February 22, 2023 • 43 mins
EPISODE 139: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Kevin McCarthy/Tucker Carlson Scandal has blown wide open as The Capitol Police Board meets to vote on whether or not to stop the Speaker from giving the Fox News Liar what Rep. Zoe Lofgren calls "a blueprint for bad guys on how to more successfully attack the Capitol." House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries convenes his caucus this afternoon to take what action it can as Jeffries calls the collusion between McCarthy and Carlson "an egregious security breach." In essence, Kevin McCarthy has STOLEN the January 6th video and handed it to Tucker Carlson, and Tucker Carlson and Fox News have already done more damage to this country than Al-Qaeda or ISIS or Atomwaffen or any other terrorist group could dream of.
We're approaching the 20th anniversary of the day Geraldo Rivera, live on Fox News Channel, gave away the position and movements of the 101st Airborne Division, and was literally escorted out of Iraq by the U.S. military. This underscores the reality that Fox News has NEVER cared about the troops, about freedoms, about America. It sells a product. The product is phony patriotism. The product is a distorted picture of America. The product is hate. The product is lies. It's time to put the manufacturers of the product, Fox "News," out of business.
B-Block (20:27) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Trump Georgia Grand Jury presents Hint Number 32,753; Barney Rubble's Body Double doubles down on the Red State/Blue State divorce but adds taking away voting rights for Democrats; Democrats make criminal referral on Ohio Train Disaster while Republicans hesitate to offend their corporate masters (31:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: an unfortunate Washington Post headline, a really dumb Oklahoma congressman, and a really disturbing Alaska state legislator who believes if an abused child is killed, "it's actually a benefit to society."
C-Block (31:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: When I talk about Fox and its core value - evil - I'm not just repeating what I've heard. I was once fired, personally, by Rupert Murdoch, for telling the truth, and my bosses got dragged for it as well.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
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. Are
we a nation of laws? Or are we a nation
(00:26):
of Kevin McCarthy's illicit back room deals with Tucker Carlson.
Do our courts and their rulings matter at all? Or
are they now supposed to defer to how the Fox
News Channel Big Bullshit programs its eight PM show? Which
matters more the safety and security of our representatives, our senators,
(00:50):
our vice presidents, our Hills staffers, Democratic and Republican alike,
or the stock price of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. House.
Democratic leaders meeting this afternoon to discuss the over Kevin
McCarthy's unilateral and possibly illegal decision to give Tucker Carlson,
(01:11):
an entertainer of some kind, access to video from the
Trump driven coup attempt of January six, twenty twenty one,
video that a federal court said could be released on
a case by case basis, but only carefully because it
gave extraordinarily specific details about security cameras and other measures
(01:32):
in the capital complex, the one already assaulted once by
MAGA republicans seeking to overthrow American democracy. The crisis, as
described by Democratic leader Hakim Jeffries quote, the apparent transfer
of video footage represents an egregious security breach. Extreme MAGA
(01:52):
Republicans in the House, Mister Jeffries went on, have provided
tens of thousands of hours of sensitive capital security footage
to a Fox News personality who regularly pedals in conspiracy
theories and pro putin rhetoric. Unquote. I suggested here yesterday,
(02:12):
as I have suggested almost continuously since nineteen ninety eight,
that the propaganda channel that calls itself Fox News was
a clear and present danger to the national security of
the United States, and that the time had long since
come to d platform it from all cable, satellite, and
internet carriers and close the business down. The California Congressman
(02:36):
Pete Aguiar notes, it's not at all surprising that Kevin
McCarthy would jeopardize the security of the Capitol and the
people that work there to further a political agenda. Agar
notes an underreported sidebar to this breach of public safety
by Speaker McCarthy and Tucker Carlson courting him again. This
is another payoff in the many backroom deals McCarthy cut
(03:00):
to secure enough Magarepublican votes to become speaker. Apart from
the rising and welcome democratic awareness that Fox News crossed
a line even for them, another less partisan group also
reacted with outrage, though most of it was off the record,
to Kevin McCarthy's willingness to sell the country out and
(03:21):
hand a roadmap of insurrection to those already plotting the
next coup and the next attack on the Capitol by
handing the sensitive video to a manifestly irresponsible individual like
Carlson and what is now a company that has essentially
admitted it falsely poses as and falsely portrays itself as
(03:41):
a news organization in order to simply push political conspiracy
theories and thus sell advertising and thus manipulate its parent
company's stock price. Politico is reporting that the chief of
the Capitol Police, Thomas Manger, was never told, warned, briefed message,
nor consulted by Speaker McCarthy by any Republican leadership, by
(04:03):
anybody at News or News Corps about the video release.
Politico reported quote a person familiar with the matter said
Major told associates he did not learn of the arrangements
between McCarthy and Carlson until it began publicly circulating. On Monday.
Manger was not the only one literally surprised by this
(04:24):
indefensible pact between McCarthy and the pro Russian Carlson, again
from Politico quote, House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland also
told associates he learned about it around the same time
Axeos broke the news Monday. The person familiar said, more importantly, still,
Chief Manger and Sergeant at Arms McFarland clearly think they
(04:47):
can do something to stop McCarthy from letting Carlson and
Fox News review and disseminate this video, and to stop
Carlson's boast from his Monday night Fantasy program that his
producers had quote unfettered unquote access to the visual map
of where all the security cameras and other protective measures
are located in the Capitol complex. Somebody close to the
(05:11):
Sergeant at arms reminded the Politico reporter that there is
still such a thing as the Capitol Police Board, a
three person panel in charge of all security decisions. It
consists of the House Sergeant of Arms McFarland, the Senate
Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson, and the architect of the Capitol.
Right now, there is no Architect of the Capitol. The
(05:33):
Trump appointee to that job, Bret Blanton, was fired last
week by President Biden with Speaker McCarthy's ascent who misappropriation
of public funds. There is an acting Architect of the Capitol,
and yes, the job is referred to by its acronym AOC.
The acting architect is Chaer rex Wrote, who has been
(05:54):
the chief engineer of the Capital. Capitol Police Chief Major
is a non voting member of this board. So, in short,
if the Capitol Police Board does vote on whether or
not to try to stop the collusion between Speaker McCarthy
and Tucker Carlson, that vote will go against McCarthy and
his little TV friend. Both of them are clearly shocked
(06:16):
that their illicit deal got any blowback, let alone this
growing push from House Democrats and the bipartisan police board
that tries to keep them all safe. McCarthy has said
nothing about this, will not answer questions. Carlson continues to
boast not only that he has had access to the
security video, but that his producers have had it for
(06:37):
the last week, which itself raises the stakes a little
bit higher for McCarthy. If the Police Board votes to
deny access to those security tapes. But McCarthy has already
granted that access to a private company with no journalistic
protections nor First Amendment expectations. McCarthy could be in even
more trouble than he is right now. The fact is,
(06:59):
all of the video, we say, forty one thousand hours
of it, Carlson says forty four thousand hours of it
has not been publicly seen, was not given to say
MSNBC last year, was not shown at the hearings last
year of the January sixth Committee because it was deemed
in various places inside the Capitol Police Board, in the courts,
(07:23):
in the January sixth Committee itself, it was deemed as
far more dangerous to continuing safety arrangements at the Capitol
than it would be revelatory to exposing the coup attempt itself,
and off the record source summed up the responsible arrangement.
The January sixth Committee had agreed to the Capitol Hill
Police Department quote reviewed every second of video prior to
(07:47):
its public display and worked with the committee. And the
Committee worked with the department to provide accommodation of their
reasonable concerns and as representative Zoelofgren of California put it
to The New York Times last night, quote, we were
very careful with it. We were particularly focused on not
showing sensitive areas involving the evacuation of the members of
(08:09):
Congress in various places. That type of release could really
provide a blueprint for bad guys on how to more
successfully attack the Capitol. And the chairman of the erstwhile
January sixth Committee went even further, Benny Thompson says, quote,
It's hard to overstate the potential security risks if this
(08:31):
material were to be used irresponsibly, taking all the video sensitive, secret,
mundane and handing it to a delusional man with a
Messiah complex one of the bad guys like Tucker Carlson
is not accommodating reasonable concerns, nor is it working with
(08:53):
the police department, Nor is it in this country's interests,
nor does it increase the safety of those on the
hill Democrat or Republican. It is in fact insane. Hannamul
David was a spokesperson for the January six Committee and
now holds the same position with the Congressional Integrity Project.
