October 31, 2022 • 44 mins
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Arrest the stochastic terrorists who instigated the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi on Friday. 18 USC 871, punishing threats against those in the presidential success, will suffice for Marjorie Taylor Greene, on video from 2019 (5:41) And Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Emmer, who tweeted video of himself firing a weapon, with the hashtag "#FirePelosi (6:49) The GOP has been encouraging violence against Pelosi since 2010 (8:00) It got a gift to help satisfy its own adherents and gaslight others when Bay Area TV reporter Evan Sernoffsky falsely reported the assailant was wearing only underwear. All references to this stem from this terrible journalism, and none carry Sernoffsky's retraction (9:15) And then came the Elon Musk tweet spreading a nonsensical conspiracy theory from a pretend news outlet around the world (10:30) The GOP's effort to work the refs has produced results, especially in convincing media to pretend the party's use of the threat of violence is something new (11:00) Just my own experience, as a victim of four fake anthrax mailings in 2006 because I criticized Bush, and being on the second wave list of the "MAGA-Bomber" in 2018 for criticizing Trump, underscores how widespread this tactic has been. (15:15) And then there is the last component. How can the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of this world be sure that everybody they encourage to use violence is a Republican, and every one of the victims will be a Democrat - and not the other way around?
B-Block (19:20) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Droolius Caesar, in New York (20:22) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Lula wins, why did the DOJ add a Terror prosecutor to the Trump Documents team, the Mastriano confession, Musk charging for blue checks? (23:55) IN SPORTS: Did you see the perfect game in the World Series Saturday? And the Qataris celebrating the LGBTQ boycott of the World Cup (28:28) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The new UK PM gets roasted by a patient at a hospital photo op. He and Tom Cotton compete with the Kansas candidate who implied Tiger Woods killed a cop for the "honors."
C-Block (33:36) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day Brian Williams lied about Iraq but I thought I was the one going crazy, then the day I tried to save Brian Williams; then the day the president of NBC News explained why they didn't - and couldn't - fire him.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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 I Heart Radio.
It is time to arrest Marjorie Taylor Green for her
(00:28):
two thousand, nineteen violations of eighteen United States Code seven
one threats against president and successors to the presidency. Stochastic
terrorists like Marjorie Taylor Green had to be stopped now
before something they inspired, something they publicly advocated, something they
asked for happens happens again. The Republicans have spent every
(00:54):
hour since the assassination attempt at Nancy Pelosi's home Friday,
gas lighting, truther ring both sides, NG what abouting, conspiracy
theory mongering and its sploiting the weak minded like Elon Musk.
Their enormous desperate effort has clearly worked. The New York
Times has shamed itself by downplaying the attack, and countless
(01:17):
Democrats have been too weak need to call it what
it was, an assassination attempt on the person who is
second in line in the presidential succession that is outlined
in eighteen US Code eight seven one. An assassination attempt
inspired and invoked a fused, prepared and lit by Republicans
(01:37):
running the gamut from the head of the party's congressional
campaign committee to a dangerous, deranged, fascistic creature who is
truly the scum of the earth. Marjorie Taylor Green might
as well have been in Nancy Pelosi's house handing David
de Pappi the bag full of duct tape and the
zip ties and the hammer. Marjorie Taylor Green rose to
(02:02):
prominence by threatening Nancy Pelosi by violating eighteen United States
Code eight seven one, by telling crowds quote, it's a
crime punishable by death, is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi
is guilty of treason, and she is a trader, and
she's dying in Congress or in one video she posted
(02:25):
to Facebook in January two tho nineteen and then mysteriously
deleted later saying all of that all at the same time,
she's a trader to our country. She's guilty of treason.
Took a note to protect American citizens and uphold our laws,
and she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who
(02:46):
illegally invade our land. That's what treason is. And by
our law, representatives and senators can be kicked out and
no longer serve in our government. And it's a It's
a crime punishable by death, is what treason is. Any
fuzzy is guilty of treason and we want her. She's
(03:11):
held hers the of power for thirty two years years old.
He is dying. In Congress eighteen, United States Code eight
seven one was written originally about threats made by mail,
but it has been expanded. It says that whoever makes
quote any threat to take the life of, to kidnap,
(03:31):
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 the office
of president, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than five years or both. That's Marjorie Taylor Green.
All that is missing is the imbecilic smile. Arrest her.
(03:56):
What was that Facebook video if not a strain of
direct threats? And how much longer do we have to
indulge people like Green who try to by ore others
to do the violent work for them. How many Republicans
are we going to let reach the David Dipappe's of
this country stochastically so that they go out and hunt
Nancy Pelosi or Gavin Newsom or me or you, how
(04:20):
much longer do we have to indulge? Tom Emmer? Five
days ago, Tom Emmer, the chairman of the nrc C,
the National Republican Congressional Committee, it's chief campaign body for
the congressional seats, tweeted video of himself that sounded like this.
(04:46):
To that accompaniment, tom Emmer wrote, enjoyed exercising my Second
Amendment rights hashtag fire Pelosi. Tom Emmer has evaded answering
the obvious question where the gun and the Pelosi hashtag connected.
He doesn't have to add true it. He doesn't have
to waste time. Of course they are. If they weren't,
(05:09):
why would you have her name Pelosi as the last
word placed directly above the video of you firing a
gun at a shooting range. Arrest Tom Emmer, There is
no mystery to this. The Republicans have spent more than
a decade demonizing Nancy Pelosi. They made a fire Pelosi
video of her in two thousand ten, her face engulfed
(05:31):
in flames. Taylor Greene got elected by threatening her life.
Their brown shirts breached the Capitol channing where's Nancy, just
as De Pappy chanted it last Friday. They have been
hunting her, and on Friday one of them nearly caught
her and instead caught her husband and sent him into
surgery by changing plans from securing him with zip ties
(05:54):
and duct tape until Pelosi got home and then doing
the same to her and worse thereafter. And in the
wake of the years of irrefutable cause and effect evidence,
the Republicans play dumb. It comes naturally to them. Tom
Emer's tweet onson about shooting Nancy, Well, of course not.
(06:18):
It was about the Second Amendment. And anyway, what about
Steve Scalise and bred Cavanaugh And crime is terrible in
San Francisco, and that's a Democrats city, and a Democrats say,
this just proves our point. You know, who's really responsible
for the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi and
the soft on crime Democrats. But then they still had
(06:40):
to come up with something, anything, that could turn the
hard evidence of the crime into something anything else. And
in this they were aided by a sloppy, lousy reporter
in his third year at the Fox station in the
Bay Area. His name is Evan Surnovski, and Friday, he
quoted sources as saying that David de Pappi was found
(07:01):
in the Pelosi home wearing only his underwear. Air. This
was the only person to report that everybody who repeated
it was repeating the work of Evans Snowsky. None of
them are repeating Evan Snowski's retraction quote. I'm now told
by other sources that the Pappi was not dressed only
(07:21):
in underwear. Working to clarify, not working hard enough, Mr Sinofsky.
If you need to reassess your career choice, this is
too complicated for you. The right wing grabbed the Snowsky
fake detail and concocted the kind of nonsensical fantasy that
would satisfy their supporters, who live all the days of
their lives in a world of nonsensical fantasy. And then
(07:45):
the coup de gras came from another stupid man with money,
money that originated in the world of apartheid South Africa,
and the Zambian Emerald mine E lawn Musk, too stupid
or too amoral to know what he was doing or both,
tweet it out the conspiracy theory, adding his own additional
(08:08):
ounce of personalized idiocy. There's a tiny possibility there may
be more to this story than meets the eye. Now
there it was a link to a right wing troll site,
a fake newspaper so notorious and more importantly, so obvious
that it once posted that Hillary Clinton had died and
had been replaced for a debate by a body double,
(08:31):
once posted the Trump had appointed Kanye West to the
Department of the Interior, once posted that Bill Gates caused polio,
once posted that COVID nineteen could be cured with sunlight.
