May 17, 2023 • 40 mins
EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Chris Licht or somebody close to him has inadvertently confessed that the network did, as accused, illicitly pack the live crowd at the Trump Town Hall with Trump Supporters, and lied to the public when it insisted the crowd would represent the entire voting mix for the New Hampshire GOP Primary.
A CNBC story (and it has all the ear-marks of a cable network public relations department clean-up operation) says Licht has defended the concept of the Town Hall ad insisted "history will look kindly" on his decisions but that CNN could've done some things better, including introducing the live crowd to the TV audience so viewers would know WHY THE LIVE CROWD SUPPORTED TRUMP. Licht or the Licht-adjacent leaker never stopped to think that they were admitting that the audience WAS stacked, hat the crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore they never stopped to think that saying that in retrospect they should have talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists before they started booing Kaitlan Collins and before Trump started to egg them on, supports the accusations by the Republican Governor OF New Hampsher Chris Sununu, and the former Republican Governor OF New Jersey Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they saw in that studio at St. Anselm’s College was a Trump supporter they recognized by sight. It also supports the accusation by Chris Christie that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the crowd. In one fell swoop, CNN has just admitted it was an almost-entirely pro-Trump crowd, and they shouldn’t have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else, but that they DID, and Licht wishes they hadn’t done that. Lie. To the viewers. To the nation. This elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance, into a literal kind of deception, a three-card Monte game, in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully-loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose executives and announcers lied that it was some kind of news or public events broadcast.
Lastly, and maybe worst of all, the CNBC piece hints that a network may be considering another Trump Town Hall. Read the tea leaves in the article and it's pretty clear that the network thinking about a Trump Town Hall 2 - that's leaking what it would do to improve on the first one...is CNN.
B-Block (19:54) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Yesterday's lead? About the shocker inside the Rudy Giuliani sex story? That he was offering pardons for $2,000,000 apiece and splitting the money with Trump? Turns out the exact same story - Giuliani offering pardons for $2M/per - was reported in real time; The bid to expel George Santos and why a vote is imminent; and the good news is, Dianne Feinstein talked to a couple of reporters yesterday. The bad news is, she doesn't know where she's been the last three months. (25:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: DeSantis joins the chorus of people who never read the Bible but are still calling NYC's alleged Subway Strangler "A Good Samaritan;" a Trump shill Congresswoman insists she's NOT a Trump shill; and Lauren Boebert is divorcing her husband and he is reportedly furious. God! Why?
C-Block (30:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Shiloh, thrown from a car in Atlanta (30:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This scenario playing out at CNN? Turning it into a right-wing propaganda network while pretending you're just making sure "all voices are heard?" The reason I keep talking about it, and feel so strongly about it, is that 20 years ago this spring MSNBC tried the exact same thing. Even put on a fascist commentator - literally wearing a Brownshirt on the air - named Michael Savage. And not only did ratings vanish but Savage embarrassed the company so badly he had to be fired. Then went all the producers. Then the executives. Finally the president of MSNBC, and the head of NBC News. It does not end well -
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. CNN
chairman Chris Lickt or someone leaking on his behalf to
(00:25):
a reporter from CNBC has inadvertently admitted that the network
did pack the live crowd at the Trump town hall
with Trump supporters, and licked Or a colleague inadvertently also
admitted he and CNN lied about who was going to
be in that audience. They have thus managed to reignite
the tire fire just when it seemed to be dying
(00:48):
down to just a putrid smolder, and on the eve
of CNN's annual advertising presentation, no less, and Lickt has
reportedly boasted, quote history will look kindly on the network's
decision to give Trump an hour of uninterrupted propaganda. Let
me read you three paragraphs from Alex Sherman's piece for
(01:09):
the CNBC website, and I think it'll be obvious what
the lie was and where the confession is. Quote. Lickt
has acknowledged internally there are some things he wished the
network had done differently. Unquote well, me too, I wish
the network had hired a different CEO. Sorry. Quoting again,
Lickt said he wished he had introduced the in person
(01:30):
audience to TV watchers so that viewers could better identify
who they were. CNBC quotes its sources familiar with his thinking.
