing came together before my
comments about the GOP Convention nine to eleven snuff film.
(33:42):
Ed Gillespie had come in and had somehow vaguely threatened
Cappus and Griffin about me using as leverage the debate
which Tom Brocall was now supposed to moderate, and when
I apologized for their video on our air, Gillespie must
have turned it into an either or get rid of
me or McCain would refuse to participate in any debate
(34:05):
moderated by Brokaw or anybody from NBC News, and Brokaw
had already come back from the dead once in two
thousand and eight, and he would be damned if he
would be forced to do it a second time. But
as the train took me home to an apartment, I
was now going to have to sell since I had
just quit MSNBC on the spot for folding to such
(34:26):
obvious Republican blackmail, something else now occurred to me. Why
would MSNBC or NBC or our parent corporation at the time,
ge actually think that they could remove me from the
debate coverage on MSNBC, where the Rachil Meadow Show had
yet to be born, and the three times a night
my show ran accounted for something like sixty percent of
(34:48):
the entire day's network audience, and do that without getting
a really bad reaction from our audience. Plus, if a
newspaper man already knew the Brokaw part, how could this
story be avoided? MSNBC she announced it had removed its
liberal star Keith Alderman from coverage of the McCain Obama
(35:09):
presidential debates. Sources confirmed former NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw,
now an MSNBC commentator on Olberman's coverage, had helped the
Republican Party to blackmail NBC into the decision. Olderman immediately resigned, saying,
quote in succumbing to this coercion on behalf of John McCain,
NBC has now forfeited any right to further be called
(35:30):
a news organization, and I'm sad to say MSNBC, which
I built, is now dead. My god, MSNBC an NBC
News for that matter, would have committed corporate suicide before
the weekend was over. At that point, it dawned on
me that the only thing that could save the credibility
of the whole news division and the careers of Griffin
(35:51):
and Kappus, an NBC Network president Jeff Zucker, and especially
the career of Tom Brokaw was for me to publicly
state that I had asked to be removed from anchoring
the debates because the whatever was just too much blah
blah blah for me, and I felt I should stick
to the post debate analysis and commentary. NBC would now
(36:14):
have a choice. They could fire me from the debates
and destroy everything, including the one hundred million dollars a
year or so in profit that NBC made off MSNBC,
or I could you know why and claim it was
my idea and save everybody's ass, including my own. I
got out of the subway and raced home. Katie met
(36:36):
me at the door with a big hug. She had
been crying. Relax, I said, I'm not quitting. In fact,
I'm going to get a huge raise. Now, listen carefully.
I called my agent and I explained the idea that
had lit over my head on the subway like a
light bulb to both of them. I said, you call
Phil Griffin back and explain to him that I will
personally save his job and Steve Campus's and Jeff Sooker's
(37:00):
and Tom Brokaw's and everybody else's. I'll take the fall
instead of letting them all get fired by the MSNBC audience.
I'll say this was my idea, and all it will
cost Phil is twelve million dollars. And he has to
leak the term so everybody knows it cost him twelve
million dollars. And she paused for a second and said,
(37:22):
it's genius. It might not quite be twelve million, but
I bet I bet they'll pay you at least nine.
On Sunday, several news organizations reported I had asked to
be taken off the anchor desk two months and one
week later, The New York Times wrote, quote, Keith Olberman,
the anchor of Countdown on MSNBC, has extended his contract
(37:43):
through the next presidential election season. The network announced mister
Olberman and MSNBC essentially tore up the four year, four
million dollar year contract they signed last year and replaced
it with one worth about seven and a half million
a year. Oh, that was a three and a half
million dollar raise for four years total of fourteen million dollars.
(38:09):
Except the new contract added two years to my old deal,
so the raise was actually twenty two million dollars. All
stories have a punchline. This punchline is about Tom Brokaw.
We would have gotten away with this cleanly. NBC would
have gotten its money's worth for the twenty two million
in hush money, which is what it was that it
(38:30):
had to pay me because I had agreed with them
rolling over for the Republican Party blackmail. Except Brokaw could
not keep his mouth shut. So proud was he of
preserving his role as the moderator of the October seventh
NBC debate that he had to explain in explicit detail
in public how he went to his bosses at NBC
(38:52):
News and threatened them on behalf of the GOP. On
September twenty ninth, two thousand and eight, a lengthy and
glowing Brokaw profile appeared in The New York Times. Quote
mister Brokaw said that over the summer he had quote
advocated within the executive suite of NBC News to modify
the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Alderman and
(39:14):
Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there
were presidential debates. Mister Brocass said he had also conducted
some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the
McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the
candidate's aids that despite some negative on air commentary by
mister Olberman in particular, mister McCain could still get a
(39:36):
fair shake from NBC News. Unquote, Oh, that was his mission,
the hell it was. Happily, Brocaw just could not resist
boasting even further. The next sentence actually reads quote, Mister
Brocass said he had been told by a senior McCain
(39:56):
aide whom he did not name, that the campaign had
been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of
the moderators of the three president debates until his name
was invoked. Quote. One of the things I was told
by this person was that they were so irritated. They said,
(40:16):
if it's an NBC moderator for any of these debates,
we won't go, mister Brokaw said, quoting him again. My
name came up and they said, oh, hell, we have
to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw. There
is a second punchline after all this, when the new
(40:36):
format came out and I was sitting there counting my money,
MSNBC had David Gregory quote anchor unquote the debate coverage.