Good enough freelon Musk. Musk sent this around the world,
waited seven hours to delete it, said nothing when he
(08:52):
did delete it, and when called on hit, he mocked
those who caught him in such an egregious violation of
the content rules that he says are still in force
on Twitter, that the tweet by itself should have gotten
him sus ended by himself. Hidden behind the more obvious
elements of this nightmare, which is the new Republican Fascist
(09:15):
Party in microcosm and watched at fast forward speed, violence, threats, denial,
conspiracy theory, fantasy, all in one weekend, is something almost
as risky as that Republican Fascist Party in Microcosm. Much
of the mainstream coverage of the assassination attempt has not
only not called it, that has not only posited that
(09:36):
both sides do this and everybody just needs to simmer down,
but worst of all, suggests that this main streaming of
political violence or the threat of violence is something new
or recent. Please note, I am not equating my role
in this country, nor the downsides of my role, with
(09:57):
that of any elected official. But my story in this
area by itself proves that the Republican Party has stood
for and it has stood for the threat of murder
and assassination for at least two decades. On September two
thousand six, at my home, I opened an envelope bearing
(10:19):
a California postmark and a sticky substance that looked like
Malcolm powder mixed with drain oh fell out of the envelope.
There was a note which said it was anthrax. Now
I and other Liberals would get a taste of our
own medicine. I knew the odds of it being anthrax
were extraordinarily small. The guy who sent the actual anthrax
(10:43):
letters apparently killed himself by mishandling it, and he was
an expert in the field. On the other hand, what
if I was wrong? My apartment building was filled with
elderly residents. So I made a phone call and the
cops showed up, and the FBI and Homeland Security. They said,
of course it's not anthrax, but we have to act
like it is. What if we're wrong? The has Matt
(11:06):
squad came in, they set up a command post in
the building. They swept my apartment, they burned my phone,
and they said, okay, now you have to go to
the emergency room for tests. It turned out the same
source had sent other letters with the same fake anthracts
to people like the chairman of CBS and David Letterman's
office and the wrong John Stewart and Nancy Pelosi two
(11:29):
thousand six, and ultimately this same guy sent me three
more letters and was arrested as FBI agents watched him
mail the last of these letters, and his online footprint
showed him to be a Republican Fox News Laura Ingram addict.
And of course, when the FBI asked me to not
(11:50):
report on what had happened for twenty four hours to
give them a shot at catching the guy, the New
York Post broke the embargo and ran a picture of
me with the headline powder Puff Spooks Keith, making fun
of my inability to tell the difference between real anthrax
and fake anthrax, and making sure to identify me as quote,
(12:12):
a frequent critic of President Bush's policies. There have been
less dramatic threats. They started in two thousand three, and
they continued for criticizing Bush, for criticizing Trump, for criticizing
Joe Rogan. They continued until what time is it now?
(12:33):
The largest of these threats came on November eighteen. I
had gone back to ESPN by then twice, in fact,
than somebody in the network's personnel office emailed me. There
is nothing to be alarmed at, no threat, he wrote,
But I just got a call regarding the nut job
from Florida that was sending pipe bombs to the Obama's Clinton, CNN, etcetera.
(12:53):
The FBI scrubbed his computer and they found a list
of other names on his computer. Unfortunately, your name was
on that list. The FBI wanted to brief me, so
I got on phone and I spoke to Agent Randy,
a veteran of the fake anthrax case of two thousand six.
We joked a little bit about this. I guess I
(13:14):
felt some solace in that I was not among the
people that says are Sayak, the so called mega bomber
who drew on his own hair, actually sent bombs too.
I was just on his second wave list, the one
he never got a chance to act against. My point is,
if that's what they've done to the mostly irrelevant me,
(13:37):
threatening death and violence is the Republican Party, and we
must act against it. Arresting Marjorie Taylor Green and Tom
Emmer under eighteen United States Code eight seven one could
be a good start, could in fact be the best
thing to ever happen to them, Because for twenty years now,
(13:57):
whenever a Republican stochastic call for violence against a Democrat
has crystallized into reality, as it did last Friday, after
the shock has worn out, I have always thought the
same thing, and I thought it again last Friday. Don't
the Republicans recognize that if you tell the violent people
on the fringes of sanity and the fringes of reality
(14:20):
and the fringes of this society that assassination and violence
is an admissible means of affecting political change, doesn't Marjorie
Taylor Green ever wonder how in the hell can you
be sure that everybody you reach will be a Republican
and every person they victimize will be a Democrat, and
(14:42):
not the other way round. Still ahead lost behind all this,
there was a huge development in the Department of Justice
(15:04):
investigation of Trump's stolen documents. Why would the Justice Department
have added to its team one of the foremost prosecutors
of terrorism. Great ad Chris Koback, the one where you
show Tiger Woods and the words cop killer together. There
was a perfect game in the World Series over the weekend.
(15:26):
You may have missed that. And in things I promised
not to tell, It's Brian Williams day. Brian Williams lied
about a Chopper interact, but I thought I was the
one going crazy. And what the then president of NBC
News told me seven years ago this past weekend about
why they did not fire Brian Williams for doing that
when they really, really, really really wanted to fire him.
(15:49):
That's next this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman
still had the World Series perfect game nobody's talking about.
(16:11):
Plus why you need to really look at your campaign
ad before you say. I'm Chris Koback and I approved
this message, implying the Tiger Woods killed a cop. First.
In each edition of Countdown we feature a dog in
need him you can help. Every dog has its day.
Got to help this guy. If only for his name,
(16:31):
he could die as early as Tuesday in the New
York Pound. He is a sixty eight pound two year
old found on the streets of Staten Island. He was
very calm. He likes people, he doesn't react to dogs.
He is afraid of mailboxes. And if you adopt him,
keep him away from any dog named Brutus. Because he
is named Drulius Caesar, your pledges to help a rescue
(16:55):
pull him in time will be deeply appreciated. Drulius Caesar
will be in the pinned tweet on my account for
dogs in need Tom Jumbo Grumbo. Your pledge, big or
small will be gratefully welcomed, as you will be your
retweet of Julius Caesar's story Not on the IDEs of March,
(17:15):
and thank you very much, Drulius Caesar. Post Scripts to
the news, some headlines, some insights, some snark. Dateline Rio
de Janeiro, former president louise E Nacio da Silva Lula
(17:39):
has apparently on seated Jared Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential
election fifty point eight three to forty nine point seventeen
and yesterday's runoff. He has tweeted a photo of his
hand over the Brazilian flag with the caption Democracy Bolsonaro.
It would be dictator who had his head of highways
closed roads in some pro Lula districts so voters couldn't
(18:01):
get to the polls. Is not likely to take defeat racefully.
And let's just clarify this. This is Lu Law now
third term president Brazil, not Lulu who sang the theme
from the Sydney Potier film to Sir with Love. Dateline Washington.
It got lost in the Pelosi assassination attempt at News.
But there's been a major change on the Justice Department
(18:23):
team investigating Marilago and Trump's nuclear Klemptomania. The Washington Post
says it has added David Raskin terrorism prosecutor. David Raskin
helped convict Zicarius Massaui as a nine eleven conspirator, and
he prosecuted one of the U. S Embassy bombers too.
He was working on January six, but he's been shifted
(18:46):
to the documents case. Implying justice is looking now at
espionage charges against Trump, treason terrorism. All of the above
dateline Lancaster, Pennsylvania again with the anti Semitism. Doug Mastriano,
the fascist, anti semit par D candidate for governor from
(19:06):
Pennsylvania that would be the Republican Party, was quizzed by
reporter Nathan Gutman of Israel's k a N News about
his campaign's attacks on Jush Shapiro's Judaism, the Jewish school
that Josh Shapiro went to, the Mastriano connection to the
anti Semitic site gab Et cetera. Not only did this
not go well from Mastriano, but there was a bonus
(19:27):
when Mastriano's idiot wife took umbrage in your rival's Jewish school,
previous associations you had with Yeah, I would like to
make a copiment on that. I'm just gonna say, is
(19:48):
the family we so much love Israel. In fact, I'm
gonna say we probably love Israel more than a lot
of juice to. I have to say that because and
the reason why I say that is because I'm given
and Doug, we've given for I would say at least
ten years to outreach to Israel and Jerusalem. Um we have.
(20:09):
I have visited um Israel we say for five years.
Problems there, of course, obviously conflating being Jewish with supporting Israel.
And while we don't know which groups Mrs Mastriano was
referring to that she donated to, both Mastriano's have been
connected to these fundamentalist nut job outfits that believe in
a rapture that follows only after all the Jews go
(20:32):
to Jerusalem and either converge or die. And the punch
line of punch lines. Mastriano's wife is named Rebecca, but
she answers only to Rebbie different spelling, but in Hasidic
judaism a Rebbie is the big spiritual leader who's going
to tell her dateline. San Francisco Musk again a report
(20:52):
from the site platformer that he's figured out how to
monetize Twitter and resolve the blue check question. Force verified
users to join Twitter blue at five bucks a month
or lose the verified blue check. As Emily Gorzynski notes, quote,
there are about three thousand verified Twitter accounts. If every
(21:13):
single account opted to pay this fee, this would bring
in about eighteen million in revenue, yearly. That's enough to
pay off the forty billion dollar purchase price in slightly
less than hundred years plus. It's not like the problem
of fake accounts isn't already big enough. I mean I
just checked. There are thirty eight Keith Alderman's on Twitter.