The crowd was a main character in the event, as
many Trump supporters cheered his responses and jeered CNN host
Caitlin Collins when she challenged him. Lickt would have liked
(01:52):
to openly question the crowd before the town hall began,
so the TV audience could better understand who they were
and why they were supporting Trump. From the day this
Chernobyl was announced, CNN announced, announced, again, and reiterated, and
(02:13):
said afterwards that the crowd was to be four hundred
Republican and independent voters who were planning on voting in
the state's Republican primary next February. The need to quote
better identify who they were and better understand who they
were could not have been an issue. We were supposed
to have already known who they were. They were presented
(02:34):
as some sort of cross section of Republicans in New Hampshire.
All of CNN's rationalizations in advance of the telecast a
week ago tonight were defensive but specific. The idea that
this idiot. Licked now regrets not introducing them during the
broadcast so viewers could better understand why they were supporting
(02:58):
Trump confirms in big, glowing, read capital letters that the
audience members were or supporting Trump. Lickd and CNN just
confessed that the crowd CNN pick was not representative of
the four out of ten New Hampshire Republicans who do
not support Trump, that it was a room full of
almost nothing but Trump's supporters, and CNN and Licked lied
(03:21):
about that. And everybody on CNN who did not acknowledge
that fact before the town hall or after it was
an accessory before or after the fact to this fundamental,
unforgivable dishonesty. Licked or whoever leaked this on his behalf,
and this has all the earmarks of a cable network
(03:41):
public relations department cleanup operation never stopped to think that
they were admitting that the audience was stacked, that the
crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore, they never stopped
to think that saying that in retrospect, they should have
talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists
before they started booing. Caitlin Collins and before Trump started
(04:02):
to egg them on supports the accusation by the Republican
governor of New Hampshire Chris Sanunu and the former Republican
Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they
saw in that studio at Saint Anselm's College was a
Trump supporter that they recognized by sight. This licked or
licked adjacent leak also supports the accusation by Chris Christie
(04:26):
that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the
crowd in one fell swoop. CNN has just admitted it
was an almost entirely pro Trump crowd and they should
not have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else but
that they did and licked wishes that they had not
done that lie to the viewers to the nation. This
(04:51):
elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance into
a literal kind of deception. A three card Monte game
in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully he
loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose
executives and announcers lied and told America it was some
(05:13):
kind of news or public events broadcast nobody is going
to do this. But frankly, given these revelations, these accidental
revelations by Chris Lick or whoever was leaking on his behalf,
this CNBC story turns the disaster into something that the
Senate Commerce Committee should conduct a hearing into and the
(05:35):
Department of Justice should investigate. This is no longer just
journalistic prostitution. It is quite literally commercial fraud and people
should be grilled over it and maybe be indicted over it. Again,
I'm not kidding you nor myself, this will not happen.
(05:55):
Chris Lick will not be indicted. Chris Lick will not
be called in front of some Senate Commerce subcommittee. But
this underscore is the degree to which the people now
running CNN, and in particular Chris lickt have figuratively left
our planet and are now operating completely inside a fantasy
(06:18):
land in which, no, they didn't just destroy the network's reputation.
They didn't finish off Anderson Cooper's career. They didn't expose
their supposed new star Caitlin Collins as an unpleasant lightweight.
They didn't flush away even the fig leaf that, no
matter how badly that all has gone in the last year,
especially last Wednesday. It was intended as some kind of corrective.
(06:41):
It was a good gesture. It was some kind of
restoration of journalistic ballots. They illicitly loaded the audience, they
eliminated dissent. They lied about it, and when caught they
said maybe they could have done better by not lying
about it. And the rest of the article is about
(07:03):
how Licked thinks that there's a bit of blowback now,
but that'll all get better and CNN will prevail in
the long term. I mean, the numbers came out last night.
It did win the demo ratings race last week before
it sank into fourth place in a three team league.