David was terrific during this. Practically all this meant, anyway,
was that I was on the air until literally ninety
seconds before each debate began, which is when I said,
now here's David Gregory. And he was then on for
(40:57):
four or five minutes after the debate ended, which is
when he said, now here's Keith Olberman. And on Election
Night itself with David again formally anchoring per the Republican
blackmail at ten fifty nine pm. To his great credit
and to my eternal gratitude, David Gregory said, With the
last voting booth closing at eleven PM, NBC News can
(41:18):
now project the winner of the two thousand and eight
presidential election, Keith Bless him. Plus, I still have all
the money, I've done all the damage I can do.
(41:41):
Here to my throat, thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from our studios. Hiats off the Sports
Capsule building in New York. Here are the credits. Most
of the music arrange produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanel, who are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel. Guitars based
in drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tkobroks. Other Beethoven
(42:05):
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Oulderman theme from ESPN two,
which was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van zant At.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
(42:27):
for this, the nine hundred and seventy fourth day since
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants,
or as my throat infection permits till then, I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, good luck, and happy gargling.
(43:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I
call for the immediate arrest of congress Woman Marjorie Taylor Green,
(00:26):
representative of the fourteenth District of Georgia, under terms of
eighteen US Code eight seven to one threats against the
president and successors to the presidency. Green has posted to
social media video of an anti vax threat to harm
or kill Joe Biden made by a man, who, when
(00:47):
asked about that threat of personal violence, replied, I don't
regret nothing I said. I fing mean it. Bro and
Green's own ignorance of the federal code dealing with threats
against the president is no defense here. Eighteen US Code
eight seven to one quite clearly states that the threat
does not have to be firsthand. She does not have
(01:09):
to say it herself. She merely has to deliver it.
Though helpfully from my point of view, she began her
distribution and promulgation of the threat against Biden with her
own statement quote, I agree with this man. Unquote. This man,
a self described rapper named Ben Parker, has obviously made
(01:33):
a direct threat against Biden and needs to be arrested
himself today, But so does Marjorie Taylor Green. She has
danced along the cliff edge of political violence in this
country for years, and now she has endorsed presidential assassination quote.
I agree with this man. I'm hearing this exact sentiment
(01:57):
from everyone I know. Marjorie Taylor Green has now fallen
off that cliff edge of political violence, and her threats
can no longer be tolerated, and she can no longer
be tolerated. She must be arrested now. With a warning
about the strong, strong language. This is part of the
(02:18):
deranged anti vaccination video by the man calling himself Ben Parker,
which Marjorie Taylor Green posted on Twitter on her congressional account,
not retweeted it, she has posted it under her own name,
and which again she has prefaced with the quote, I
(02:38):
agree with this man.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
A Joe Biden literally saying, y'all need to come They
need to come up with a new vat scene, and
they need to come up with a way that people
have to take it.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
No matter what. I'm gonna explain something very fucking clear
to you.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
If the Democrat Party and the Joe Biden administration, I'm
motherfucking serious right now, This ain't no threat.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
This ain't no nothing. This is a fucking prompt.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
If you think for one second you're gonna force me
to take any fucking thing that you tell me to do,
I will fuck you up, homie, You and whatever motherfucking
army you send in the process.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I want you to think you gonna make me take
some shit. Joe. Now see other lines you crossed.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I ain't say shit, but this the line you cross it, bitch,
make me I'm willing to die about.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
This shit again. Marjorie Taylor Green posted a five minute
video version of that slime and wrote, quote, I agree
with this man. Eighteen US Code eight seven to one.
Threats against the President and successors to the presidency reads,
in part, whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in
(03:55):
the mail, or for a delivery from any post office,
or by any letter carrier, any letter, paper, writing, print, missive,
or die document containing any threat to take the life of,
to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President
of the United States, the President elect, the Vice president,
or other officer next in the order of succession to
(04:17):
the office of President of the United States, or the
Vice president elect or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any
such threat against the President, president elect, vice president, or
other officer next in the order of succession to the
office of President or vice president elect shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than five years,
(04:39):
or both unquote. Arrest Marjorie Taylor Green today and this
Ben Parka. He has posted a second video which uses
the Green tweet as his video background. I don't know
(05:00):
that you or I need to hear him again. I
don't know that the Secrets needs to hear him again. Quote.