(21:36):
And if that bad thought disturbs you, think of how
I feel about it. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that,
(21:58):
not anymore. This is countdown with Keith in Sports You
missed it, didn't you? Only the second perfect game in
World Series history Saturday night in Houston, huh, Astros beat
the Phillies five two. There was seven pitchers in the game,
only two of whom even managed to pitch one inning
(22:18):
of hitless ball. What do you mean perfect game? Now?
It was a perfect game by the home plate umpire.
There's a website called ump Scorecards which compares the umpires
ball and strike calls to what the computers say. Pat
Hoiberg had one twenty nine ball and strike calls in
Game two of the World Series, and he got all
(22:39):
one nine of them right. Eight nine strikes that were
strikes and forty balls that were balls. This is not
just the first World Series perfect game by home plate umpire.
It's the first in any game in the three years
they have been doing this. A score Cards points out
that during the regular season, Hoiberg got nineties six percent
of his calls right. So naturally he'll be behind home
(23:00):
played again for Game three tonight in Philadelphia. No, he won't.
They rotate the They used to use the best umpires
in the best situations a long time ago. Hank O Day,
who was in the Hall of Fame, umpired the plate
in six out of the eight games of the nineteen
o three World Series, and then three out of the
five games in nineteen o seven, and they only had
two umpires in those days. Pat Hoiberg the perfect umpire.
(23:33):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. The other World Series notes. When
a Houston player tried to hit with a bat borrowed
from now retired superstar Albert pooh Holes, it was casually
revealed that baseball had banned pooh Holes is bad of
choice in two thousand ten because the wood it used, maple,
was at high risk of injuring people if it shattered. Shattered?
(23:56):
Should you be but it let pooh Holes continue to
use an otherwise illegal bad for the last twelve seasons
and the last three four home runs of his career,
and as his sport plays its first championship since nineteen
fifty with no African American players on the field, Commissioner
Rob Manfred defended Fox Television for running racist commercials during
(24:18):
the playoffs, commercials done under the aegis of Steven Miller,
also known by his stage name n s Faratu. Fox
is a great partner of ours, Commissioner Manfred said, I
don't think it's fair to them to get into private
conversations that we may or may not have had. That
man is an idiot. And responding to a tweet about
lgbt Q soccer fans planning to boycott the World Cup
(24:42):
because of guitars legalized homophobia and Al Jazeera columnists from
Qatar named Abdullah Alamatti tweeted, quote, what a blessed moment.
We are not honored to welcome such abnormal ideas and tendencies.
We're looking forward to have a clean sporting event without
homosexuals or troublemakers unquote none. If the player is all
(25:05):
boycott your little World Cup sonny. Two weeks ago, the
head of FIFA said everyone is welcome at the World
Cup in Qatar, and what he meant by that, of course,
was everybody's money is welcome, boycott the World Cup coming up.
(25:27):
It's Brian Williams Day and things I promised not to tell,
although frankly he could feed neatly into the daily round
up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze
Rishi Sunac the winner of the latest London Daily Mail
(25:48):
Prime Minister for a Week contest, and we like to
congratulate him on making it to his one week anniversary.
Let me know when they named Dr Who Prime Minister anyway,
soon Ach has already violated the first rule of the
original House of Cards series, the good one, the British one,
in which Prime Minister Francis Urkett warns a photo opportunity
at a hospital. Oh dear, he thought he was just
(26:12):
patting an elderly woman patient on the head. No, he
got much more than he bargained for, and they nicely,
we're try I will take that away. Take that away conveniently,
since she cut him open like that. Soon act was
(26:32):
already at a hospital. The runner up Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton,
who it says went to Harvard, but I'm gonna need
to see his transcript. General Motors GM suspended advertising on
Twitter in large part because, well, they make cars, and
the new owner of Twitter also makes cars, but a
different brand. But that's not what Senator Cotton sees. He
(26:57):
sees a chance to threaten a private industry with governmental
recriminations the way they do it in Russia or the
Middle East. Quote. Corporations should think carefully before throwing in
their lot with the far left of the Democratic Party.
It is, of course funny to begin with to think
of Cotton encouraging anybody to quote think carefully. On the
(27:19):
other hand, all his Republican colleagues will see as him
correctly calling it the Democratic Party rather than the Democrat
He'll be beaten severely for that. But our winner one
of the greatest underachievers of American politics, Chris Kobak, the
Trump election fraud guy who couldn't find any election fraud,
(27:40):
and maybe even worse, he couldn't make up any election fraud.
Having lost races to be Senator from Kansas and then
governor of Kansas, he's now the Republican nominee for Attorney
General of Kansas, and he has a problem today, and
it's a legal problem. Ironically enough, Kobak's campaign put out
an ad slamming his opponent for opposing the death penalty.
(28:01):
Right in the middle of this ad, there's a shot
of a dark skinned guy let off by two cops.
At the top of the screen, in red, it says
no capital punishment, and at the bottom, in blue, it
says for cop killers. Which is fine, I guess, except
for one problem. The dark skinned guy and Chris Koback's
(28:21):
aid is Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods, a spokesman says that
was an ad agency error. We caught it and fixed
it within minutes. Well, I am maybe, except don't all
those political ads end with I'm Chris Koback and I
approved this message which I showed Tiger Woods and have
(28:42):
the words cop killers over his picture. No comment yet
from Tiger nor anything on what his plans are for
after he sues co Back for eleventy billion dollars and
then owns Kobak's ass for life. Chris, maybe I should
have used a picture of lebron ko Back Today's worst
(29:03):
person in the always look at the ad first world
now of the number one story on the Countdown and
my favorite topic, me and the day I tried to
(29:25):
save Brian Williams, and the anniversary of the day I
found out why NBC did not fire Brian Williams. The
seventh anniversary was over the weekend, but first we start.
On Thursday January nine, two fifteen, after I finished my
late afternoon sportscast on ESPN two, I walked the ten
blocks to New York's Madison Square Garden to see the
(29:48):
New York Rangers Montreal Canadians hockey game, and within two hours,
not only was I convinced I had a profound brain
injury or illness, but a catastrophe would occur so all
encompassing in its sweep that it would end the then
very active negotiate as to what else put Countdown back
on MSNBC. Also, the Rangers got shut out one nothing.
(30:13):
I went to the game with Bill Wolf, a former
ESPN colleague from twenty years earlier, whom I had met
again at MSNBC and who was in fact the first
executive producer of the Rachel Meadows show. We had not
seen each other in a while, and he had just
left that job, and so as the skilled used of
many nations avorted below us, threatening each other with sticks
and razor sharp skates, we caught up on things. And
(30:37):
that's when it happened. At least once per period in
a National Hockey League game, an ordinary stoppage of play
has turned into a lengthy delay during which the television
broadcasters catch up on any unplayed commercials the TV time out.
And during one of these TV timeouts, the public address
announcer at the garden, Joe Tollison, said, ladies and gentlemen,
(31:00):
please direct your attention to the video screen, et cetera,
ice where the anchor and managing or of NBC Nightly News,
Brian Williams will I didn't actually hear the next part.
At hearing Brian's name, my friend Bill Wolfe shouted f
me and I let out a low groan. Since n
(31:21):
I have done my absolute best to like Brian Williams,
I have stuck my neck out for Brian Williams. I
have advocated for Brian Williams. I have forgiven Brian Williams,
and none of it has been enough. No person in
my forty three years as a full time professional broadcaster
has been as insecure, nor as mocked behind his back
(31:45):
as as Brian. It is too bad. He is brilliantly
talented and this will never be enough for him. He
is one of those who can only be successful if
he has convinced himself he has taken away some of
the success from those around him. I've been accused of many,
many things, but never that. In the nineties, Brian Williams
(32:08):
used to appear in the middle of my MSNBC show
with a promo for his MSNBC show which followed mine.
One night, I said that in five minutes we'd be
previewing President Clinton's itinerary in Africa Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Dara Salam, Johannesburg,
but first with the preview of the news with Brian Williams.
Here's Brian Williams. Bryan Williams and he said, thanks Keith,
(32:31):
as someone who's actually been to those places all the time.