History will look kindly. CNBC's sources claim Lickt has told
(07:26):
people both inside and outside CNN on the network's decision
to interview Trump in front of cheering supporters in a
live town hall format pacedeboy, stop digging, stop talking, You're
(07:46):
not good at it. It is impossible to believe, even
from my perspective, as somebody who's been telling you that
Chris lick was brought in to destroy CNN since I
think the very first episode of this series last August.
It is still impossible for me to believe that a
full week after the most irredeemably disastrous programming decision in
(08:10):
the history of cable news, CNN's chairman is continuing to
find new ways to make it worse. Surely, by now
you would think he would have run out of extremities
to metaphorically shoot himself in instead licked or whoever leaked
on his behalf to a reporter from CNBC managed to
(08:31):
collect all the ashes of their networks and their careers
and somehow managed to light them ablaze anew. And this
happens on the eve of the twenty twenty three Upfront
presentation for advertisers for CNN and its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
If you were on your way to that event at
(08:53):
the theater at Madison Square Garden to buy advertising on CNN,
and you read this piece at the CNBC website, you
would instead skip the event in Madison Square Gardens theater.
And it's said, go down the stairs under Madison Square
Garden and go into Penn Station and get on a
train going anywhere that would get you the f away
(09:14):
from CNN. And all that I have quoted so far
from this article is the smarter part of it. Quote
Licked and other CNN executives also pointed to direction elements
CNN could have done differently, such as focusing the camera
only on Collins when she tried to fight off Trump's
(09:38):
lies about election fraud in twenty twenty, rather than using
wide shots on both Trump and Collins. That way, CNN
could draw the audience's focus to the substance of the
question rather than the spectacle of trump enquote, why sure, Chris,
That was the solution to Trump lying like an out
(09:59):
of control fire hose. Keep him off camera while he's lying,
inst keep a close up on the dead look in
the host's eyes as they ran the gamut of emotions
from A to B. That's the way you fight Trump's lies.
Calling for camera one instead of camera three, Chris, not
(10:20):
you know, deciding not to put a psychotic liar on
live in primetime where virtually no fact checking method known
to man could shut him up while an audience of
the cheerleaders you lied about inviting encouraged him to go
in for the kill. Quote. CNN could have also graphically
shown each question while Trump spoke. Lick apparently offered to
(10:43):
the CNBC people emphasizing his answers didn't always match the
topic at hand. Yes, that's it, Chris, exactly, That's what
the thing needed last week. Better graphics. Not don't ever
do something like this live, or if you are going
to do it live, you have a fact checker in
(11:04):
a studio, backstage or in another state or country, and
you go to the fact checker to counter Trump's lies
while you shut off Trump's microphone. No, don't do that.
Better graphics, Jesus H. Christ. Incidentally, the way I know
(11:26):
that this story was not somebody near Chris Lickt surreptitiously
calling up this Alex Sherman fella and telling him off
the record what Pasteboy said. The reason I know that
this all came from Lickt or via an intermediary with
licked approval. The way I know they also think this
(11:47):
went well. The way I know all this is the
simple fact that deep in the piece, it switches. It
goes from microscopic grudging, brain dead, maya culpa weak, pointless,
stupid but vaguely looking like introspection and verging on regret.
(12:09):
It goes from that to something else, which Lickt has
always been magnificently skilled at blaming other people. Quote, Lickt
said he wished that after the town hall, he'd had
the network anchors focus on the news Trump made. Say
(12:30):
the real problem here isn't Chris licks utter lack of
minimal journalistic standards and morality and the decisions he made
that burned CNN to the ground in seventy minutes. No no, no, no, no,
no no. It's the others, the others who did not
do what they should have telepathically known. Chris Lickt wanted.
(12:52):
The example in the CNBC story is Trump's claim that
he could have settled Ukraine in twenty four hours. Quote
CNN could have gone live to a reporter in Ukraine
as an example, which would have reminded the audience of
the network's journalistic range. Well, yes, that would have been
an interesting alternate option. A stupid one, but an alternate.