She issued a blunt statement yesterday and to quote, it
(09:16):
allowing Fox to have this footage poses serious security risks
two lawmakers, and she raises a third element here, McCarthy
and Carlson are giving the visual equivalent of a tour
of Capitol Hill security to lawmakers who themselves already tried
to breach that security. We're already complicit in the coup.
(09:39):
Quoting again, we know some of the Republicans that are
conducting investigations on the Hill were intimately involved in the
January sixth insurrection plot. Unquote. The video isn't just going
to the real life Fox Company, it is going to
the metaphorical Fox in the henhouse. That is what the
(10:01):
channel calling itself Fox News, has always been, even when
the channel was serving as a team of cheerleaders for
a Republican administration mounting a phony war for purely political reasons.
In March two thousand and three, Foxes Heraldo Rivera was
embedded with the one hundred and first airborne unit on
the ground in Iraq. During a live broadcast on Fox
(10:25):
News Channel, Heraldo Rivera told his cameraman to pan down
to the desert on which he stood. Rivera then drew
in the sand to illustrate exactly where the one hundred
and first Airborne Unit was at that moment, and where
the city of Baghdad was, and where the one hundred
and first would be going next. Rivera did this because
(10:47):
even when Fox is fulfilling its natural role as the
disinformation support team for a rogue president, it as a company,
as a television operation, as a group of jackasses, has
never cared for one minute about the troops, about the freedoms,
about the nation, about the military. They sell a product.
(11:12):
The product is phony patriotism. The product is a distorted
picture of an America constantly aggrieved, constantly with a chip
on its shoulder. Heraldo Rivera and Fox News gave away
the location of the one hundred and first Airborne Division
in Iraq because Heraldo had to show Fox's customer viewers
(11:38):
how great he was, how great the channel was, and
what inside knowledge it could provide those viewers, and in
this case, what inside knowledge it could provide the iraqis
The Pentagon not only immediately revoked Rivera's credentials, it had
members of the one hundred and first escort him out
(11:58):
of the country. That, in microcosm, is what we are
dealing with. If anything, today, Fox News Channel is worse
and less patriotic, as the dominion lawsuit texts show conclusively,
the performers on Fox News are lying. They know they
(12:21):
are lying, they do not care that they are lying.
The performers are distorting reality and enticing their custom reviewers
to believe things that are entirely untrue, and the performers
do not care about that either. When truth accidentally emerges
on their channel from fringe figures who do not fully
(12:44):
understand the cynical perversion of news that Fox has perfected
and pedals creatures like this, Carlson and the people who
call themselves news executives summon all the inside political capital
they can within their company to suppress that truth and
to punish the people who have revealed it. For one reason,
(13:05):
and one reason alone. As Tucker Carlson himself put it
and put it in writing quote, the stock price is down.
Not a joke. Also not a joke. The danger to
this country represented by Kevin McCarthy and the so called
Fox News Channel. The Democrats should come out of their
(13:28):
meeting today with emotion to censure Kevin McCarthy, even though
it will not pass, and if possible, a criminal referral
to the Department of Justice for McCarthy's egregious violations of
the security arrangements in the very buildings in which they
are all working. Hundreds of people are risking their lives
every day to save Kevin McCarthy's. Kevin McCarthy is siding
(13:51):
with those who, on January sixth, would have killed him.
The Capitol Police Board should not only vote to deny
any television channel, especially a fiction based one such as
Fox News, access to that video detailing security arrangements, but
it should also vote a criminal referral to the Department
of Justice to prosecute McCarthy for his unwarranted and illegal
(14:13):
decision to just ignore the laws of this country. In essence,
Kevin McCarthy has stolen the January sixth video and handed
it to Tucker Carlson and his flunkeys, and that means
Tucker Carlson, his flunkeys, and his employers at the Fox
News channel station are as liable for prosecution as McCarthy is.
(14:40):
Go to it these creatures stole those videos, prosecute them accordingly,
and the rest of us must organize to do by
boycott and by economic means what should have been done
on October seventh, nineteen ninety six. We must deplatform Fox
(15:02):
News and close that company down. It is as damaging
to this country as organized crime, as damaging as the
Oath Keepers or any other element of the January sixth
coup conspiracy, and Fox News channel has already done more
damage to this country than al Qaeda, or ISIS or
Atum Waffen or any other terrorist group could ever dream of.
(15:28):
It is time to put Fox News out of business.
And for the record, that date when this should have
been done October seventh, nineteen ninety six, what happened that day?
That was the day Fox News started to belch out
(15:48):
this its anti democracy, anti diversity, anti American manifesto, still
(16:09):
ahead of us. In this edition of Countdown, speaking of
anti American, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green doubles down this time.
Barney Rubble's body double isn't just talking about a national divorce.
Now she is advocating revoking the voting rights of Democrats.
There is also no other way to phrase this. An
(16:31):
Alaska state legislator who is a lifetime member of the
Oath Keepers, who was photographed outside the US capital on
January sixth, has now done in public a cost benefit
analysis and claims that if a child is abused, if
that child is killed, quote, it's actually a benefit to
society unquote. We have the tape, and back to Fox
(16:56):
since we are talking about its culpability and a national
security breach. Again, just like in two thousand and three,
let me give you my full insider's experience of working
there for three years. I worked in the Fox Company,
inside News Corps, and I was fired personally by Rupert Murdoch.
(17:17):
The full gory details ahead. That's next, This discountdown. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
(17:38):
some updates, some snarks, some prediction, state line, Atlanta. When
exactly did the Georgia Trump's Special Grand Jury start making
more announcements than the guy calling gate numbers at LaGuardia Airport?
Now it's jury four, woman Emily Cores telling NBC News
that her gaggle recommended indictments for more than a dozen people.
(17:59):
Asked then by The Washington Post if Trump was one
of the recommendations, Miss Cores replied, quote, You're not going
to be shocked. It's not rocket science, whichever that means. Next,
the grand jury will present a PowerPoint explaining rocket science.
Date line East Palestine, Ohio. As Trump heads there to
(18:20):
grandstand today, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says he has made
a criminal referral against the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the company
responsible for the chemical disaster along the Ohio Pennsylvania border.
The Biden Administration's EPA Director, Michael Reagan also announced his
bureau will enforce laws to compel the railroad to clean
(18:41):
up the area entirely at its own expense. Ohio Governor
Mike DeWine says his state is well, maybe we'll get
back to dateline the Confederacy. Yesterday it was Representative cave
Woman demanding that the Red States and Blue states divorce,
without any seeming awareness that she lives in Georgia, which
(19:01):
is a blue state with two Democratic senators, or in
the broadest interpretation, Georgia is a purple state. Now, Marjorie
Taylor Green is proposing denying anybody who moves into what
she thinks of as a red state the right to vote.
What I think would be something that some red states
(19:23):
could propose is well, okay, if Democrat voters choose to
flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the living conditions.
They don't want their children taught these horrible things, and
they really change their mind on the types of policies
that they support. Well once they moved to a red state.
Guess what, maybe you don't get to vote for five years.
(19:44):
You can live there, you can work there, but you
don't get to bring your values. In other words, the
people she wants to convince to come over to her
side will be immediately punished behind her incredible imbecility. I mean,
we're seriously talking about brain damage here, or a series
of minor strokes or something. I am beginning to wonder
(20:05):
if Marjorie Trader Green thinks the concept of blue states
and red states is something I don't know official permanent.