With this anyway, when Wolf and I came out of
our respective rages, we heard this over the garden p
A system. During the Iraq invasion, U S Army Commands
Sergeant Major Tim Turpac was responsible for the safety of
(32:51):
Brian Williams and whose NBC news team after their Chinook
helicopter was hit and crippled by enemy fire. I began
to sweat command. Sergeant Major Turpac was awarded three Bronze
Stars for About Valor Interact and recently retired after twenty
three years in the U. S. Army. Both men, both
Rangers fans, have been reunited for the first time in
(33:12):
twelve years for tonight's game. Please welcome, come in Sergeant
Major Tim Turpak and Brian Williams. Bill Wolfe swore again.
My reaction was different. I started to get lightheaded, and
then immediately very very worried Bill. I said, in a
voice so low that Bill had to lean in to
(33:34):
hear me, do you know a good neurologist? Bill laughed.
For Brian, it wasn't a pleasant laugh. He won't go
to a neurologist, good or otherwise unless he can get
videotape of it and put it on the eff ing
screen here at Madison Square Garden. And I said, no, No,
that's that's not what I what I mean, I mean,
(33:54):
I mean one for me. I I was anchoring on
MSNBC the night that Brian Williams story about the helicopters
and the and the art PG in Iraq. I went
on to tell Bill that that's all I did my
first month back at MSNBC in two thousand three. They
rehired me only because they did not have enough anchors
to cover a war. And I was on that night
(34:17):
and that story about Brian's chopper getting hit. That's not
the way I remember it, Bill. My brain is going
I remember a different story, And I mean, I don't
even remember leading the show that. My God, if the
heir apparent as the anchor of NBC Nightly News was
shot down over the desert in the middle of the
Iraq War, we would have left with led with it.
I don't remember leading with it. I'm only fifty six.
(34:38):
I'm way too young for dimension. It must be a
tumor or something. Do you know a good neurologist, Bill,
Bill Wolfe was, as usual, pretty cool under the circumstances,
and he said, I think maybe you should relax, because
I don't think it's you. I think it's him because
I remember that story too, Bill said, and that's not
the way he told it in two thousand three. I
(34:59):
think Brian has changed the story. One I got home
after the Rangers lost that night, I looked up everything
I could about March three and the fact that Brian
Williams was an NBC News field reporter embedded with troops
in Iraq and in the helicopters with them, and that
this was not some sort of PR stunt. We had
(35:22):
another prominent anchor named David Bloom, who hosted the Today
Show on the weekends and had succeeded Brian as our
NBC White House correspondent. And David Bloom had died in
Iraq because after weeks of twisting himself into the shape
of a pretzel to fit inside a tank, he suffered
deep vein thrombosis and he was dead because they couldn't
treat him in time. I even found a video cassette
(35:45):
with the hours I anchored on MSNBC on March three,
and I saw Brian's report and I heard him say
that he and an NBC analyst, retired General Wayne Downing,
had been on the ground preparing to take off as
part of the last helicopters in a convoy flying over
an Iraqi desert when they got word that a chopper
(36:07):
an hour ahead of them had been threatened by gunfire
and was then forced to make an emergency landing because
of a sandstorm. I remember thinking, then in two thousand three,
then in two thousand fifteen, and now in two thousand
twenty two, that being in the helicopter when they are
shooting at the helicopters is an act of sufficient bravery
(36:29):
that you could brag on yourself forever. I would have
been bragging thus lee, Hey, I'm a civilian. I went
up in the chopper anyway, and I did not crap
my pants. The end, I would have been stopping passers
by to tell them that. As I continued to research this,
I realized that in the ensuing dozen years, Brian Williams
(36:50):
had slowly changed the story, almost imperceptibly, almost every time
he had retold it. Soon the chopper was hit by
the RPG that actually missed it. Then the chopper that
was hit was not an hour ahead of them, it
was the one right in front of them. Soon they
were all part of the group that could claim, quote,
(37:13):
we were the northern most Americans in Iraq, And by
two thousand thirteen Brian was claiming it was his chopper
that got hit. In real time. The next day, Friday,
January fifteen, we found out why Brian had done the
thing at the hockey game with Command Sergeant Major Turpak.
He played a clip of it on NBC Nightly News,
(37:35):
and that is when a lot of Iraq vets began
to speak up with memories that agreed with Brian on
one detail only, Yeah, it happened in Iraq. I saw
the clip from the Rangers game, and I saw the
train wreck coming up behind it for Brian and FRANBC News,
and I started emailing my remaining friends at NBC. Get
him drunk, I wrote to one executive. Then take him
(37:57):
into his office and scatter empty liquor bottles all around,
and call in photographers from the New York Post of
the New York Daily News, and then explain he's going
to rehab. You don't have to say anything else. Rehab
as they get out of jail free card he comes
back in a month and they'll throw a freaking parade
for him. To a former boss still at NBC, I
(38:18):
sent this email, put him on tonight and at the
start of Nightly have him say this, I'm taking a
voluntary leave of absence for fill in the blank days.
And during that time the entirety of my salary will
be donated to fill in the blank with any military charity.
Because while I did not intend to exaggerate my experience
interact in two thousand three, being hit by small arms
(38:41):
fire is bad enough, being behind the helicopter that got
hit with an RPG is worse. Nevertheless, I did exaggerate it,
and a newsman cannot make a mistake like that without consequences.
Thank you for your forbearance. Now for the rest of
tonight's newscast, here is filling the name of NBC employee
number or whatever. I added a PostScript to my old
(39:03):
boss do this and he could still swerve out of this.
But everybody in management and NBC News was asleep at
the switch during this crisis. They're in action by News
president Deborah Turnus, who now runs a BBC, apparently did
not bring the Williams catastrophe to the attention of Comcast
(39:25):
News chief Pat Philly, and that would eventually cost both
of them their jobs. Since I was at that exact
moment negotiating directly with Pat Philly to put countdown back
on MSNBC that also went down over the desert. Philly's
successor was Andy Lack. He resumed the countdown negotiations with
(39:48):
me at the Essex House the following fall. That was
in New York on October twenty nine, two thousand fifteen,
just pass the anniversary of that. Lack was moaning to
me about Brian, whom he said he was ready to
resign outright, was willing to go without much of a
stink and without to adding much of a settlement. But
it was Brian's wife, Lack said, who pointed out that
(40:09):
there was a termination clause which was written by the
self same Andy Lack. The previous time. Andy Lack ran
NBC News that meant if Brian were fired for cause,
he would be owed twice whatever salary was left on
his contract. His wife, Lack said, here's a goddamn Pat
Nixon in this. So instead of firing him and owing
(40:31):
him twice as much money for some reason, nice contract, Lack,
Lack reassigned Brian to cover any breaking news during the
Little Watch daytime hours of MSNBC, and then eventually gave
him his own show there at eleven PM. The punchline,
of course, is that back in February of two fifteen,
(40:51):
when it turned out Brian had lied about Iraq and
also maybe lied about seeing a dead body float past
him during Hurricane kuldtrain in New Orleans, and about being
mugged while selling Christmas trees when he was in high school,
and about saving a puppy when he's a volunteer firefighter.
I felt dreadful for him. I thought this might be fixable.
(41:14):
And you know who else felt it might be fixable
and felt dreadful for him. Our mutual friend David Letterman
and I was going on Dave's show, and I said
to Dave, listen, I think Brian's career should not end
because of this. He just needs help. He's a compulsive exaggerator.
If you want to give me the opening to say
that while I'm on with you, just do it. If
if you don't, don't, I won't bring it up myself.
(41:38):
Dave is a very loyal man, and Dave gave me
the opening, and then after I defended Brian, he joined me.
And at that point we were literally the only two
people working in television to speak out for Brian. Not
only was it six weeks before Brian as much as
sent me an email of thanks, but David told me
(41:59):
he never heard from Brian, and I haven't heard from
Brian since two thousand fifteen. And there is another punchline.
As I came off the Letterman stage that night that
he and I both defended Brian Williams, a producer took
me aside and said it was a nice thing to do,
but was I sure I wanted to get involved in this?
And I shrugged my shoulders and I said, who knows?
(42:21):
Why do you ask? And he said, because one night
when Brian was coming on the Letterman show, it was
the anniversary of the Iraq helicopter story, and in the
pre interview, Brian explained to this producer that when they
got hit by the RPG, which didn't happen, this command
Sergeant Major Turpac had been injured, which didn't happen. And
(42:42):
when they landed on the desert floor, which didn't happen,
Brian treated turr Packs injury and dressed Turr Packs wound himself.