(13:13):
What is the reaction there in key of Charlie to
Trump lying, tell me, you know, in between those Russian
bombs dropping on your head. On the other hand, it
or anything else, would have reduced the time spent post
Trump rally in which Trump prostitutes like Congressman Byron Donald's
got to spew his own fire hose of lies on CNN,
(13:37):
a happenstance, by the way, which Chris Christie said was
also part of Chris Lick's offered to Trump when he
went in the tank to get Trump on CNN. We'll
put your surrogates in the postgame show better graphics.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So now what if you waghe through all the Chris
Licked off the record comments praising Chris Licked. There is
a frightening germ of news in there. Quote. Other networks
will likely follow CNN's lead in booking Trump interviews. NBC
and its news networks have been in contact with many
(14:18):
of the US presidential candidates, including Trump. NBC isn't likely
to do a Trump town hall given how CNNs went unquote,
but there is the implication, as there has been for
the last week, that other Trump town halls are under
consideration actively inside American television networks. More town halls after
(14:41):
that the Titanic was not enough, You're going to launch
another one? Well where then Fox Newsmax one American News
like he hasn't already done infomercials for each in every
possible format. So what networks? NBC is a no from
this story CBS for a Trump town hall ABC on
(15:04):
their broadcast channels, I don't think so on their news
streaming services. Trump would not give those streaming services seventy seconds,
let alone seventy minutes. The terrifying thing is if you
accept this and other reporting that some executives looked at
the hinden Trump CNN disaster and saw only the three
(15:26):
point three million viewers, and that somebody is considering another
live Trump town hall, and that it's not NBC or
ABC or CBS or CNBC or MSNBC, and Chris Licht
has all these stupid ideas about how he could have
made his Trump town hall go better. That if there
(15:46):
really is a network considering another live Nuremberg rally with Trump,
if all that is true, there is only one inevitable
conclusion quote. Lickt continues to stand by the concept of
the town hall, telling people both inside and outside CNN
that history will look kindly on the network's decision. Well,
(16:09):
if he really believes that it is sadly, tragically, unavoidably
true that the network that must be thinking about televising
another Trump town hall is CNN. Lauren Bobert getting divorced
(16:32):
husband furious, God, why would you be furious about that?
Marjorie Taylor, Karen Green wants to talk to the manager,
all the managers. She proposed three impeachments in one day.
And they asked Dianne Feinstein about her absence from the Senate,
and Dianne Feinstein's answer was basically, what absence? Uh oh,
(16:52):
that's next. This discountdown.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
This is countdown with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Postscripts to the new use some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Dateline, New York. A follow off to the
lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani yesterday, not the work naked part,
nor the anti semitic part, the selling presidential pardons for
two million dollars a piece in splitting the dough with
Trump part. Nobody seemed to notice this yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
My friend since nineteen seventy four, the great columnist from Philadelphia,
Will Bunch, he noticed it from the New York Times
of January seventeenth, twenty twenty one, a story about the
former CIA agent John Kiriaku, who had been convicted of
a legally disclosing classified information about twenty twelve, and who
gave a Trump ally fifty thousand dollars to lobby Trump
(17:48):
for a pardon before Trump left office. There was a
PostScript to this quote. Mister Kiriaku was separately told that
mister Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Juliani, could help him
secure a pardon for two million dollars. Mister Kiriaku rejected
the offer, but an associate, fearing that mister Giuliani was
(18:09):
illegally selling pardons, alerted the FBI Special Counsel's Office. Mister Smith,
please thank you. I'll wait Dateline Washington. As we discovered
during the Trump administration, if you impeach somebody in the House,
but the other party is running the Senate, your impeachment
can be just a performative act, a stunt. Having said that,
(18:33):
it is still pretty impressive. Marjorie Taylor Barney Rubble getting
divorced from Taylor. Karen Green announced yesterday she was introducing
articles of impeachment against the FBI Director Christopher Ray, and
she introduced articles of impeachment against the US Attorney in
the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves. And she continued to
(18:53):
press for articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland
Security Alejandro majorcis because well, because three performative stunts gets
three times thelicity that just one will. Dayline Washington something
slightly more substantial in the case of Congressman George if
that is your real name, Santos, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia
(19:16):
of California has introduced a privileged motion to expel Santos
from the House. Making it privileged means it still needs
a three quarters vote to eject Katara Ravacha's alter ego,
but it has to be voted upon within two days
of being introduced, and it will at least get Republicans
on the record like they care, even the ones who
(19:39):
already said he should resign.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
He he, thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Nancy Faus. Dateline Washington. Reporters Benjamin Orescus of the La
Times and Jim Newle of Slate say they ran into
Senator Dianne Feinstein after she voted yesterday at the Capitol.