I appreciate everywhere my video is going, he says, I
appreciate every effing person that's reposting my video because guess what, Joe,
I don't know where the f you at and I
can't get near you. But I'm not that mother effer.
(05:23):
It'll be a cold day in hell unquote. So arrest
this man on two charges of threatening the life of
the President of the United States. After eight years of
letting the psychopaths and sociopaths of this nation leech the
moral fiber out of our government, out of our culture,
(05:43):
out of our baseline of what is acceptable and what
is not, we must finally say enough. This creature Green
is a clear and present danger to the President and
indeed all the members of his party, politicians and civilians
like and her willingness to traffic in violence and the
threat of violence is danger to the United States of
(06:06):
America itself and especially going is that just two weeks ago,
a New York man was sentenced to three months in
jail for leaving multiple threatening voicemails towards Marjorie Taylor Green.
And her reaction was not to say I agree with
this man, not to say she's heard this sentiment everywhere,
(06:29):
not to waive the free speech flag and the political
rights flag in which she so often wraps herself and
her fellow insurrectionists, but to complain that that sentence was
too lenient, and she was right, and the sentence against
Marjorie Taylor Green, the co conspirator handling the publication and
(06:51):
promulgation side of the threat to harm or kill the
President of the United States made by the man who
calls himself Ben Parker, that sentence should also be as
severe as eighteen US Code eight seven one allows five years.
With Trump willing to use any means to regain power
in this nation, any means the sooner we begin finally
(07:14):
to take action against those who use political violence or
the threat of it, to try to intimidate and manipulate
this country at its good citizens, the better. And we
can only do that with the proverbial short sharp shock
and charging this deranged, dangerous, irresponsible, fantasy driven mediocrity would
(07:35):
be an excellent start. Arrest Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green today,
because surprise, surprise, sometimes the justice system works. The Trumpest
insurrectionist Henry Tario, who calls himself Enrique, and on whom
(07:59):
it continues to seem it has never dawned that he
is exactly the kind of person the Trumpests want to
expel from this country, was sentenced yesterday to twenty two
years in prison after his conviction on siditious conspiracy. The
judge invoked the terrorism sentencing enhancement. Tario was the head
of the Proud Boys, who are looking both for a
(08:22):
new leader and after four of their members were sentenced
to a combined sixty four years, probably a new name
to inscribe over their clubhouse door and among those actively
and currently undermining the government of the United States of America.
Not so much a truth leak as a truth explosion
from a Washington television studio yesterday when the Secretaries of
(08:44):
the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force vivisected Senator
Tommy I'm all ears Tubberville over his continuing interference with
military defense placing holds on the confirmation of more than
three hundred promotions. They had written an op ed accusing
him of putting our national security at risk. But that
(09:06):
was nothing compared to my new hero, Secretary of the Navy,
Carlos del Toro, who was born in Cuba, and who
said yesterday, for someone who was born in a communist country,
I would never have imagined that actually one of our
own senators would actually be aiding and a betting communists
(09:29):
and other autocratic regimes around the world. He directly accused
Senator Tuberville of aiding and the betting communists, and of
course by that he means China aiding and betting communists.
(09:52):
A Senator Dumbo, could you hear that it has been
noted that Enrique Tarrio's sentenced twenty two years is now
the record for any January sixth defendant. But I would
like to note that the favorite in this tournament probably
hits last Trump. This obviously is separate from the issue
(10:17):
I underscored yesterday Trump's sudden, panicky discovery of the fourteenth Amendment.
You can hear him, can't you wait? There's a fourteenth Amendment.
Trump may have moved on to his next ingenious fantasy
that Jack Smith not only destroyed January sixth Committee evidence,
but he destroyed the evidence that exonerated Trump. Again. Trump
(10:38):
could not have come up with a more ludicrous theory
if he had eaten a box of magic mushrooms or
borrowed something from his son. But it is ingenious and
his idiots will believe it, even though, as usual, he
spoiled it by writing at the end of his post
quote dismiss suit, which underscores the Trumpian panic. I noted yesterday,
(10:59):
It's not a suit, it's a case. This is not
a civil suit on trial. You'd think that if you
had spent your life in courtrooms, you would have noticed that.
Then again, the blooper could have owed to sheer volume.
By eight pm last night, Trump had made no less
than fifty eight separate posts on his social media site.