But then Brian said maybe I should keep that between us.
I guess we were lucky. Brian Williams never claimed that
he saved the helicopter crew by catching the missile with
(43:04):
his tea. I've done all the damage I can do here.
Since you've listened this far, help me out a bit.
Spread the word, Tell somebody about this podcast, get them
(43:25):
to subscribe to it. Here are credits. Most of the music,
including our theme You're hearing now from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All the orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Chanelle, Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by t k O Brothers Mother Beethoven. Selections throughout
(43:47):
have been arranged and performed by No horns allowed. The
sports music, the Olderman theme from ESPN two, which played
the day of the Brian Williams hockey announcement, was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears here courtesy of
the ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust The best
baseball stadium against ever Our announcer today was John Dene.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
(44:10):
for this the six and sixty four day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him now while we still can
a new episode tomorrow. Until then on Keith Olverman, good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith
(44:33):
Olberman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
It is time to arrest Marjorie Taylor Green for her
(00:28):
two thousand, nineteen violations of eighteen United States Code seven
one threats against president and successors to the presidency. Stochastic
terrorists like Marjorie Taylor Green had to be stopped now
before something they inspired, something they publicly advocated, something they
asked for happens happens again. The Republicans have spent every
(00:54):
hour since the assassination attempt at Nancy Pelosi's home Friday,
gas lighting, truther ring both sides, NG what abouting, conspiracy
theory mongering and its sploiting the weak minded like Elon Musk.
Their enormous desperate effort has clearly worked. The New York
Times has shamed itself by downplaying the attack, and countless
(01:17):
Democrats have been too weak need to call it what
it was, an assassination attempt on the person who is
second in line in the presidential succession that is outlined
in eighteen US Code eight seven one. An assassination attempt
inspired and invoked a fused, prepared and lit by Republicans
(01:37):
running the gamut from the head of the party's congressional
campaign committee to a dangerous, deranged, fascistic creature who is
truly the scum of the earth. Marjorie Taylor Green might
as well have been in Nancy Pelosi's house handing David
de Pappi the bag full of duct tape and the
zip ties and the hammer. Marjorie Taylor Green rose to
(02:02):
prominence by threatening Nancy Pelosi by violating eighteen United States
Code eight seven one, by telling crowds quote, it's a
crime punishable by death, is what treason is. Nancy Pelosi
is guilty of treason, and she is a trader, and
she's dying in Congress or in one video she posted
(02:25):
to Facebook in January two tho nineteen and then mysteriously
deleted later saying all of that all at the same time,
she's a trader to our country. She's guilty of treason.
Took a note to protect American citizens and uphold our laws,
and she gives aid and comfort to our enemies who
(02:46):
illegally invade our land. That's what treason is. And by
our law, representatives and senators can be kicked out and
no longer serve in our government. And it's a It's
a crime punishable by death, is what treason is. Any
fuzzy is guilty of treason and we want her. She's
(03:11):
held hers the of power for thirty two years years old.
He is dying. In Congress eighteen, United States Code eight
seven one was written originally about threats made by mail,
but it has been expanded. It says that whoever makes
quote any threat to take the life of, to kidnap,
(03:31):
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 the office
of president, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than five years or both. That's Marjorie Taylor Green.
All that is missing is the imbecilic smile. Arrest her.
(03:56):
What was that Facebook video if not a strain of
direct threats? And how much longer do we have to
indulge people like Green who try to by ore others
to do the violent work for them. How many Republicans
are we going to let reach the David Dipappe's of
this country stochastically so that they go out and hunt
Nancy Pelosi or Gavin Newsom or me or you, how
(04:20):
much longer do we have to indulge? Tom Emmer? Five
days ago, Tom Emmer, the chairman of the nrc C,
the National Republican Congressional Committee, it's chief campaign body for
the congressional seats, tweeted video of himself that sounded like this.
(04:46):
To that accompaniment, tom Emmer wrote, enjoyed exercising my Second
Amendment rights hashtag fire Pelosi. Tom Emmer has evaded answering
the obvious question where the gun and the Pelosi hashtag connected.
He doesn't have to add true it. He doesn't have
to waste time. Of course they are. If they weren't,
(05:09):
why would you have her name Pelosi as the last
word placed directly above the video of you firing a
gun at a shooting range. Arrest Tom Emmer, There is
no mystery to this. The Republicans have spent more than
a decade demonizing Nancy Pelosi. They made a fire Pelosi
video of her in two thousand ten, her face engulfed
(05:31):
in flames. Taylor Greene got elected by threatening her life.
Their brown shirts breached the Capitol channing where's Nancy, just
as De Pappy chanted it last Friday. They have been
hunting her, and on Friday one of them nearly caught
her and instead caught her husband and sent him into
surgery by changing plans from securing him with zip ties
(05:54):
and duct tape until Pelosi got home and then doing
the same to her and worse thereafter. And in the
wake of the years of irrefutable cause and effect evidence,
the Republicans play dumb. It comes naturally to them. Tom
Emer's tweet onson about shooting Nancy, Well, of course not.
(06:18):
It was about the Second Amendment. And anyway, what about
Steve Scalise and bred Cavanaugh And crime is terrible in
San Francisco, and that's a Democrats city, and a Democrats say,
this just proves our point. You know, who's really responsible
for the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi and
the soft on crime Democrats. But then they still had
(06:40):
to come up with something, anything, that could turn the
hard evidence of the crime into something anything else. And
in this they were aided by a sloppy, lousy reporter
in his third year at the Fox station in the
Bay Area. His name is Evan Surnovski, and Friday, he
quoted sources as saying that David de Pappi was found
(07:01):
in the Pelosi home wearing only his underwear. Air. This
was the only person to report that everybody who repeated
it was repeating the work of Evans Snowsky. None of
them are repeating Evan Snowski's retraction quote. I'm now told
by other sources that the Pappi was not dressed only
(07:21):
in underwear. Working to clarify, not working hard enough, Mr Sinofsky.
If you need to reassess your career choice, this is
too complicated for you. The right wing grabbed the Snowsky
fake detail and concocted the kind of nonsensical fantasy that
would satisfy their supporters, who live all the days of
their lives in a world of nonsensical fantasy. And then
(07:45):
the coup de gras came from another stupid man with money,
money that originated in the world of apartheid South Africa,
and the Zambian Emerald mine E lawn Musk, too stupid
or too amoral to know what he was doing or both,
tweet it out the conspiracy theory, adding his own additional
(08:08):
ounce of personalized idiocy. There's a tiny possibility there may
be more to this story than meets the eye. Now
there it was a link to a right wing troll site,
a fake newspaper so notorious and more importantly, so obvious
that it once posted that Hillary Clinton had died and
had been replaced for a debate by a body double,
(08:31):
once posted the Trump had appointed Kanye West to the
Department of the Interior, once posted that Bill Gates caused polio,
once posted that COVID nineteen could be cured with sunlight.
Good enough freelon Musk. Musk sent this around the world,
waited seven hours to delete it, said nothing when he
(08:52):
did delete it, and when called on hit, he mocked
those who caught him in such an egregious violation of
the content rules that he says are still in force
on Twitter, that the tweet by itself should have gotten
him sus ended by himself. Hidden behind the more obvious
elements of this nightmare, which is the new Republican Fascist
(09:15):
Party in microcosm and watched at fast forward speed, violence, threats, denial,
conspiracy theory, fantasy, all in one weekend, is something almost
as risky as that Republican Fascist Party in Microcosm. Much
of the mainstream coverage of the assassination attempt has not
only not called it, that has not only posited that
(09:36):
both sides do this and everybody just needs to simmer down,
but worst of all, suggests that this main streaming of
political violence or the threat of violence is something new
or recent. Please note, I am not equating my role
in this country, nor the downsides of my role, with
(09:57):
that of any elected official. But my story in this
area by itself proves that the Republican Party has stood
for and it has stood for the threat of murder
and assassination for at least two decades. On September two
thousand six, at my home, I opened an envelope bearing
(10:19):
a California postmark and a sticky substance that looked like
Malcolm powder mixed with drain oh fell out of the envelope.