I'll just read a combination of their two stories. Quote.
When a fellow reporter asked her what the response from
her colleagues had been like since her return, the conversation
(20:49):
took an odd turn. Quote, what have I heard about?
What she asked about your return. The reporter replied, I
haven't been gone. She said, you should follow the I
haven't been gone. I've been working. When asked whether she
meant that she'd been working from home, she turned feisty. No,
(21:10):
I've been here. I've been voting, she said, please, you
either know or don't know. So Senator Feinstein thinks she's
been in Washington the last three months. And when she
got mad with two reporters for questioning about about that,
(21:31):
the phrase that she used to reply to them was
you either know or don't know. Truer words have never
been spoken. Still, Ah boy, oh boy. Coming up a
(22:02):
little more on Licked and CNN and Deja vu all
over again. Twenty years ago, another cable news outlet suddenly
decided to go hard right that did not go well
MSNBC and the day it fired Michael Savage and pretty
much everybody in church. First, the daily round up of
(22:23):
the Miss Grant's morons and Dunn Kruger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The brons. South
Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, like the old Bob and Ray
character who announced he was not going to make the
mistake most political candidates did. He was going for the
nomination of both parties. Mace just blah blah blah about
(22:43):
the Bull Durham investigation and then said, I am the
furthest thing from a Trump shill, but what the FBI
did to him is ft. Yeah. Last February, after he
endorsed her primary opponent, Mace flew to New York and
stood outside Trump Tower and videoed herself pledging fealty to
(23:04):
the fuery. She is, in fact the definition of a
Trump shill. The runner up, Ron DeSantis, who has joined
the chorus insisting that New York's alleged subway strangler Daniel Penny,
is in fact the real victim here after he put
a disturbed man in a choke hold for fifteen minutes
(23:25):
until the man died, when he simply could have restrained
him or subdued him until the police came, like a
normal person and not a potential murderer. DeSantis has called
Penny quote a good Samaritan. And here is a reminder, anybody,
including Ron DeSantis, who calls him a good Samaritan, has
never read a Bible in their life, because in the
(23:47):
story in there about the good Samaritan, spoiler alert, The
good Samaritan doesn't kill anybody but our winner. Jason Bobert,
husband of the congresswoman and former MacDonald's night manager. It
was revealed yesterday she has filed for divorce from him.
They met when she was sixteen and he was just
(24:08):
about to be arrested for exposing himself to other young
women in a bowling alley. Apparently this is the way
of all Congressional Karens. The Taylor Greens are getting divorced too.
As I mentioned, the punchline here is Jason Bobert was
reported to be furious when he was served with her
divorce papers.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Good God, why.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Jason? In memory of the marriage, flags and fly zippers
will be lowered to half staff. Bobert two days worst
person had another word that starts.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
With pee in the world.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Still ahead on countdown. Let's circle back to Chris Licht's
insistence as recently as yesterday that history will look kindly
on his career ending, network ending decision to let Trump
take the wheel a week ago tonight in the now
immortally infamous Trump town hall. Well it won't. And I
know this because what Licked is trying to do. I've
already lived through this once twenty years ago, when MSNBC
(25:18):
tried to swerve hard right. It's centered on a skunk
named Michael Savage, and no history did not look kindly
on it. The history of it, in fact, was everybody
got fired except me. First. Once again, every dog has
its day. Shiloh was thrown from a car in Atlanta,
nine month old puppy, run of the mill, mutt, soulful eyes,
(25:39):
big ears, and now a broken jaw because somebody threw
him from a car. Rescue Dog's Rock is fundraising for
the surgery via giving Grid. You can find Shiloh there
on giving Grid or on my Twitter feeds. Your donations
and retweets are humbly solicited. I thank you, and Shiloh
thanks you. I'll repeat my point. This is no voting accident.