(11:23):
I guess he has to to interrupt the ads for
gold and the Terrible truth of Tommy Chong. Trying to
identify specific causes for each of Trump's spasms of public
irrationality is like trying not only to number each rain drop,
but to give each one of them a name. Still,
(11:44):
I cannot shake this idea that his latest step away
from reality tracks back to that Wall Street Journal editorial
Monday night about the fourteenth Amendment. I am confident it
is the first time anything like this has ever occurred
to him. Well, god knows, fourteen three is now the
number of the month in journalism. The Washington Post had
lengthy and useful analysis of the process by which disqualification
(12:08):
could be pursued legally New Jersey and Illinois. The Post
notes have administrative agencies in place to assess a candidate's eligibility,
and you, the voter at home, can trigger it. In Pennsylvania, you, Joe,
local voter, have seven days after it would be candidate
applies to be on the ballot there to challenge his
eligibility in Pennsylvania. Of most use in the Greg Sergeant piece,
(12:31):
he quotes sources that say that the long awaited legal
actions to enforce fourteen three against Trump by citizens for
responsibility and ethics in Washington Crew and free speech for
people will take place this fall, which is less of
askew when you realize right fall starts in seventeen days. Sergeant,
(12:53):
though also healthfully quotes Notre Dame law professor Derek Muller
seriously he had to quote one named Muller. Professor Muller
says that while many state Supreme court where it may
rule Trump eligible or ineligible based on their own laws
and the court's interpretation of fourteen to three quote, the
odds are high that at least one gets to the
(13:14):
merits and decides whether Trump participated in an insurrection that
disqualifies him. Muller says that decision at a state Supreme
court level will be easily appealed to the Federal Supreme Court,
which is not an automatic l if the case gets there.
While Alito and Thomas are on a plane with Harland
(13:36):
Crow over the North Pole or something much more practical.
Information was supplied by a state roundup put together at
Talking Points Memo yesterday, Ohio with a wildly smarmy Trumpist
as Secretary of State dismisses fourteen to three as a
quote fringe legal theory like democracy New Mexico spokesman for
(13:58):
the Secretary of State Oliver we are aware of and
reviewing the legal theories regarding the fourteenth Amendment that conclude
Trump is ineligible to run for president. Any determination about
a specific candidate's eligibility for the ballot will be made
after the candidate filing day in February. Wisconsin and North
Carolina said nothing has been brought to their attention, so
(14:19):
they have nothing to comment on. Arizona's secretary has basically
suggested he will have to wait until somebody sues him
to keep Trump off. Most interesting of all was the
response on a podcast from Michigan's Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Secretaries of states of multiple states, she says, are having conversations.
(14:41):
I'm talking with folks in Pennsylvania, with the secretary of
State in Nevada, and even in Maine, people in Georgia.
Of course, my colleague Brad Raffinsburger, just to get a
sense of what the facts are. She added that a
group of states quote likely need to act in concert
if we act at all. And yes, you just saw
(15:03):
it off on the Horai. Brad Raffensberger gets that rarest
of things the second bite of the apple, the apple
being Trump's backside. Yet it was Greg Sergeant in the
Washington Post who raised inadvertently a critical point quoting them again,
(15:24):
Some argue that citizen challenges risk undermining Trump voter's faith
in our institutions unquote. Wait, what Trump's brand is undermining
faith in our institutions? He attempted to illegally and unconstitutionally
retain power by undermining faith in our institutions weekly, daily, hourly.
(15:49):
He still demands that his cultists maintain the fiction that
he had an election stolen from him by undermining faith
in our institutions. How can actions based on an amendment
to the Constitution that was ratified one hundred and fifty
five years ago undermine Trump voter's faith in our institutions,
(16:10):
even if they somehow really do have any faith left
in the institutions of the United States of America, as
urinated on for eight years without a break by their
Lord and Master. My thanks, by the way to the
(16:32):
Midas Touch Network for bringing the Marjorie Taylor Green threat
towards President Biden to my attention. Also of interest here
if I sound a little different, Yeah, throat infection I'm
going to barely make the finish line here by doing
just a new worst Person's list and then an anniversary
for things I promised not to tell and in the
(16:53):
Worst Persons. Yeah, the Saudis are trying to manipulate the
oil supply in order to interfere with the election. So
here's an idea. Let's cut them off, diplomatically, freeze their
worthless assets in this country, keep their money, and cut
them off. That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Still ahead on Countdown. As I mentioned, throat bad better
than I thought, but I'm still going to shorten the
back half of the podcast. This is more of a
struggle than it sounds. That's why I get the big bucks.