Wait till she finds out that until Tim Russert started
calling states that were leaning towards George Bush in two
thousand red states, the traditional colors assigned to the TV
(20:26):
graphics on election night were Republicans in blue and Democrats
in red. Who am I kidding? Green is never gonna
find out anything, Thank you, Nancy Faust. By the way,
(21:02):
March seventeenth, at the White Sox Ubs spring training game
at Camelback Ranch in Arizona. Nancy Faust gets back into uniform.
She will play the organ at a White Sox game again. Congratulations,
White Sox. Ahead. Let me circle back to the opening commentary.
(21:35):
I actually had the personal experience of getting fired for
telling the truth on Fox, fired personally by Rupert Murdoch
things I promised not to tell next first time for
the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's where as persons in New
World The Bronze, the Washington Post. The story was about
(21:59):
how criminologists and analysts of police use of lethal force
had not formed a consensus on exactly which of several
reasons explained why cops are killing so many more people lately.
It's kind of a stupid story, but not utterly indefensible
as one the headline. The headline was utterly indefensible, quoting
(22:21):
the Washington Post, fatal police shootings are still going up
and nobody knows why. The runner up. You can look
at it this way, either the Republican Party is finding
it harder and harder to find fascists who don't say
incredibly stupid things that make no sense in public, or
if you're a half glass full kind of guy, you
(22:42):
can suggest that the Republicans are finding it easier and
easier to find fascists willing to say incredibly stupid things
that appeal to their incredibly stupid voters. Congressman Kevin Hearne
from Oklahoma implied on Fox that the President went to
Ukraine without bringing the entire US military with him as
Trump would have because Hunter Biden. That was it. Not
(23:08):
even a hint of how even if there were a
Hunter Biden Ukraine story, how it would explain the absence
of American troops. You know that old joke. Every time
I hear so and so speak, I think a McDonald
somewhere is missing a night manager. Congressman Kevin Hearn's first
job out of college was a manager at McDonald's. But
(23:32):
our winner Alaska state Representative David Eastman. For a decade,
he has been a lifetime member of the Oath Keepers.
He was at the capitol on January sixth. One of
the authors of Alaska's state constitutions sued to try to
keep him from running for reelection there because Eastman supported
the insurrection. The legislature may yet expel him for that.
(23:54):
And he's from Wasilla, Alaska, where as we know, the
stupidity is in the groundwater, asks Sarah Palin. But incredibly,
this Eastman has done something worse than all that combined.
It was at a hearing about Alaska's state costs for
victims of child abuse, in other words, victimized children, and
(24:14):
Representative Eastman, who wants sponsored a bill that would have
called abortion child abuse, who was then centured for saying
that some women got abortions because they got a free
trip from their small hometowns to Anchorage. Representative Eastman implied
that in the case of child abuse, it was better
if the child was killed because it's cheaper that way.
(24:38):
In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's
not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit
to society because there aren't needed for government services and
whatnot over the whole course of that child's life through
the check. Can you sit at again to say a
benefit for society talking dollars, Now, you've got one point
(24:59):
five million dollars price tag here for victims of fatal
child abuse in kins are periodically that it's actually a
cost savings because that child is not going to need
any of those government services that they might otherwise, um,
you know, be entitled to receive and need based on
you know, growing up in this type of environment. Through
(25:21):
the chair representative, I guess that would be the idea.
If I can use a really bad analogy, when you
hit somebody, always back up because it's cheaper to insurance.
I don't pertain to that, and I'm really I'm not
even sure how to answer that that there's a cost
saving to the death of a child. The impact that
(25:42):
that has on a family in US as a society
when a child is lost, especially to child abused neglect,
is unmeasurable, and it's it's a hugely tragic up and
the way that you're calculating this one point five million,
I say, yeah, as you heard, they're called out twice
(26:02):
by the witness for his bluntly in humanity. Eastman just
plowed ahead as if it were somehow normal to talk
about how much better it was for society if the
victims of child abuse died because it costs the state
of Alaska less. That way, what we are dealing with
in this Alaska State Representative is profound mental illness. Rarely
(26:25):
when I hand out this award do I literally mean it,
but that may be the case this time. Alaska State
Representative David Eastman may actually be the worst person in
the world to the number one story on the Countdown
on my favorite topic, Me and Things I Promised not
(26:48):
to tell. I have changed jobs a lot, and seldom
have the departures included gold watches and going away parties,
at least not going away parties to which I was invited.
But in forty three years in radio and television, I
have only actually been fired in the traditional sense of
go clean out your desk and get out twice. Once
(27:11):
the order was from a drunken radio executive who did
not like the fact that I was twenty one years old,
and he was overruled, and he was sent home with
a warning by his bosses hours later, and I was
back on the job forty eight hours after that. The
other time, when it actually happened, you're fired, clean out
your desk, that was, unsurprisingly at the hands of Rupert
(27:34):
Murdoch and Fox, and I mean Rupert Murdoch personally, or
so he claims. When I finally convinced NBC News that
I was serious about no longer hosting its Monica Lewinsky Athon.
In nineteen ninety eight, the head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversol,
had an ingenious solution. He knew his friends at Fox
(27:55):
Sports longed to have me front their version of Sports Center,
and so he proposed the following NBC would give my
agent ten days in which to negotiate two deals. A
deal for me to go to LA and host Fox
Sports News and Major League Baseball on Fox, and another
deal in which Fox would pay NBC one million dollars
(28:19):
for my contract, like I was a mediocre baseball pitcher. Amazingly,
it worked. I got what was then a record breaking
salary for any cable sportscaster. Ever, NBC got its million,
and maybe most startlingly, NBC then asked me to stay
on the air as a lane duck at MSNBC for
(28:41):
like six weeks. Curiously, throughout my career, no matter how
abrasive the exit, my lane duck employers have always for
some reason trusted me to stay on their air, even
though I was leaving in local news in Los Angeles.
Once I did this for three months anyway, at first
(29:04):
going to work at Fox Sports was a delight. Their
news guys, the evil Roger Ales and his henchman John Moody,
pitched me on doing stuff for them, maybe co anchoring
with Bill O'Reilly. I'm serious. I passed sports. We spent money.
I worked with friends. I didn't have to talk about politics.
I could narrate highlights. I could do funny voices or
(29:27):
way downtown bang. I lived on the beach. I mean,
my next door neighbor was Hawaii. Every time there was
a newspaper story about ESPN, even though our ratings were terrible,
there was also my picture in it with a caption
like challenging ESPN. It was great. But then two things happened.
(29:49):
The Fox guy, who knew we needed five years at
minimum just to tie ESPN in the ratings, took me
to lunch one day and said, sorry, mate, Momuss is
moving back to England tomorrow without me, so I'm going
good luck. He was replaced by guys who replaced the
five year plan with a five week plan to raise
(30:11):
the ratings by literally one fifth of one point. I
left that meeting in which they explained their suicidal plan
and revealed that my salary represented an unsustainable twenty percent
of their entire budget, and I called my real estate
agent and put my house on the beach up for sale.
(30:32):
Not long after, my doctor gave me a physical and
a warning, cut back on work and stress and everything else,
or you can have a heart attack ten years from now.
I told my bosses this, and their response was to
blackmail me. We have a clause in your contract which
allows us to send you on the road once a
week while you are still working five days in the studio.
(30:54):
We're going to enforce that unless you kick back two
thirds of your salary. They put this in a document.
There are, as the kids, say, receipts. So I folded
to blackmail because two thirds of three million dollars a
year is still pretty good. But I kept doing the job.
In nineteen ninety nine, I broke a story that everybody
(31:16):
laughed at that Michael Jordan was unhappy in retirement and
he wanted to come back to play in the NBA,
but instead of getting a salary, he wanted an ownership
stake in a team. Two years later, he did exactly that.