There was a note which said it was anthrax. Now
I and other Liberals would get a taste of our
own medicine. I knew the odds of it being anthrax
were extraordinarily small. The guy who sent the actual anthrax
(10:43):
letters apparently killed himself by mishandling it, and he was
an expert in the field. On the other hand, what
if I was wrong? My apartment building was filled with
elderly residents. So I made a phone call and the
cops showed up, and the FBI and Homeland Security. They said,
of course it's not anthrax, but we have to act
like it is. What if we're wrong? The has Matt
(11:06):
squad came in, they set up a command post in
the building. They swept my apartment, they burned my phone,
and they said, okay, now you have to go to
the emergency room for tests. It turned out the same
source had sent other letters with the same fake anthracts
to people like the chairman of CBS and David Letterman's
office and the wrong John Stewart and Nancy Pelosi two
(11:29):
thousand six, and ultimately this same guy sent me three
more letters and was arrested as FBI agents watched him
mail the last of these letters, and his online footprint
showed him to be a Republican Fox News Laura Ingram addict.
And of course, when the FBI asked me to not
(11:50):
report on what had happened for twenty four hours to
give them a shot at catching the guy, the New
York Post broke the embargo and ran a picture of
me with the headline powder Puff Spooks Keith, making fun
of my inability to tell the difference between real anthrax
and fake anthrax, and making sure to identify me as quote,
(12:12):
a frequent critic of President Bush's policies. There have been
less dramatic threats. They started in two thousand three, and
they continued for criticizing Bush, for criticizing Trump, for criticizing
Joe Rogan. They continued until what time is it now?
(12:33):
The largest of these threats came on November eighteen. I
had gone back to ESPN by then twice, in fact,
than somebody in the network's personnel office emailed me. There
is nothing to be alarmed at, no threat, he wrote,
But I just got a call regarding the nut job
from Florida that was sending pipe bombs to the Obama's Clinton, CNN, etcetera.
(12:53):
The FBI scrubbed his computer and they found a list
of other names on his computer. Unfortunately, your name was
on that list. The FBI wanted to brief me, so
I got on phone and I spoke to Agent Randy,
a veteran of the fake anthrax case of two thousand six.
We joked a little bit about this. I guess I
(13:14):
felt some solace in that I was not among the
people that says are Sayak, the so called mega bomber
who drew on his own hair, actually sent bombs too.
I was just on his second wave list, the one
he never got a chance to act against. My point is,
if that's what they've done to the mostly irrelevant me,
(13:37):
threatening death and violence is the Republican Party, and we
must act against it. Arresting Marjorie Taylor Green and Tom
Emmer under eighteen United States Code eight seven one could
be a good start, could in fact be the best
thing to ever happen to them, Because for twenty years now,
(13:57):
whenever a Republican stochastic call for violence against a Democrat
has crystallized into reality, as it did last Friday, after
the shock has worn out, I have always thought the
same thing, and I thought it again last Friday. Don't
the Republicans recognize that if you tell the violent people
on the fringes of sanity and the fringes of reality
(14:20):
and the fringes of this society that assassination and violence
is an admissible means of affecting political change, doesn't Marjorie
Taylor Green ever wonder how in the hell can you
be sure that everybody you reach will be a Republican
and every person they victimize will be a Democrat, and
(14:42):
not the other way round. Still ahead lost behind all this,
there was a huge development in the Department of Justice
(15:04):
investigation of Trump's stolen documents. Why would the Justice Department
have added to its team one of the foremost prosecutors
of terrorism. Great ad Chris Koback, the one where you
show Tiger Woods and the words cop killer together. There
was a perfect game in the World Series over the weekend.
(15:26):
You may have missed that. And in things I promised
not to tell, It's Brian Williams day. Brian Williams lied
about a Chopper interact, but I thought I was the
one going crazy. And what the then president of NBC
News told me seven years ago this past weekend about
why they did not fire Brian Williams for doing that
when they really, really, really really wanted to fire him.
(15:49):
That's next this discountdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman
still had the World Series perfect game nobody's talking about.
(16:11):
Plus why you need to really look at your campaign
ad before you say. I'm Chris Koback and I approved
this message, implying the Tiger Woods killed a cop. First.
In each edition of Countdown we feature a dog in
need him you can help. Every dog has its day.
Got to help this guy. If only for his name,
(16:31):
he could die as early as Tuesday in the New
York Pound. He is a sixty eight pound two year
old found on the streets of Staten Island. He was
very calm. He likes people, he doesn't react to dogs.
He is afraid of mailboxes. And if you adopt him,
keep him away from any dog named Brutus. Because he
is named Drulius Caesar, your pledges to help a rescue
(16:55):
pull him in time will be deeply appreciated. Drulius Caesar
will be in the pinned tweet on my account for
dogs in need Tom Jumbo Grumbo. Your pledge, big or
small will be gratefully welcomed, as you will be your
retweet of Julius Caesar's story Not on the IDEs of March,
(17:15):
and thank you very much, Drulius Caesar. Post Scripts to
the news, some headlines, some insights, some snark. Dateline Rio
de Janeiro, former president louise E Nacio da Silva Lula
(17:39):
has apparently on seated Jared Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential
election fifty point eight three to forty nine point seventeen
and yesterday's runoff. He has tweeted a photo of his
hand over the Brazilian flag with the caption Democracy Bolsonaro.
It would be dictator who had his head of highways
closed roads in some pro Lula districts so voters couldn't
(18:01):
get to the polls. Is not likely to take defeat racefully.
And let's just clarify this. This is Lu Law now
third term president Brazil, not Lulu who sang the theme
from the Sydney Potier film to Sir with Love. Dateline Washington.
It got lost in the Pelosi assassination attempt at News.
But there's been a major change on the Justice Department
(18:23):
team investigating Marilago and Trump's nuclear Klemptomania. The Washington Post
says it has added David Raskin terrorism prosecutor. David Raskin
helped convict Zicarius Massaui as a nine eleven conspirator, and
he prosecuted one of the U. S Embassy bombers too.
He was working on January six, but he's been shifted
(18:46):
to the documents case. Implying justice is looking now at
espionage charges against Trump, treason terrorism. All of the above
dateline Lancaster, Pennsylvania again with the anti Semitism. Doug Mastriano,
the fascist, anti semit par D candidate for governor from
(19:06):
Pennsylvania that would be the Republican Party, was quizzed by
reporter Nathan Gutman of Israel's k a N News about
his campaign's attacks on Jush Shapiro's Judaism, the Jewish school
that Josh Shapiro went to, the Mastriano connection to the
anti Semitic site gab Et cetera. Not only did this
not go well from Mastriano, but there was a bonus
(19:27):
when Mastriano's idiot wife took umbrage in your rival's Jewish school,
previous associations you had with Yeah, I would like to
make a copiment on that. I'm just gonna say, is
(19:48):
the family we so much love Israel. In fact, I'm
gonna say we probably love Israel more than a lot
of juice to. I have to say that because and
the reason why I say that is because I'm given
and Doug, we've given for I would say at least
ten years to outreach to Israel and Jerusalem. Um we have.
(20:09):
I have visited um Israel we say for five years.
Problems there, of course, obviously conflating being Jewish with supporting Israel.
And while we don't know which groups Mrs Mastriano was
referring to that she donated to, both Mastriano's have been
connected to these fundamentalist nut job outfits that believe in
a rapture that follows only after all the Jews go
(20:32):
to Jerusalem and either converge or die. And the punch
line of punch lines. Mastriano's wife is named Rebecca, but
she answers only to Rebbie different spelling, but in Hasidic
judaism a Rebbie is the big spiritual leader who's going
to tell her dateline. San Francisco Musk again a report
(20:52):
from the site platformer that he's figured out how to
monetize Twitter and resolve the blue check question. Force verified
users to join Twitter blue at five bucks a month
or lose the verified blue check. As Emily Gorzynski notes, quote,
there are about three thousand verified Twitter accounts. If every
(21:13):
single account opted to pay this fee, this would bring
in about eighteen million in revenue, yearly. That's enough to
pay off the forty billion dollar purchase price in slightly
less than hundred years plus. It's not like the problem
of fake accounts isn't already big enough. I mean I
just checked. There are thirty eight Keith Alderman's on Twitter.
(21:36):
And if that bad thought disturbs you, think of how
I feel about it. This is Sports Center. Wait, check that,
(21:58):
not anymore. This is countdown with Keith in Sports You
missed it, didn't you? Only the second perfect game in
World Series history Saturday night in Houston, huh, Astros beat
the Phillies five two. There was seven pitchers in the game,
only two of whom even managed to pitch one inning
(22:18):
of hitless ball. What do you mean perfect game? Now?
It was a perfect game by the home plate umpire.
There's a website called ump Scorecards which compares the umpires
ball and strike calls to what the computers say. Pat
Hoiberg had one twenty nine ball and strike calls in
Game two of the World Series, and he got all
(22:39):
one nine of them right. Eight nine strikes that were
strikes and forty balls that were balls. This is not
just the first World Series perfect game by home plate umpire.