So there will be a things I promised not to tell,
and it's timely. Yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of the
(17:51):
night the Republican Party and Tom Brokaw got me fired
as the co anchor of MSNBC's two thousand and eight
presidential debate coverage because the Republicans told Brokaw do this
or McCain will not show up for that debate. You
inherited when Tim Russert died, and Brokaw really wanted a
second career at NBC after Brian Williams had buried his
(18:13):
first career at NBC Alive plus I got enough voice
left to give you the daily roundup of the miss grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. The Bronze Anthony Rendon, third basement
of Baseball's Los Angeles Angels. Well, we think that's still
(18:33):
his job. He's played in exactly two hundred games since,
having signed a seven year, two hundred and forty five
million contract as a free agent in twenty twenty. It's
two hundred games four years. What is that, it's like
fifty a year. It's not a lot. Athletes get hurt
all the time, and next to none of them, next
(18:54):
to none of them are malingerers. Nothing rends and athlete's
soul more or more quickly than when his body betrays
him having a sore throat throughout your body. On the
other hand, a high priced athlete who has a series
of devastating injuries has an obligation to understand that he's
not the only one interested in his own health. Spotted
(19:17):
in the team's clubhouse Tuesday, Rendon was asked for an
injury update. His answer, no, abla ingles today, and then
he left the clubhouse. Everybody has a bad day, and
you do get tired of talking about it. On the
other hand, on August sixth of this year, when he
was asked how he was doing, Anthony Rendon answered that
(19:37):
since he was on the quote dead list unquote, he
doesn't have to do interviews anymore, and then he left
the clubhouse. On July nineteenth, Rendon was asked by reporters
how he was feeling, and he answered, quote, I'm not here,
and then he left the clubhouse. On June twenty ninth,
Rendon was asked by reporters how his wrist was doing,
and he replied, I have two and then he left
(20:00):
the clubhouse. By the way, the Los Angeles Angels of
Anthony Rendon took their team photo yesterday. The injury ridden
Shohe Otani will appear in the finished product, though he
was not actually in the photograph as it was taken.
They used per reporters on the scene a body double,
(20:21):
and they will photo shop Otani in later Fun Group
runner up Glenn Kessler fact checker of The Washington Post
that's a brand name. Fact checker. Kessler has devoted oney
nine hundred and eleven words to criticizing Joe Biden's anecdotes
because the details sometimes vary or are not precisely true.
(20:44):
He gets on Biden telling the Milwaukee audience this year
that he was born in the same hospital at which
his grandfather had died just before he was born. That is,
just before Biden was born. In fact, one of his
grandfathers did die fourteen months before Biden was born, but
it was at a different hospital. The other one died
fifteen years later at the same hospital at which the
(21:06):
president was born. There are about a dozen of these
stories in the Kessler article, including one in which, as
a boy, Biden sees two gay men in suits kissing
in Delaware, and he asks his father to explain this
and is told it's simple, they love each other. Kesser writes, quote,
he describes this exchange with his father usually is taking
(21:26):
place in nineteen sixty one, but back then gay men
generally did not kiss in public. Many people regarded homosexuality
as deviant unquote. These and similar Kessalarian facts earned the
president this headline in the Washington Effing Post, Biden loves
to retell certain stories, some aren't credible. The irony here,
(21:50):
of course, is anybody reading the story would then think
of the number of times they have heard family members
conflate grandfathers, or add or subtract details from a sixty
year old anecdote, or done it themselves. There's also no
mention in the piece of Biden's history as a stutterer,
and the fact that in the stress of public speaking,
(22:11):
not only do details often get confused, but random words
sometimes appear unintentionally in a person's speech. In fact, nearly
all of Kessler's analyzes of nearly all of Biden's stories
in the article are interpretations. They're not fact checking, so
that when Kessler writes the piece and identifies himself as
quote the fact checker, that isn't credible and it's not factual.
(22:36):
But our winner. Prince Muhammed Ben Salman and the dictatorship
of Saudi Arabia. Starting in July, it cut oil production
by a million barrels a day on a month by
month basis. It has now extended that to the rest
of the year. Little imagination is required to understand why
Saudi Arabia has done this. Six months after the Trump
regime fell in this country, Ben Salmon gave Jared Kushner
(23:00):
two billion dollars in investment money, and ever since, Saudi
Arabia has worked against Biden and against the Democrats in
hopes of getting Trump re elected. Their most direct contribution
raise American gas prices and maybe even cause a shortage
so Trump can blame Biden for it. What Biden should
do is cut off relations with the Saudis. That nation
(23:22):
enabled nine to eleven, and a recently released FBI report
indicates a Saudi diplomat assigned an employee to look out
for two of the hijackers when they arrived in Los
Angeles in two thousand. The Saudis have been interfering with
our economy, with our nation since the nineteen seventies. They
assassinated and cut up the body of a Washington Post journalist.
(23:42):
They have now purchased the American golf tour so they
can sports wash their money and their evil, and frankly,
other than their gasoline, they have absolutely no value to
this nation. So maybe what President Biden could do would
be to declare the climate emergency. Somebody is going to
have to declare maybe this president, maybe this year, and
at this rate, maybe this month, and pull us the
(24:05):
Saudi's fifth biggest oil customer, out of their gas bank roll.