In two thousand, I got to host the first Mets
Yankees World Series and hosting baseball every Saturday on Fox
was a pretty good gig, and we were just gearing
(31:37):
up for the two thousand one baseball season when I
got a tip on April twentieth that the owners of
the Los Angeles Dodgers had unofficially put their team up
for sale, and in fact, they were talking to the
old owners, the O'Malley family, about taking the Dodgers off
their hands, selling the Dodgers back to the son of
(31:57):
Walter O'Malley. This was a great scoop, but it had
great danger because the owners of the Dodgers were Fox,
my own employers. The next day, after getting this scoop,
I made about one hundred phone calls, and sure enough
I got the friend of a friend of a friend
of my agent to confirm that he and his family
were in preliminary discussions joining the O'Malley's to buy the
(32:22):
Dodgers from Fox. Two sources. Great scoop, and that night
I reached out to my bosses and said, what the
hell do we do here? The story is solid, the
Dodgers are for sale, but look, this is your candy
store and I do work for you, and if you
don't want me to report this, I'm obviously not going
to report it, and I'm not going to pouch, and
(32:43):
I'm not going to give the story to somebody else.
My bosses replied, good for you. Why don't we all
get on the phone with the top Rupert Murdoch has
his own personal News Corps public relations department. Let's see
what he says. So on Sunday, April twenty second, two
thousand and one, we got Murdoch's own PR guy on
the blower and I explained it to him mile. Mister
(33:05):
Murdoch has a policy about this. He never interferes in
editorial decisions, not even in sourced business stories, not even
if they involve him. So long as you make it
clear your sources are not from within the company, and
so long as you're confident in your sources, and so
long as you include our denial, you should proceed with
(33:26):
this dodger story. That is what we are paying you for.
For a brief moment, I thought maybe I have misjudged
Rupert Murdoch. Well, it turned out to be a very
brief moment and a very wrong moment. I reported the
story that night, howls of denials. Five days later, though
(33:48):
the Long Beach Press Telegram newspaper had its own story said,
despite denials, Dodgers are for sale, with far more details
than I had, And that really was the end of it.
The team was unofficially for sale. Dodger fans, who hated
what Fox had done to the team seemed happy, and
the vast stinking pile of burning excrement that was Fox
(34:10):
and News Corp. And Murdoch sailed on unperturbed. But twelve
days after that, just before I was getting in my
car to go to the first Fox Baseball meeting for
our two thousand and one season coverage, the president of
Fox Sports, yet another Aussie called David Hill, called my
agent and told her case, not doing any baseball for
(34:31):
us this year. Business decision click, end of conversation. Nothing else,
no firing, no get out, no clean out your desk,
no announcement. But then two days later they turned off
my access to the Fox computer system. And four days
after that they called and canceled my cable show. And
(34:52):
then that night I got two weird calls from Rich Sandomir,
who was the TV sports critic and TV sports business
reporter for the New York Times, and Rich asks me,
so did you know you got fired by Rupert Murdoch personally.
And I said, with genuine astonishment that I not only
didn't know that, but even given my thoughts about Rupert Murdoch,
(35:13):
I didn't believe that. Well, that's what my sources at
Fox tell me. Apparently your Dodger's story really pissed him off.
But really, and I said, I had cleared it through
his personal pr guy I don't know. Rich sandom Here said,
apparently he was on vacation and he got back like
the ninth of this month, and he read all these
stories about the Dodgers being for sale and how Fox
(35:34):
Sports was the first to report it, and he called
up David Hill and he told Hill to fire you immediately.
So I told Rich, this is the first I ever
heard of this, and I still don't believe it, even
though the day he mentioned May ninth was the day
David Hill had called my agent and told her I
would not be doing baseball for Fox that year. An
hour later, the phone rings again and it's Rich sandom
(35:56):
Here again, and he sounds shaken. I got it wrong.
I don't have any sources at Fox who told me
Rupert fired you personally. My source said that you were
telling people Rupert had fired you personally over the Dodgers story.
And I gave Rich a sequence of well, kind of
friendly hus and I said, no, I didn't and know
(36:19):
you've never been dumb enough in your life to make
the mistake you're saying you just made. And he said, well,
I never said. Somebody at Fox said Murdoch fired Joe. Okay, thanks.
By the next day, they had come into the Fox
building on Pico Boulevard and clean out my office while
a guard watched. And she was a really nice guard.
In fact, she brought donuts but a lovely way to
(36:40):
go out. As I packed, I thought more and more
of what had happened in the month since I had
gotten that tip about the Dodgers being for sale. As
I left the Fox lot for the last time as
an employee, I went back a couple of times to
attend the table reads for the Simpsons. Table reads for
the Simpsons were much more fun than being an employee
at Fox. I called a couple of reporters I knew,
(37:01):
and my agent and some people in the business, and
we tried to put together or a timeline that made
some sort of sense. Because the slow motion firing thing.
May ninth, you're not doing baseball. May eleventh, your computer,
it won't work. May fifteenth, your cable show was canceled.
May sixteenth, clean out your office. A week long firing
made no sense until one reporter friend said, you know,
(37:25):
Fox called me and said, call Keith up and provoke him.
Get him to call us names, tell him about this
story in that paper, calling him washed up, get him going,
And then it all clicked. My contract ran through the
end of the year two thousand and one because Fox
was firing me without any cause, or even claiming there
was a cause, without any violation of my contract or
(37:48):
their rules. Because I had left a trail of good
behavior on the Dodger story. They were trying to enrage
me and get me to say something nasty that itself
would be a violation of my contract so they could
outright fire me and keep the money. And the money
still on the contract was about eight hundred thousand dollars. Now,
(38:09):
after decades of contemplating this, I am confident that I
am no crazier than the next guy, at least not
the next guy in television. But on my worst, craziest,
least rational day, if you said you have two choices, aldermen.
You can blow up these people who are firing you,
and you can make them look bad in a newspaper
(38:30):
for a day and then they'll fire you and keep
all the money they owe you. Or you can keep
your big bazoo shut for just seven months. You can
keep the eight hundred thousand dollars, and you can spend
the summer doing whatever the hell you want, and you
can then spend the rest of your natural life blowing
these people up. If that's the choice, I will always
(38:56):
take the scenario that gives me the eight hundred thousand
dollars for doing nothing. Always so. On January first, two
thousand and two, after the last Fox check cleared, I
began making a professional avocation out of attacking Fox News,
Fox Sports, Fox Business, Fox Murdoch, Fox O'Reilly, Fox, Tucker Carlson, whatever.
(39:19):
And I got the eight hundred thousand dollars. But they're
lingered for years, this kind of academic question of whether
Rupert Murdoch had actually fired me for having followed the
rules set out by his own personal pr guy. As usual,
these things resolve themselves when you least expect them to.
(39:40):
Murdoch was speaking at a Dow Jones conference in Carlsbad, California,
on May twenty eighth, two thousand and eight, seven years
to the month they got rid of me and a
story came across the wire with my name on it.
The guy interviewing him at this conference talked about whether
there should be dissenting voices on Fox quote news unquote,
(40:02):
like that guy who was killing it on MSNBC, Heath Alderman. Now,
Murdoch barked all fired him five years ago. He was crazy.
Timing was off, But there it was, Rupert Murdoch confessing
in front of a crowd that he fired me personally,
the red badge of courage in quotes. I wondered if
(40:25):
it still pissed him off that he had to pay
me the eight hundred thousand dollars when I didn't take
the grievance bait. Three years after that, Murdoch said it again,
like I hadn't heard it the first time. On February first,
two eleven, Rupert Murdoch was interviewed by his business talking
head Neil Cavudo, who for some reason asked him if
he would consider hiring me to put me on Fox News.
(40:49):
Now we fired him once. We don't believe in fign people. Twice,
Cabudo replied, you called him a nut lad. He was
a nut on lad. We had him on late night
Fox Sports. There was never any such show called late
night Fox Sports. But never mind, Rupe went on. It
was impossible. I fired him. He was crazy, fired me
(41:12):
for following his rules, and I was the one who
was crazy. Finally, speaking of crazy, I have had for
sixty three nearly sixty four years now, a love hate
relationship with the name Keith. But did you know that
Rupert Murdoch's real first name is also Keith, but that
(41:34):
rather than call himself Keith, he voluntarily chooses to call
himself Rupert. I mean, sure, my name is Keith, but
at least my name ain't freaking Rupert. Countdown has come
(42:07):
to you from the studios of Old Breman Broadcasting Umpire
World headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York,
mere blocks from the world headquarters of the News Corp
in New York, that part of News Corp that is
not based in Hell. Thanks for listening here the credits.