It's the first in any game in the three years
they have been doing this. A score Cards points out
that during the regular season, Hoiberg got nineties six percent
of his calls right. So naturally he'll be behind home
(23:00):
played again for Game three tonight in Philadelphia. No, he won't.
They rotate the They used to use the best umpires
in the best situations a long time ago. Hank O Day,
who was in the Hall of Fame, umpired the plate
in six out of the eight games of the nineteen
o three World Series, and then three out of the
five games in nineteen o seven, and they only had
two umpires in those days. Pat Hoiberg the perfect umpire.
(23:33):
Thank you, Nancy Faust. The other World Series notes. When
a Houston player tried to hit with a bat borrowed
from now retired superstar Albert pooh Holes, it was casually
revealed that baseball had banned pooh Holes is bad of
choice in two thousand ten because the wood it used, maple,
was at high risk of injuring people if it shattered. Shattered?
(23:56):
Should you be but it let pooh Holes continue to
use an otherwise illegal bad for the last twelve seasons
and the last three four home runs of his career,
and as his sport plays its first championship since nineteen
fifty with no African American players on the field, Commissioner
Rob Manfred defended Fox Television for running racist commercials during
(24:18):
the playoffs, commercials done under the aegis of Steven Miller,
also known by his stage name n s Faratu. Fox
is a great partner of ours, Commissioner Manfred said, I
don't think it's fair to them to get into private
conversations that we may or may not have had. That
man is an idiot. And responding to a tweet about
lgbt Q soccer fans planning to boycott the World Cup
(24:42):
because of guitars legalized homophobia and Al Jazeera columnists from
Qatar named Abdullah Alamatti tweeted, quote, what a blessed moment.
We are not honored to welcome such abnormal ideas and tendencies.
We're looking forward to have a clean sporting event without
homosexuals or troublemakers unquote none. If the player is all
(25:05):
boycott your little World Cup sonny. Two weeks ago, the
head of FIFA said everyone is welcome at the World
Cup in Qatar, and what he meant by that, of course,
was everybody's money is welcome, boycott the World Cup coming up.
(25:27):
It's Brian Williams Day and things I promised not to tell,
although frankly he could feed neatly into the daily round
up of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze
Rishi Sunac the winner of the latest London Daily Mail
(25:48):
Prime Minister for a Week contest, and we like to
congratulate him on making it to his one week anniversary.
Let me know when they named Dr Who Prime Minister anyway,
soon Ach has already violated the first rule of the
original House of Cards series, the good one, the British one,
in which Prime Minister Francis Urkett warns a photo opportunity
at a hospital. Oh dear, he thought he was just
(26:12):
patting an elderly woman patient on the head. No, he
got much more than he bargained for, and they nicely,
we're try I will take that away. Take that away conveniently,
since she cut him open like that. Soon act was
(26:32):
already at a hospital. The runner up Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton,
who it says went to Harvard, but I'm gonna need
to see his transcript. General Motors GM suspended advertising on
Twitter in large part because, well, they make cars, and
the new owner of Twitter also makes cars, but a
different brand. But that's not what Senator Cotton sees. He
(26:57):
sees a chance to threaten a private industry with governmental
recriminations the way they do it in Russia or the
Middle East. Quote. Corporations should think carefully before throwing in
their lot with the far left of the Democratic Party.
It is, of course funny to begin with to think
of Cotton encouraging anybody to quote think carefully. On the
(27:19):
other hand, all his Republican colleagues will see as him
correctly calling it the Democratic Party rather than the Democrat
He'll be beaten severely for that. But our winner one
of the greatest underachievers of American politics, Chris Kobak, the
Trump election fraud guy who couldn't find any election fraud,
(27:40):
and maybe even worse, he couldn't make up any election fraud.
Having lost races to be Senator from Kansas and then
governor of Kansas, he's now the Republican nominee for Attorney
General of Kansas, and he has a problem today, and
it's a legal problem. Ironically enough, Kobak's campaign put out
an ad slamming his opponent for opposing the death penalty.
(28:01):
Right in the middle of this ad, there's a shot
of a dark skinned guy let off by two cops.
At the top of the screen, in red, it says
no capital punishment, and at the bottom, in blue, it
says for cop killers. Which is fine, I guess, except
for one problem. The dark skinned guy and Chris Koback's
(28:21):
aid is Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods, a spokesman says that
was an ad agency error. We caught it and fixed
it within minutes. Well, I am maybe, except don't all
those political ads end with I'm Chris Koback and I
approved this message which I showed Tiger Woods and have
(28:42):
the words cop killers over his picture. No comment yet
from Tiger nor anything on what his plans are for
after he sues co Back for eleventy billion dollars and
then owns Kobak's ass for life. Chris, maybe I should
have used a picture of lebron ko Back Today's worst
(29:03):
person in the always look at the ad first world
now of the number one story on the Countdown and
my favorite topic, me and the day I tried to
(29:25):
save Brian Williams, and the anniversary of the day I
found out why NBC did not fire Brian Williams. The
seventh anniversary was over the weekend, but first we start.
On Thursday January nine, two fifteen, after I finished my
late afternoon sportscast on ESPN two, I walked the ten
blocks to New York's Madison Square Garden to see the
(29:48):
New York Rangers Montreal Canadians hockey game, and within two hours,
not only was I convinced I had a profound brain
injury or illness, but a catastrophe would occur so all
encompassing in its sweep that it would end the then
very active negotiate as to what else put Countdown back
on MSNBC. Also, the Rangers got shut out one nothing.
(30:13):
I went to the game with Bill Wolf, a former
ESPN colleague from twenty years earlier, whom I had met
again at MSNBC and who was in fact the first
executive producer of the Rachel Meadows show. We had not
seen each other in a while, and he had just
left that job, and so as the skilled used of
many nations avorted below us, threatening each other with sticks
and razor sharp skates, we caught up on things. And
(30:37):
that's when it happened. At least once per period in
a National Hockey League game, an ordinary stoppage of play
has turned into a lengthy delay during which the television
broadcasters catch up on any unplayed commercials the TV time out.
And during one of these TV timeouts, the public address
announcer at the garden, Joe Tollison, said, ladies and gentlemen,
(31:00):
please direct your attention to the video screen, et cetera,
ice where the anchor and managing or of NBC Nightly News,
Brian Williams will I didn't actually hear the next part.
At hearing Brian's name, my friend Bill Wolfe shouted f
me and I let out a low groan. Since n
(31:21):
I have done my absolute best to like Brian Williams,
I have stuck my neck out for Brian Williams. I
have advocated for Brian Williams. I have forgiven Brian Williams,
and none of it has been enough. No person in
my forty three years as a full time professional broadcaster
has been as insecure, nor as mocked behind his back
(31:45):
as as Brian. It is too bad. He is brilliantly
talented and this will never be enough for him. He
is one of those who can only be successful if
he has convinced himself he has taken away some of
the success from those around him. I've been accused of many,
many things, but never that. In the nineties, Brian Williams
(32:08):
used to appear in the middle of my MSNBC show
with a promo for his MSNBC show which followed mine.
One night, I said that in five minutes we'd be
previewing President Clinton's itinerary in Africa Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Dara Salam, Johannesburg,
but first with the preview of the news with Brian Williams.
Here's Brian Williams. Bryan Williams and he said, thanks Keith,
(32:31):
as someone who's actually been to those places all the time.
With this anyway, when Wolf and I came out of
our respective rages, we heard this over the garden p
A system. During the Iraq invasion, U S Army Commands
Sergeant Major Tim Turpac was responsible for the safety of
(32:51):
Brian Williams and whose NBC news team after their Chinook
helicopter was hit and crippled by enemy fire. I began
to sweat command. Sergeant Major Turpac was awarded three Bronze
Stars for About Valor Interact and recently retired after twenty
three years in the U. S. Army. Both men, both
Rangers fans, have been reunited for the first time in
(33:12):
twelve years for tonight's game. Please welcome, come in Sergeant
Major Tim Turpak and Brian Williams. Bill Wolfe swore again.
My reaction was different. I started to get lightheaded, and
then immediately very very worried Bill. I said, in a
voice so low that Bill had to lean in to
(33:34):
hear me, do you know a good neurologist? Bill laughed.