Oh and then shut off diplomatic relationships with them, freeze
their money here, blocked the golf sale, and generally f
them anyway possible. Prince Muhammed bin Salmon and the dictatorship
of Saudi Arabia economic terrorists. Two days worst persons.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
In the world.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Finally our number one story on the countdown and my
favorite topic me. I missed the exact anniversary by day,
but it's close enough. The demand for spots in the
Shae Stadium press box that night was so great that
there was a signed seating. I had no real reason
to be there, but as usual, the New York Mets
took care of me, and so on Friday, the fifth
(25:03):
of September two and eight, I was shouldered to shoulder
with reporter friends watching the Mets begin to blow their
three game Pennant race lead against the Philadelphia Phillyes. Sorry
Mets fans for bringing this up again. Brett Myers had
just struck out New York's David Wright looking when my
phone rang. It was my agent, Gene Sage. They just called.
She said, flatly, you and Matthews have been fired from
(25:26):
anchoring the presidential debates because of what you said. What
I had said had been said. Three nights previously, Chris
Matthews and I were co anchoring the Republican Convention on MSNBC.
He was there in Minneapolis. I was in the studios
in New York, ostensibly so I could also anchor hurricane coverage,
although it was pretty clear that at least half the
(25:47):
reason I was not in Minneapolis was because the Republicans
had threatened NBC or said they couldn't guarantee my safety
or something like that, and NBC folded. So I was
the one during MSNBC's coverage of the two thousand and
eight Republican Convention who had to throw it to a
video they were introducing that we had been told by
(26:07):
the Republicans was a quote tribute to the dead of
nine to eleven. It was, in fact a snuff film.
All of the images that all of the networks had
stopped showing within weeks or even days of the attacks,
all of those images were in this video, people jumping
and falling to their deaths from the World Trade Center
(26:28):
on nine to eleven, endless replays of the planes hitting
the towers, dismembered bodies in the plaza, the building collapses,
the equally terrifying scenes at the Pentagon, and all with
a grotesque Robert Dove voiceover emphasizing that this was all
the Democrats fault. The message was simple, elect Obama and
(26:50):
you will die like this. I was angry just on
that base level. For the five and a half years
I had been back at MSNBC, we had been rigorous
about not showing any.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
Of that video.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
There were rules that if we had had to for
some reason, we should show only the skill images, and
even then only with extensive warnings to the viewers. But
I knew from my conversations with the president of MSNBC,
Phil Griffin, who I'd only known for twenty eight years
at that point, that he would insist that on the
scene in Minneapolis, Matthews and Tom Brokaw, whose career at
NBC I had resurrected after Brian Williams had buried him
(27:26):
alive two years earlier, that one or both of them
would rebuke the GOP for showing not a nine to
eleven tribute, but as I just said, a nine to
eleven snuff film. The video ended, and we came out
to Brokaw with Matthews, and Brokaw kind of coughed, and
Matthews said wow. And he turned to Brokaw and said,
(27:48):
in that loose fire hose delivery of his tom that
kind of Hunderscorn's terrorism. Big thing for Republicans, says they
Tristop Obama. Brocaw droned on approvingly, the Republicans sneaking a
snuff film, a banned video, onto MSNBC and by the way,
also onto CNN, onto NBC, onto CBS, onto ABC without
(28:10):
any warning. That was not mentioned by Brokaw or Matthews.
Back to New York and Keith. I was supposed to
add liberates about what we were expecting from the Republican
convention for the rest of the night and then throw
to a commercial. Instead, I said, and this is a paraphrase,
the original tape disappeared that night that before we moved on,
(28:30):
I felt I needed to apologize that we at MSNBC
and for that matter, NBC News had extremely strict rules
about not showing that video. The Republicans had just shown
you without any warning, without any context, and we certainly
would not have shown the horror and death and blamed
it on the Democrats, or for that matter, blamed it
on the Republicans. I said, if we had done such
(28:50):
a thing ourselves, there would have been people fired at
NBC News. The public program the GOP provided said that
was going to be a nine to eleven tribute film,
I said, and so did the private conversations with the network,
which included the reminder from NBC and MSNBC that we
had rules against showing the scenes of the horrible death,
the mutilation, and destruction. So I apologized on behalf of
(29:13):
whoever trusted the Republicans to live up to their word
that MSNBC viewers were forced to see the video our
network had long before vowed never to show again. So
three nights later, without as much as an email, this
Griffin guy had called my agent and told her I
was fired Matthews two from our further coverage of the
(29:35):
upcoming McGain Obama debates. She related these details to me
as I walked down the many ramps in the back
of Shaye Stadium towards the subway. I told her to
call Griffin back and tell him I had quit on
the spot right then, and he could work his way
out of the ensuing disaster. Liberal network MSNBC fires liberal
host Olberman for criticizing conservatives for sneaking nine to eleven
(29:58):
snuff film onto MSNBC. He could figure that out any
way he wanted, and he could hear my response on
I DON Morning America, CBS, This Morning, the PBS News Hour,
and any other news program that bothered to ask me
to stop by and talk. I phoned my live in girlfriend,
Katie Turr and told her I was on my way home,
and I made a few phone calls to friendly voices
(30:20):
within the NBC management structure and got from them a
clear picture of what had happened. And despite the spotty
cell service along the elevated line heading back to Manhattan,
I got a message from a newspaper reporter friend who
neatly tied together all that I was hearing elsewhere. Tom
Brokaw is going around NBC saying he got you fired
from the debates because the Republicans told him to. Nine
(30:44):
maybe ten months earlier, Phil Griffin had come to me
and asked me if I would be okay with this
guy who had been kind of disappeared by the network.