Most of the music, including our theme here from Beethoven's
Ninth was arranged produced and performed by Brian Ray and
(42:29):
John Philip SChannel, who are the countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Schanel, produced by Tko Brothers. The other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Alderman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
(42:51):
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist
ever our an outcre today was Tony Kornheiser. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this,
the seven hundred and seventy eighth day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him now while we still can. The
(43:12):
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
(43:35):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Are
we a nation of laws? Or are we a nation
(00:26):
of Kevin McCarthy's illicit back room deals with Tucker Carlson.
Do our courts and their rulings matter at all? Or
are they now supposed to defer to how the Fox
News Channel Big Bullshit programs its eight PM show? Which
matters more the safety and security of our representatives, our senators,
(00:50):
our vice presidents, our Hills staffers, Democratic and Republican alike,
or the stock price of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. House.
Democratic leaders meeting this afternoon to discuss the over Kevin
McCarthy's unilateral and possibly illegal decision to give Tucker Carlson,
(01:11):
an entertainer of some kind, access to video from the
Trump driven coup attempt of January six, twenty twenty one,
video that a federal court said could be released on
a case by case basis, but only carefully because it
gave extraordinarily specific details about security cameras and other measures
(01:32):
in the capital complex, the one already assaulted once by
MAGA republicans seeking to overthrow American democracy. The crisis, as
described by Democratic leader Hakim Jeffries quote, the apparent transfer
of video footage represents an egregious security breach. Extreme MAGA
(01:52):
Republicans in the House, Mister Jeffries went on, have provided
tens of thousands of hours of sensitive capital security footage
to a Fox News personality who regularly pedals in conspiracy
theories and pro putin rhetoric. Unquote. I suggested here yesterday,
(02:12):
as I have suggested almost continuously since nineteen ninety eight,
that the propaganda channel that calls itself Fox News was
a clear and present danger to the national security of
the United States, and that the time had long since
come to d platform it from all cable, satellite, and
internet carriers and close the business down. The California Congressman
(02:36):
Pete Aguiar notes, it's not at all surprising that Kevin
McCarthy would jeopardize the security of the Capitol and the
people that work there to further a political agenda. Agar
notes an underreported sidebar to this breach of public safety
by Speaker McCarthy and Tucker Carlson courting him again. This
is another payoff in the many backroom deals McCarthy cut
(03:00):
to secure enough Magarepublican votes to become speaker. Apart from
the rising and welcome democratic awareness that Fox News crossed
a line even for them, another less partisan group also
reacted with outrage, though most of it was off the record,
to Kevin McCarthy's willingness to sell the country out and
(03:21):
hand a roadmap of insurrection to those already plotting the
next coup and the next attack on the Capitol by
handing the sensitive video to a manifestly irresponsible individual like
Carlson and what is now a company that has essentially
admitted it falsely poses as and falsely portrays itself as
(03:41):
a news organization in order to simply push political conspiracy
theories and thus sell advertising and thus manipulate its parent
company's stock price. Politico is reporting that the chief of
the Capitol Police, Thomas Manger, was never told, warned, briefed message,
nor consulted by Speaker McCarthy by any Republican leadership, by
(04:03):
anybody at News or News Corps about the video release.
Politico reported quote a person familiar with the matter said
Major told associates he did not learn of the arrangements
between McCarthy and Carlson until it began publicly circulating. On Monday.
Manger was not the only one literally surprised by this
(04:24):
indefensible pact between McCarthy and the pro Russian Carlson, again
from Politico quote, House Sergeant at Arms William McFarland also
told associates he learned about it around the same time
Axeos broke the news Monday. The person familiar said, more importantly, still,
Chief Manger and Sergeant at Arms McFarland clearly think they
(04:47):
can do something to stop McCarthy from letting Carlson and
Fox News review and disseminate this video, and to stop
Carlson's boast from his Monday night Fantasy program that his
producers had quote unfettered unquote access to the visual map
of where all the security cameras and other protective measures
are located in the Capitol complex. Somebody close to the
(05:11):
Sergeant at arms reminded the Politico reporter that there is
still such a thing as the Capitol Police Board, a
three person panel in charge of all security decisions. It
consists of the House Sergeant of Arms McFarland, the Senate
Sergeant at Arms Karen Gibson, and the architect of the Capitol.
Right now, there is no Architect of the Capitol. The
(05:33):
Trump appointee to that job, Bret Blanton, was fired last
week by President Biden with Speaker McCarthy's ascent who misappropriation
of public funds. There is an acting Architect of the Capitol,
and yes, the job is referred to by its acronym AOC.
The acting architect is Chaer rex Wrote, who has been
(05:54):
the chief engineer of the Capital. Capitol Police Chief Major
is a non voting member of this board. So, in short,
if the Capitol Police Board does vote on whether or
not to try to stop the collusion between Speaker McCarthy
and Tucker Carlson, that vote will go against McCarthy and
his little TV friend. Both of them are clearly shocked
(06:16):
that their illicit deal got any blowback, let alone this
growing push from House Democrats and the bipartisan police board
that tries to keep them all safe. McCarthy has said
nothing about this, will not answer questions. Carlson continues to
boast not only that he has had access to the
security video, but that his producers have had it for
(06:37):
the last week, which itself raises the stakes a little
bit higher for McCarthy. If the Police Board votes to
deny access to those security tapes. But McCarthy has already
granted that access to a private company with no journalistic
protections nor First Amendment expectations. McCarthy could be in even
more trouble than he is right now. The fact is,
(06:59):
all of the video, we say, forty one thousand hours
of it, Carlson says forty four thousand hours of it
has not been publicly seen, was not given to say
MSNBC last year, was not shown at the hearings last
year of the January sixth Committee because it was deemed
in various places inside the Capitol Police Board, in the courts,
(07:23):
in the January sixth Committee itself, it was deemed as
far more dangerous to continuing safety arrangements at the Capitol
than it would be revelatory to exposing the coup attempt itself,
and off the record source summed up the responsible arrangement.
The January sixth Committee had agreed to the Capitol Hill
Police Department quote reviewed every second of video prior to
(07:47):
its public display and worked with the committee. And the
Committee worked with the department to provide accommodation of their
reasonable concerns and as representative Zoelofgren of California put it
to The New York Times last night, quote, we were
very careful with it. We were particularly focused on not
showing sensitive areas involving the evacuation of the members of
(08:09):
Congress in various places. That type of release could really
provide a blueprint for bad guys on how to more
successfully attack the Capitol. And the chairman of the erstwhile
January sixth Committee went even further, Benny Thompson says, quote,
It's hard to overstate the potential security risks if this
(08:31):
material were to be used irresponsibly, taking all the video sensitive, secret,
mundane and handing it to a delusional man with a
Messiah complex one of the bad guys like Tucker Carlson
is not accommodating reasonable concerns, nor is it working with
(08:53):
the police department, Nor is it in this country's interests,
nor does it increase the safety of those on the
hill Democrat or Republican. It is in fact insane. Hannamul
David was a spokesperson for the January six Committee and
now holds the same position with the Congressional Integrity Project.
She issued a blunt statement yesterday and to quote, it
(09:16):
allowing Fox to have this footage poses serious security risks
two lawmakers, and she raises a third element here, McCarthy
and Carlson are giving the visual equivalent of a tour
of Capitol Hill security to lawmakers who themselves already tried
to breach that security. We're already complicit in the coup.
(09:39):
Quoting again, we know some of the Republicans that are
conducting investigations on the Hill were intimately involved in the
January sixth insurrection plot. Unquote. The video isn't just going
to the real life Fox Company, it is going to
the metaphorical Fox in the henhouse. That is what the
(10:01):
channel calling itself Fox News, has always been, even when
the channel was serving as a team of cheerleaders for
a Republican administration mounting a phony war for purely political reasons.