For Brian, it wasn't a pleasant laugh. He won't go
to a neurologist, good or otherwise unless he can get
videotape of it and put it on the eff ing
screen here at Madison Square Garden. And I said, no, No,
that's that's not what I what I mean, I mean,
(33:54):
I mean one for me. I I was anchoring on
MSNBC the night that Brian Williams story about the helicopters
and the and the art PG in Iraq. I went
on to tell Bill that that's all I did my
first month back at MSNBC in two thousand three. They
rehired me only because they did not have enough anchors
to cover a war. And I was on that night
(34:17):
and that story about Brian's chopper getting hit. That's not
the way I remember it, Bill. My brain is going
I remember a different story, And I mean, I don't
even remember leading the show that. My God, if the
heir apparent as the anchor of NBC Nightly News was
shot down over the desert in the middle of the
Iraq War, we would have left with led with it.
I don't remember leading with it. I'm only fifty six.
(34:38):
I'm way too young for dimension. It must be a
tumor or something. Do you know a good neurologist, Bill,
Bill Wolfe was, as usual, pretty cool under the circumstances,
and he said, I think maybe you should relax, because
I don't think it's you. I think it's him because
I remember that story too, Bill said, and that's not
the way he told it in two thousand three. I
(34:59):
think Brian has changed the story. One I got home
after the Rangers lost that night, I looked up everything
I could about March three and the fact that Brian
Williams was an NBC News field reporter embedded with troops
in Iraq and in the helicopters with them, and that
this was not some sort of PR stunt. We had
(35:22):
another prominent anchor named David Bloom, who hosted the Today
Show on the weekends and had succeeded Brian as our
NBC White House correspondent. And David Bloom had died in
Iraq because after weeks of twisting himself into the shape
of a pretzel to fit inside a tank, he suffered
deep vein thrombosis and he was dead because they couldn't
treat him in time. I even found a video cassette
(35:45):
with the hours I anchored on MSNBC on March three,
and I saw Brian's report and I heard him say
that he and an NBC analyst, retired General Wayne Downing,
had been on the ground preparing to take off as
part of the last helicopters in a convoy flying over
an Iraqi desert when they got word that a chopper
(36:07):
an hour ahead of them had been threatened by gunfire
and was then forced to make an emergency landing because
of a sandstorm. I remember thinking, then in two thousand three,
then in two thousand fifteen, and now in two thousand
twenty two, that being in the helicopter when they are
shooting at the helicopters is an act of sufficient bravery
(36:29):
that you could brag on yourself forever. I would have
been bragging thus lee, Hey, I'm a civilian. I went
up in the chopper anyway, and I did not crap
my pants. The end, I would have been stopping passers
by to tell them that. As I continued to research this,
I realized that in the ensuing dozen years, Brian Williams
(36:50):
had slowly changed the story, almost imperceptibly, almost every time
he had retold it. Soon the chopper was hit by
the RPG that actually missed it. Then the chopper that
was hit was not an hour ahead of them, it
was the one right in front of them. Soon they
were all part of the group that could claim, quote,
(37:13):
we were the northern most Americans in Iraq, And by
two thousand thirteen Brian was claiming it was his chopper
that got hit. In real time. The next day, Friday,
January fifteen, we found out why Brian had done the
thing at the hockey game with Command Sergeant Major Turpak.
He played a clip of it on NBC Nightly News,
(37:35):
and that is when a lot of Iraq vets began
to speak up with memories that agreed with Brian on
one detail only, Yeah, it happened in Iraq. I saw
the clip from the Rangers game, and I saw the
train wreck coming up behind it for Brian and FRANBC News,
and I started emailing my remaining friends at NBC. Get
him drunk, I wrote to one executive. Then take him
(37:57):
into his office and scatter empty liquor bottles all around,
and call in photographers from the New York Post of
the New York Daily News, and then explain he's going
to rehab. You don't have to say anything else. Rehab
as they get out of jail free card he comes
back in a month and they'll throw a freaking parade
for him. To a former boss still at NBC, I
(38:18):
sent this email, put him on tonight and at the
start of Nightly have him say this, I'm taking a
voluntary leave of absence for fill in the blank days.
And during that time the entirety of my salary will
be donated to fill in the blank with any military charity.
Because while I did not intend to exaggerate my experience
interact in two thousand three, being hit by small arms
(38:41):
fire is bad enough, being behind the helicopter that got
hit with an RPG is worse. Nevertheless, I did exaggerate it,
and a newsman cannot make a mistake like that without consequences.
Thank you for your forbearance. Now for the rest of
tonight's newscast, here is filling the name of NBC employee
number or whatever. I added a PostScript to my old
(39:03):
boss do this and he could still swerve out of this.
But everybody in management and NBC News was asleep at
the switch during this crisis. They're in action by News
president Deborah Turnus, who now runs a BBC, apparently did
not bring the Williams catastrophe to the attention of Comcast
(39:25):
News chief Pat Philly, and that would eventually cost both
of them their jobs. Since I was at that exact
moment negotiating directly with Pat Philly to put countdown back
on MSNBC that also went down over the desert. Philly's
successor was Andy Lack. He resumed the countdown negotiations with
(39:48):
me at the Essex House the following fall. That was
in New York on October twenty nine, two thousand fifteen,
just pass the anniversary of that. Lack was moaning to
me about Brian, whom he said he was ready to
resign outright, was willing to go without much of a
stink and without to adding much of a settlement. But
it was Brian's wife, Lack said, who pointed out that
(40:09):
there was a termination clause which was written by the
self same Andy Lack. The previous time. Andy Lack ran
NBC News that meant if Brian were fired for cause,
he would be owed twice whatever salary was left on
his contract. His wife, Lack said, here's a goddamn Pat
Nixon in this. So instead of firing him and owing
(40:31):
him twice as much money for some reason, nice contract, Lack,
Lack reassigned Brian to cover any breaking news during the
Little Watch daytime hours of MSNBC, and then eventually gave
him his own show there at eleven PM. The punchline,
of course, is that back in February of two fifteen,
(40:51):
when it turned out Brian had lied about Iraq and
also maybe lied about seeing a dead body float past
him during Hurricane kuldtrain in New Orleans, and about being
mugged while selling Christmas trees when he was in high school,
and about saving a puppy when he's a volunteer firefighter.
I felt dreadful for him. I thought this might be fixable.
(41:14):
And you know who else felt it might be fixable
and felt dreadful for him. Our mutual friend David Letterman
and I was going on Dave's show, and I said
to Dave, listen, I think Brian's career should not end
because of this. He just needs help. He's a compulsive exaggerator.
If you want to give me the opening to say
that while I'm on with you, just do it. If
if you don't, don't, I won't bring it up myself.
(41:38):
Dave is a very loyal man, and Dave gave me
the opening, and then after I defended Brian, he joined me.
And at that point we were literally the only two
people working in television to speak out for Brian. Not
only was it six weeks before Brian as much as
sent me an email of thanks, but David told me
(41:59):
he never heard from Brian, and I haven't heard from
Brian since two thousand fifteen. And there is another punchline.
As I came off the Letterman stage that night that
he and I both defended Brian Williams, a producer took
me aside and said it was a nice thing to do,
but was I sure I wanted to get involved in this?
And I shrugged my shoulders and I said, who knows?
(42:21):
Why do you ask? And he said, because one night
when Brian was coming on the Letterman show, it was
the anniversary of the Iraq helicopter story, and in the
pre interview, Brian explained to this producer that when they
got hit by the RPG, which didn't happen, this command
Sergeant Major Turpac had been injured, which didn't happen. And
(42:42):
when they landed on the desert floor, which didn't happen,
Brian treated turr Packs injury and dressed Turr Packs wound himself.
But then Brian said maybe I should keep that between us.
I guess we were lucky. Brian Williams never claimed that
he saved the helicopter crew by catching the missile with
(43:04):
his tea. I've done all the damage I can do here.
Since you've listened this far, help me out a bit.
Spread the word, Tell somebody about this podcast, get them
(43:25):
to subscribe to it. Here are credits. Most of the music,
including our theme You're hearing now from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All the orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Chanelle, Guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by t k O Brothers Mother Beethoven. Selections throughout
(43:47):
have been arranged and performed by No horns allowed. The
sports music, the Olderman theme from ESPN two, which played
the day of the Brian Williams hockey announcement, was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears here courtesy of
the ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust The best
baseball stadium against ever Our announcer today was John Dene.
Everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's countdown
(44:10):
for this the six and sixty four day since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him now while we still can
a new episode tomorrow. Until then on Keith Olverman, good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good Luck. Countdown with Keith
(44:33):
Olberman is a production of I heart Radio. For more
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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