Tom Brokaw was his name appearing during our weekly coverage
of the Democratic and Republican primaries. Just a couple of minutes,
like from a prospective desk. That's all he wants to do.
(31:05):
He's really Tom's really unhappy Brian has frozen him out
of everything. Brian Williams. Of course, I was appalled, but
not surprised. The power had gone to Brian's head, and
of course there it had not met much resistance. Plus,
as I said to Griffin, you're asking me if I'd
like to add Tom Brokaw's experience and Tom Brocaw's gravitas
(31:28):
to stuff I'm anchoring when I'm not sure I know
as much as I really need to know to do
this right. You're asking me this. Tom fit in beautifully,
and twice after those long Tuesday evenings in the primary season,
he sent me brief emails awarding me what he called
the game ball because he was so impressed by my
ability to balance the roles of political anchor and political commentator,
(31:51):
having tried this myself. One of them read, I know
what a perilous tight rupeless is. Game Ball to Ko,
I'm mocking him now, but these meant so much to me.
I printed the emails out and carried them in my wallet.
And now he was claiming he had gotten me fired because,
as my newspaper friend said, the Republicans told him to.
(32:15):
That was not hard to unpack either. Tim Russard had
died on June third of that year. I anchored that
night until two in the morning. It was still an
open wound, there were still tears. We didn't know it then,
but the structure of NBC News and the perilous tie
group balancing NBC and MSNBC had died with Tim Russard.
(32:35):
So did the role of moderator of the second debate
between John McCain and Barack Obama, scheduled for about a
month after my subway ride on October seventh in Nashville.
Tim had not even been buried yet when Brokaw began
to angle to get that assignment, along with brushing away
the dirt of his penny Ante role on the MSNBC
Perspective desk, we never saw him again in order that
(32:57):
he could take Tim's spot as Brian Williams sidekick on
Big NBC. The month before August. It was a story
coming out of the east end of the third floor
at thirty Rock, where NBC News management sat around not
doing much of anything, that a Republican goon named Ed
Gillespie had been in there with Griffin and the NBC
News president Steve Cappus trying to get me silenced or
(33:20):
fired or off the convention coverage or something, and that
somebody prominent within NBC News was in there with Gillespie
or was invoked by Gillespie. The rumor mill wasn't certain.
As I switched from the elevated seven train to the
underground F train. The whole thing came together before my
comments about the GOP Convention nine to eleven snuff film.
(33:42):
Ed Gillespie had come in and had somehow vaguely threatened
Cappus and Griffin about me using as leverage the debate
which Tom Brocall was now supposed to moderate, and when
I apologized for their video on our air, Gillespie must
have turned it into an either or get rid of
me or McCain would refuse to participate in any debate
(34:05):
moderated by Brokaw or anybody from NBC News, and Brokaw
had already come back from the dead once in two
thousand and eight, and he would be damned if he
would be forced to do it a second time. But
as the train took me home to an apartment, I
was now going to have to sell since I had
just quit MSNBC on the spot for folding to such
(34:26):
obvious Republican blackmail, something else now occurred to me. Why
would MSNBC or NBC or our parent corporation at the time,
ge actually think that they could remove me from the
debate coverage on MSNBC, where the Rachil Meadow Show had
yet to be born, and the three times a night
my show ran accounted for something like sixty percent of
(34:48):
the entire day's network audience, and do that without getting
a really bad reaction from our audience. Plus, if a
newspaper man already knew the Brokaw part, how could this
story be avoided? MSNBC she announced it had removed its
liberal star Keith Alderman from coverage of the McCain Obama
(35:09):
presidential debates. Sources confirmed former NBC News anchorman Tom Brokaw,
now an MSNBC commentator on Olberman's coverage, had helped the
Republican Party to blackmail NBC into the decision. Olderman immediately resigned, saying,
quote in succumbing to this coercion on behalf of John McCain,
NBC has now forfeited any right to further be called
(35:30):
a news organization, and I'm sad to say MSNBC, which
I built, is now dead. My god, MSNBC an NBC
News for that matter, would have committed corporate suicide before
the weekend was over. At that point, it dawned on
me that the only thing that could save the credibility
of the whole news division and the careers of Griffin
(35:51):
and Kappus, an NBC Network president Jeff Zucker, and especially
the career of Tom Brokaw was for me to publicly
state that I had asked to be removed from anchoring
the debates because the whatever was just too much blah
blah blah for me, and I felt I should stick
to the post debate analysis and commentary. NBC would now
(36:14):
have a choice. They could fire me from the debates
and destroy everything, including the one hundred million dollars a
year or so in profit that NBC made off MSNBC,
or I could you know why and claim it was
my idea and save everybody's ass, including my own. I
got out of the subway and raced home. Katie met
(36:36):
me at the door with a big hug. She had
been crying. Relax, I said, I'm not quitting. In fact,
I'm going to get a huge raise. Now, listen carefully.