In March two thousand and three, Foxes Heraldo Rivera was
embedded with the one hundred and first airborne unit on
the ground in Iraq. During a live broadcast on Fox
(10:25):
News Channel, Heraldo Rivera told his cameraman to pan down
to the desert on which he stood. Rivera then drew
in the sand to illustrate exactly where the one hundred
and first Airborne Unit was at that moment, and where
the city of Baghdad was, and where the one hundred
and first would be going next. Rivera did this because
(10:47):
even when Fox is fulfilling its natural role as the
disinformation support team for a rogue president, it as a company,
as a television operation, as a group of jackasses, has
never cared for one minute about the troops, about the freedoms,
about the nation, about the military. They sell a product.
(11:12):
The product is phony patriotism. The product is a distorted
picture of an America constantly aggrieved, constantly with a chip
on its shoulder. Heraldo Rivera and Fox News gave away
the location of the one hundred and first Airborne Division
in Iraq because Heraldo had to show Fox's customer viewers
(11:38):
how great he was, how great the channel was, and
what inside knowledge it could provide those viewers, and in
this case, what inside knowledge it could provide the iraqis
The Pentagon not only immediately revoked Rivera's credentials, it had
members of the one hundred and first escort him out
(11:58):
of the country. That, in microcosm, is what we are
dealing with. If anything, today, Fox News Channel is worse
and less patriotic, as the dominion lawsuit texts show conclusively,
the performers on Fox News are lying. They know they
(12:21):
are lying, they do not care that they are lying.
The performers are distorting reality and enticing their custom reviewers
to believe things that are entirely untrue, and the performers
do not care about that either. When truth accidentally emerges
on their channel from fringe figures who do not fully
(12:44):
understand the cynical perversion of news that Fox has perfected
and pedals creatures like this, Carlson and the people who
call themselves news executives summon all the inside political capital
they can within their company to suppress that truth and
to punish the people who have revealed it. For one reason,
(13:05):
and one reason alone. As Tucker Carlson himself put it
and put it in writing quote, the stock price is down.
Not a joke. Also not a joke. The danger to
this country represented by Kevin McCarthy and the so called
Fox News Channel. The Democrats should come out of their
(13:28):
meeting today with emotion to censure Kevin McCarthy, even though
it will not pass, and if possible, a criminal referral
to the Department of Justice for McCarthy's egregious violations of
the security arrangements in the very buildings in which they
are all working. Hundreds of people are risking their lives
every day to save Kevin McCarthy's. Kevin McCarthy is siding
(13:51):
with those who, on January sixth, would have killed him.
The Capitol Police Board should not only vote to deny
any television channel, especially a fiction based one such as
Fox News, access to that video detailing security arrangements, but
it should also vote a criminal referral to the Department
of Justice to prosecute McCarthy for his unwarranted and illegal
(14:13):
decision to just ignore the laws of this country. In essence,
Kevin McCarthy has stolen the January sixth video and handed
it to Tucker Carlson and his flunkeys, and that means
Tucker Carlson, his flunkeys, and his employers at the Fox
News channel station are as liable for prosecution as McCarthy is.
(14:40):
Go to it these creatures stole those videos, prosecute them accordingly,
and the rest of us must organize to do by
boycott and by economic means what should have been done
on October seventh, nineteen ninety six. We must deplatform Fox
(15:02):
News and close that company down. It is as damaging
to this country as organized crime, as damaging as the
Oath Keepers or any other element of the January sixth
coup conspiracy, and Fox News channel has already done more
damage to this country than al Qaeda, or ISIS or
Atum Waffen or any other terrorist group could ever dream of.
(15:28):
It is time to put Fox News out of business.
And for the record, that date when this should have
been done October seventh, nineteen ninety six, what happened that day?
That was the day Fox News started to belch out
(15:48):
this its anti democracy, anti diversity, anti American manifesto, still
(16:09):
ahead of us. In this edition of Countdown, speaking of
anti American, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green doubles down this time.
Barney Rubble's body double isn't just talking about a national divorce.
Now she is advocating revoking the voting rights of Democrats.
There is also no other way to phrase this. An
(16:31):
Alaska state legislator who is a lifetime member of the
Oath Keepers, who was photographed outside the US capital on
January sixth, has now done in public a cost benefit
analysis and claims that if a child is abused, if
that child is killed, quote, it's actually a benefit to
society unquote. We have the tape, and back to Fox
(16:56):
since we are talking about its culpability and a national
security breach. Again, just like in two thousand and three,
let me give you my full insider's experience of working
there for three years. I worked in the Fox Company,
inside News Corps, and I was fired personally by Rupert Murdoch.
(17:17):
The full gory details ahead. That's next, This discountdown. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman. Postscripts to the news, some headlines,
(17:38):
some updates, some snarks, some prediction, state line, Atlanta. When
exactly did the Georgia Trump's Special Grand Jury start making
more announcements than the guy calling gate numbers at LaGuardia Airport?
Now it's jury four, woman Emily Cores telling NBC News
that her gaggle recommended indictments for more than a dozen people.
(17:59):
Asked then by The Washington Post if Trump was one
of the recommendations, Miss Cores replied, quote, You're not going
to be shocked. It's not rocket science, whichever that means. Next,
the grand jury will present a PowerPoint explaining rocket science.
Date line East Palestine, Ohio. As Trump heads there to
(18:20):
grandstand today, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro says he has made
a criminal referral against the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the company
responsible for the chemical disaster along the Ohio Pennsylvania border.
The Biden Administration's EPA Director, Michael Reagan also announced his
bureau will enforce laws to compel the railroad to clean
(18:41):
up the area entirely at its own expense. Ohio Governor
Mike DeWine says his state is well, maybe we'll get
back to dateline the Confederacy. Yesterday it was Representative cave
Woman demanding that the Red States and Blue states divorce,
without any seeming awareness that she lives in Georgia, which
(19:01):
is a blue state with two Democratic senators, or in
the broadest interpretation, Georgia is a purple state. Now, Marjorie
Taylor Green is proposing denying anybody who moves into what
she thinks of as a red state the right to vote.
What I think would be something that some red states
(19:23):
could propose is well, okay, if Democrat voters choose to
flee these blue states where they cannot tolerate the living conditions.
They don't want their children taught these horrible things, and
they really change their mind on the types of policies
that they support. Well once they moved to a red state.
Guess what, maybe you don't get to vote for five years.
(19:44):
You can live there, you can work there, but you
don't get to bring your values. In other words, the
people she wants to convince to come over to her
side will be immediately punished behind her incredible imbecility. I mean,
we're seriously talking about brain damage here, or a series
of minor strokes or something. I am beginning to wonder
(20:05):
if Marjorie Trader Green thinks the concept of blue states
and red states is something I don't know official permanent.
Wait till she finds out that until Tim Russert started
calling states that were leaning towards George Bush in two
thousand red states, the traditional colors assigned to the TV
(20:26):
graphics on election night were Republicans in blue and Democrats
in red. Who am I kidding? Green is never gonna
find out anything, Thank you, Nancy Faust. By the way,
(21:02):
March seventeenth, at the White Sox Ubs spring training game
at Camelback Ranch in Arizona. Nancy Faust gets back into uniform.
She will play the organ at a White Sox game again. Congratulations,
White Sox. Ahead. Let me circle back to the opening commentary.
(21:35):
I actually had the personal experience of getting fired for
telling the truth on Fox, fired personally by Rupert Murdoch
things I promised not to tell next first time for
the daily roundup of the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger
effects specimens who constitute today's where as persons in New
World The Bronze, the Washington Post. The story was about
(21:59):
how criminologists and analysts of police use of lethal force
had not formed a consensus on exactly which of several
reasons explained why cops are killing so many more people lately.
It's kind of a stupid story, but not utterly indefensible
as one the headline. The headline was utterly indefensible, quoting
(22:21):
the Washington Post, fatal police shootings are still going up
and nobody knows why. The runner up. You can look
at it this way, either the Republican Party is finding
it harder and harder to find fascists who don't say
incredibly stupid things that make no sense in public, or
if you're a half glass full kind of guy, you
(22:42):
can suggest that the Republicans are finding it easier and
easier to find fascists willing to say incredibly stupid things
that appeal to their incredibly stupid voters. Congressman Kevin Hearne
from Oklahoma implied on Fox that the President went to
Ukraine without bringing the entire US military with him as
Trump would have because Hunter Biden. That was it. Not
(23:08):
even a hint of how even if there were a
Hunter Biden Ukraine story, how it would explain the absence
of American troops. You know that old joke. Every time
I hear so and so speak, I think a McDonald
somewhere is missing a night manager. Congressman Kevin Hearn's first
job out of college was a manager at McDonald's. But
(23:32):
our winner Alaska state Representative David Eastman. For a decade,
he has been a lifetime member of the Oath Keepers.
He was at the capitol on January sixth. One of
the authors of Alaska's state constitutions sued to try to
keep him from running for reelection there because Eastman supported
the insurrection. The legislature may yet expel him for that.
(23:54):
And he's from Wasilla, Alaska, where as we know, the
stupidity is in the groundwater, asks Sarah Palin. But incredibly,
this Eastman has done something worse than all that combined.
It was at a hearing about Alaska's state costs for
victims of child abuse, in other words, victimized children, and
(24:14):
Representative Eastman, who wants sponsored a bill that would have
called abortion child abuse, who was then centured for saying
that some women got abortions because they got a free
trip from their small hometowns to Anchorage. Representative Eastman implied
that in the case of child abuse, it was better
if the child was killed because it's cheaper that way.
(24:38):
In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's
not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit
to society because there aren't needed for government services and
whatnot over the whole course of that child's life through
the check. Can you sit at again to say a
benefit for society talking dollars, Now, you've got one point
(24:59):
five million dollars price tag here for victims of fatal
child abuse in kins are periodically that it's actually a
cost savings because that child is not going to need
any of those government services that they might otherwise, um,
you know, be entitled to receive and need based on
you know, growing up in this type of environment. Through
(25:21):
the chair representative, I guess that would be the idea.
If I can use a really bad analogy, when you
hit somebody, always back up because it's cheaper to insurance.
I don't pertain to that, and I'm really I'm not
even sure how to answer that that there's a cost
saving to the death of a child. The impact that
(25:42):
that has on a family in US as a society
when a child is lost, especially to child abused neglect,
is unmeasurable, and it's it's a hugely tragic up and
the way that you're calculating this one point five million,
I say, yeah, as you heard, they're called out twice
(26:02):
by the witness for his bluntly in humanity. Eastman just
plowed ahead as if it were somehow normal to talk
about how much better it was for society if the
victims of child abuse died because it costs the state
of Alaska less. That way, what we are dealing with
in this Alaska State Representative is profound mental illness. Rarely
(26:25):
when I hand out this award do I literally mean it,
but that may be the case this time. Alaska State
Representative David Eastman may actually be the worst person in
the world to the number one story on the Countdown
on my favorite topic, Me and Things I Promised not
(26:48):
to tell. I have changed jobs a lot, and seldom
have the departures included gold watches and going away parties,
at least not going away parties to which I was invited.
But in forty three years in radio and television, I
have only actually been fired in the traditional sense of
go clean out your desk and get out twice. Once
(27:11):
the order was from a drunken radio executive who did
not like the fact that I was twenty one years old,
and he was overruled, and he was sent home with
a warning by his bosses hours later, and I was
back on the job forty eight hours after that. The
other time, when it actually happened, you're fired, clean out
your desk, that was, unsurprisingly at the hands of Rupert
(27:34):
Murdoch and Fox, and I mean Rupert Murdoch personally, or
so he claims. When I finally convinced NBC News that
I was serious about no longer hosting its Monica Lewinsky Athon.
In nineteen ninety eight, the head of NBC Sports, Dick Eversol,
had an ingenious solution. He knew his friends at Fox
(27:55):
Sports longed to have me front their version of Sports Center,
and so he proposed the following NBC would give my
agent ten days in which to negotiate two deals. A
deal for me to go to LA and host Fox
Sports News and Major League Baseball on Fox, and another
deal in which Fox would pay NBC one million dollars
(28:19):
for my contract, like I was a mediocre baseball pitcher. Amazingly,
it worked. I got what was then a record breaking
salary for any cable sportscaster. Ever, NBC got its million,
and maybe most startlingly, NBC then asked me to stay
on the air as a lane duck at MSNBC for
(28:41):
like six weeks. Curiously, throughout my career, no matter how
abrasive the exit, my lane duck employers have always for
some reason trusted me to stay on their air, even
though I was leaving in local news in Los Angeles.
Once I did this for three months anyway, at first
(29:04):
going to work at Fox Sports was a delight. Their
news guys, the evil Roger Ales and his henchman John Moody,
pitched me on doing stuff for them, maybe co anchoring
with Bill O'Reilly. I'm serious. I passed sports. We spent money.
I worked with friends. I didn't have to talk about politics.
I could narrate highlights. I could do funny voices or
(29:27):
way downtown bang. I lived on the beach. I mean,
my next door neighbor was Hawaii. Every time there was
a newspaper story about ESPN, even though our ratings were terrible,
there was also my picture in it with a caption
like challenging ESPN. It was great. But then two things happened.
(29:49):
The Fox guy, who knew we needed five years at
minimum just to tie ESPN in the ratings, took me
to lunch one day and said, sorry, mate, Momuss is
moving back to England tomorrow without me, so I'm going
good luck. He was replaced by guys who replaced the
five year plan with a five week plan to raise
(30:11):
the ratings by literally one fifth of one point. I
left that meeting in which they explained their suicidal plan
and revealed that my salary represented an unsustainable twenty percent
of their entire budget, and I called my real estate
agent and put my house on the beach up for sale.
(30:32):
Not long after, my doctor gave me a physical and
a warning, cut back on work and stress and everything else,
or you can have a heart attack ten years from now.
I told my bosses this, and their response was to
blackmail me. We have a clause in your contract which
allows us to send you on the road once a
week while you are still working five days in the studio.
(30:54):
We're going to enforce that unless you kick back two
thirds of your salary. They put this in a document.
There are, as the kids, say, receipts. So I folded
to blackmail because two thirds of three million dollars a
year is still pretty good. But I kept doing the job.
In nineteen ninety nine, I broke a story that everybody
(31:16):
laughed at that Michael Jordan was unhappy in retirement and
he wanted to come back to play in the NBA,
but instead of getting a salary, he wanted an ownership
stake in a team. Two years later, he did exactly that.
In two thousand, I got to host the first Mets
Yankees World Series and hosting baseball every Saturday on Fox
was a pretty good gig, and we were just gearing
(31:37):
up for the two thousand one baseball season when I
got a tip on April twentieth that the owners of
the Los Angeles Dodgers had unofficially put their team up
for sale, and in fact, they were talking to the
old owners, the O'Malley family, about taking the Dodgers off
their hands, selling the Dodgers back to the son of
(31:57):
Walter O'Malley. This was a great scoop, but it had
great danger because the owners of the Dodgers were Fox,
my own employers. The next day, after getting this scoop,
I made about one hundred phone calls, and sure enough
I got the friend of a friend of a friend
of my agent to confirm that he and his family
were in preliminary discussions joining the O'Malley's to buy the
(32:22):
Dodgers from Fox. Two sources. Great scoop, and that night
I reached out to my bosses and said, what the
hell do we do here? The story is solid, the
Dodgers are for sale, but look, this is your candy
store and I do work for you, and if you
don't want me to report this, I'm obviously not going
to report it, and I'm not going to pouch, and
(32:43):
I'm not going to give the story to somebody else.