I called my agent and I explained the idea that
had lit over my head on the subway like a
light bulb to both of them. I said, you call
Phil Griffin back and explain to him that I will
personally save his job and Steve Campus's and Jeff Sooker's
(37:00):
and Tom Brokaw's and everybody else's. I'll take the fall
instead of letting them all get fired by the MSNBC audience.
I'll say this was my idea, and all it will
cost Phil is twelve million dollars. And he has to
leak the term so everybody knows it cost him twelve
million dollars. And she paused for a second and said,
(37:22):
it's genius. It might not quite be twelve million, but
I bet I bet they'll pay you at least nine.
On Sunday, several news organizations reported I had asked to
be taken off the anchor desk two months and one
week later, The New York Times wrote, quote, Keith Olberman,
the anchor of Countdown on MSNBC, has extended his contract
(37:43):
through the next presidential election season. The network announced mister
Olberman and MSNBC essentially tore up the four year, four
million dollar year contract they signed last year and replaced
it with one worth about seven and a half million
a year. Oh, that was a three and a half
million dollar raise for four years total of fourteen million dollars.
(38:09):
Except the new contract added two years to my old deal,
so the raise was actually twenty two million dollars. All
stories have a punchline. This punchline is about Tom Brokaw.
We would have gotten away with this cleanly. NBC would
have gotten its money's worth for the twenty two million
in hush money, which is what it was that it
(38:30):
had to pay me because I had agreed with them
rolling over for the Republican Party blackmail. Except Brokaw could
not keep his mouth shut. So proud was he of
preserving his role as the moderator of the October seventh
NBC debate that he had to explain in explicit detail
in public how he went to his bosses at NBC
(38:52):
News and threatened them on behalf of the GOP. On
September twenty ninth, two thousand and eight, a lengthy and
glowing Brokaw profile appeared in The New York Times. Quote
mister Brokaw said that over the summer he had quote
advocated within the executive suite of NBC News to modify
the anchor duties of the MSNBC hosts Keith Alderman and
(39:14):
Chris Matthews on election night and on nights when there
were presidential debates. Mister Brocass said he had also conducted
some shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks between NBC and the
McCain campaign. His mission, he said, was to assure the
candidate's aids that despite some negative on air commentary by
mister Olberman in particular, mister McCain could still get a
(39:36):
fair shake from NBC News. Unquote, Oh, that was his mission,
the hell it was. Happily, Brocaw just could not resist
boasting even further. The next sentence actually reads quote, Mister
Brocass said he had been told by a senior McCain
(39:56):
aide whom he did not name, that the campaign had
been reluctant to accept an NBC representative as one of
the moderators of the three president debates until his name
was invoked. Quote. One of the things I was told
by this person was that they were so irritated. They said,
(40:16):
if it's an NBC moderator for any of these debates,
we won't go, mister Brokaw said, quoting him again. My
name came up and they said, oh, hell, we have
to do it, because it's going to be Brokaw. There
is a second punchline after all this, when the new
(40:36):
format came out and I was sitting there counting my money,
MSNBC had David Gregory quote anchor unquote the debate coverage.
David was terrific during this. Practically all this meant, anyway,
was that I was on the air until literally ninety
seconds before each debate began, which is when I said,
now here's David Gregory. And he was then on for
(40:57):
four or five minutes after the debate ended, which is
when he said, now here's Keith Olberman. And on Election
Night itself with David again formally anchoring per the Republican
blackmail at ten fifty nine pm. To his great credit
and to my eternal gratitude, David Gregory said, With the
last voting booth closing at eleven PM, NBC News can
(41:18):
now project the winner of the two thousand and eight
presidential election, Keith Bless him. Plus, I still have all
the money, I've done all the damage I can do.
(41:41):
Here to my throat, thank you for listening. Countdown has
come to you from our studios. Hiats off the Sports
Capsule building in New York. Here are the credits. Most
of the music arrange produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanel, who are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel. Guitars based
in drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tkobroks. Other Beethoven
(42:05):
selections have been arranged and performed by the group No
Horns Allowed. Sports music is the Oulderman theme from ESPN two,
which was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Stevie van zant At.
Everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
(42:27):
for this, the nine hundred and seventy fourth day since
Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government
of the United States. Convict him now while we still can.
The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants,
or as my throat infection permits till then, I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, good luck, and happy gargling.
(43:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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Host
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