My bosses replied, good for you. Why don't we all
get on the phone with the top Rupert Murdoch has
his own personal News Corps public relations department. Let's see
what he says. So on Sunday, April twenty second, two
thousand and one, we got Murdoch's own PR guy on
the blower and I explained it to him mile. Mister
(33:05):
Murdoch has a policy about this. He never interferes in
editorial decisions, not even in sourced business stories, not even
if they involve him. So long as you make it
clear your sources are not from within the company, and
so long as you're confident in your sources, and so
long as you include our denial, you should proceed with
(33:26):
this dodger story. That is what we are paying you for.
For a brief moment, I thought maybe I have misjudged
Rupert Murdoch. Well, it turned out to be a very
brief moment and a very wrong moment. I reported the
story that night, howls of denials. Five days later, though
(33:48):
the Long Beach Press Telegram newspaper had its own story said,
despite denials, Dodgers are for sale, with far more details
than I had, And that really was the end of it.
The team was unofficially for sale. Dodger fans, who hated
what Fox had done to the team seemed happy, and
the vast stinking pile of burning excrement that was Fox
(34:10):
and News Corp. And Murdoch sailed on unperturbed. But twelve
days after that, just before I was getting in my
car to go to the first Fox Baseball meeting for
our two thousand and one season coverage, the president of
Fox Sports, yet another Aussie called David Hill, called my
agent and told her case, not doing any baseball for
(34:31):
us this year. Business decision click, end of conversation. Nothing else,
no firing, no get out, no clean out your desk,
no announcement. But then two days later they turned off
my access to the Fox computer system. And four days
after that they called and canceled my cable show. And
(34:52):
then that night I got two weird calls from Rich Sandomir,
who was the TV sports critic and TV sports business
reporter for the New York Times, and Rich asks me,
so did you know you got fired by Rupert Murdoch personally.
And I said, with genuine astonishment that I not only
didn't know that, but even given my thoughts about Rupert Murdoch,
(35:13):
I didn't believe that. Well, that's what my sources at
Fox tell me. Apparently your Dodger's story really pissed him off.
But really, and I said, I had cleared it through
his personal pr guy I don't know. Rich sandom Here said,
apparently he was on vacation and he got back like
the ninth of this month, and he read all these
stories about the Dodgers being for sale and how Fox
(35:34):
Sports was the first to report it, and he called
up David Hill and he told Hill to fire you immediately.
So I told Rich, this is the first I ever
heard of this, and I still don't believe it, even
though the day he mentioned May ninth was the day
David Hill had called my agent and told her I
would not be doing baseball for Fox that year. An
hour later, the phone rings again and it's Rich sandom
(35:56):
Here again, and he sounds shaken. I got it wrong.
I don't have any sources at Fox who told me
Rupert fired you personally. My source said that you were
telling people Rupert had fired you personally over the Dodgers story.
And I gave Rich a sequence of well, kind of
friendly hus and I said, no, I didn't and know
(36:19):
you've never been dumb enough in your life to make
the mistake you're saying you just made. And he said, well,
I never said. Somebody at Fox said Murdoch fired Joe. Okay, thanks.
By the next day, they had come into the Fox
building on Pico Boulevard and clean out my office while
a guard watched. And she was a really nice guard.
In fact, she brought donuts but a lovely way to
(36:40):
go out. As I packed, I thought more and more
of what had happened in the month since I had
gotten that tip about the Dodgers being for sale. As
I left the Fox lot for the last time as
an employee, I went back a couple of times to
attend the table reads for the Simpsons. Table reads for
the Simpsons were much more fun than being an employee
at Fox. I called a couple of reporters I knew,
(37:01):
and my agent and some people in the business, and
we tried to put together or a timeline that made
some sort of sense. Because the slow motion firing thing.
May ninth, you're not doing baseball. May eleventh, your computer,
it won't work. May fifteenth, your cable show was canceled.
May sixteenth, clean out your office. A week long firing
made no sense until one reporter friend said, you know,
(37:25):
Fox called me and said, call Keith up and provoke him.
Get him to call us names, tell him about this
story in that paper, calling him washed up, get him going,
And then it all clicked. My contract ran through the
end of the year two thousand and one because Fox
was firing me without any cause, or even claiming there
was a cause, without any violation of my contract or
(37:48):
their rules. Because I had left a trail of good
behavior on the Dodger story. They were trying to enrage
me and get me to say something nasty that itself
would be a violation of my contract so they could
outright fire me and keep the money. And the money
still on the contract was about eight hundred thousand dollars. Now,
(38:09):
after decades of contemplating this, I am confident that I
am no crazier than the next guy, at least not
the next guy in television. But on my worst, craziest,
least rational day, if you said you have two choices, aldermen.
You can blow up these people who are firing you,
and you can make them look bad in a newspaper
(38:30):
for a day and then they'll fire you and keep
all the money they owe you. Or you can keep
your big bazoo shut for just seven months. You can
keep the eight hundred thousand dollars, and you can spend
the summer doing whatever the hell you want, and you
can then spend the rest of your natural life blowing
these people up. If that's the choice, I will always
(38:56):
take the scenario that gives me the eight hundred thousand
dollars for doing nothing. Always so. On January first, two
thousand and two, after the last Fox check cleared, I
began making a professional avocation out of attacking Fox News,
Fox Sports, Fox Business, Fox Murdoch, Fox O'Reilly, Fox, Tucker Carlson, whatever.
(39:19):
And I got the eight hundred thousand dollars. But they're
lingered for years, this kind of academic question of whether
Rupert Murdoch had actually fired me for having followed the
rules set out by his own personal pr guy. As usual,
these things resolve themselves when you least expect them to.
(39:40):
Murdoch was speaking at a Dow Jones conference in Carlsbad, California,
on May twenty eighth, two thousand and eight, seven years
to the month they got rid of me and a
story came across the wire with my name on it.
The guy interviewing him at this conference talked about whether
there should be dissenting voices on Fox quote news unquote,
(40:02):
like that guy who was killing it on MSNBC, Heath Alderman. Now,
Murdoch barked all fired him five years ago. He was crazy.
Timing was off, But there it was, Rupert Murdoch confessing
in front of a crowd that he fired me personally,
the red badge of courage in quotes. I wondered if
(40:25):
it still pissed him off that he had to pay
me the eight hundred thousand dollars when I didn't take
the grievance bait. Three years after that, Murdoch said it again,
like I hadn't heard it the first time. On February first,
two eleven, Rupert Murdoch was interviewed by his business talking
head Neil Cavudo, who for some reason asked him if
he would consider hiring me to put me on Fox News.
(40:49):
Now we fired him once. We don't believe in fign people. Twice,
Cabudo replied, you called him a nut lad. He was
a nut on lad. We had him on late night
Fox Sports. There was never any such show called late
night Fox Sports. But never mind, Rupe went on. It
was impossible. I fired him. He was crazy, fired me
(41:12):
for following his rules, and I was the one who
was crazy. Finally, speaking of crazy, I have had for
sixty three nearly sixty four years now, a love hate
relationship with the name Keith. But did you know that
Rupert Murdoch's real first name is also Keith, but that
(41:34):
rather than call himself Keith, he voluntarily chooses to call
himself Rupert. I mean, sure, my name is Keith, but
at least my name ain't freaking Rupert. Countdown has come
(42:07):
to you from the studios of Old Breman Broadcasting Umpire
World headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York,
mere blocks from the world headquarters of the News Corp
in New York, that part of News Corp that is
not based in Hell. Thanks for listening here the credits.
Most of the music, including our theme here from Beethoven's
Ninth was arranged produced and performed by Brian Ray and
(42:29):
John Philip SChannel, who are the countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards
by John Philip Schanel, produced by Tko Brothers. The other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Alderman theme from ESPN two.
It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
(42:51):
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist
ever our an outcre today was Tony Kornheiser. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So let's countdown for this,
the seven hundred and seventy eighth day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
United States. Arrest him now while we still can. The
(43:12):
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
(43:35):
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
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