(26:21):
The reason Lick is in charge of CNN is virtually
every mainstream media organization in this country has already had
the meeting they had at CNN. Let's discuss how if
America goes fully fascist in twenty twenty five or earlier,
we can still protect this company's profits. I say this
not merely because I know most of the people running
(26:41):
the mainstream media organizations. But because these conversations have already happened,
and they happened long ago, largely because the first not
white guy president was elected just seven years and two
months after nine to eleven, we forget how seriously and
terrifyingly we already have teetered on the edge of full
fledged fascism here after the attacks on the World Trades Say,
(27:04):
and the Pentagon. Nine to eleven happened between my two
tenures at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a
half after it happened, and by then the place I
went back to work had already hired a sort of
Alex Jones prototype radio host named Michael Savage, and it
was slowly trying to build him into the host of
a weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal
(27:29):
opportunity bigot. His real name was Michael Wiener, and all
you need to know about him is that he was
a Wiener who pretended he was a Savage. What happened
to him when they tried to stick him into primetime
and what he said that led to his firing and
the blowing up of the Let's out Fox Fox News
plan of the then NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright
is a great story. I will relish telling you in
(27:51):
a moment, but first a little context to this. MSNBC
and Fox Nudes launched within weeks of each other in
nineteen ninety six, and for a while, in fact, until
I left MSNBC in December nineteen ninety eight, we were
ahead of Fox in many time periods, though CNN crushed
(28:12):
us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine to eleven,
and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All
you need to know about him is that after he
left the position of running NBC, he became a contributor
to Fox Business. At MSNBC, right gave Oliver North his
own show and Laura Ingram her own show. He had
(28:34):
given a program to Alan Keyes, a Republican who somehow
managed to lose Senate races in two different states and
washed out three different times in Republican presidential primaries. His
MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches. Though he was
alone in a studio with no audience, Alan Keys could
not break himself up his habit of spraying the room
(28:56):
with his eyes. The viewer at home would see him
looking off camera to his left, then looking at the camera,
then looking off camera to the right. He went back
and forth like a sprinkler. I remember once looking at
him and yelling at the TV, hey, hell over here,
I'm the one in the middle. Bob Wright also brought
in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise
(29:18):
much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired Phil Donahue, although
to be fair, that was really more about money than
it was about politics. But he replaced Dona Hughes's show
with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly
right leaning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It
was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say,
(29:40):
the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they
changed it to Countdown with Keith Olberman. MSNBC's lineup was
remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight
pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven, through the
beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then I left
to go back to sports and baseball at Fox. Then
(30:02):
the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hawkin for
three months. Then Ali North got his shot a month later.
They started having rotating liberals co host with Ali North
in April nineteen ninety nine, and it became North and
Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months. In
May they cut North and Begala to half an hour.
In June they canceled them and replaced them with a
(30:24):
half hour An Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry
was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry
was replaced by Lori Doo. In August two thousand, they
started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September,
they cut that show to four days a week and
launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually
(30:45):
called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after
one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on.
Then they canceled that a month later to make room
for a newscast with Forest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty
of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision
two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one,
they canceled Forrest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(31:08):
for the third different time. Then in July they moved
the News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm.
Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and
instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot.
Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue.
They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(31:30):
anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to
host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith Olrman. That's twenty different
shows or formats in four years and four months. So
Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him
this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and
(31:53):
virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next
set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing
the News at eight, then Scarborough at nine, then Jesse
Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character. They
began this plot by giving Savage his own show an
hour every Saturday afternoon on March eighth, two thousand and three.
(32:15):
Everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage sounded kind
of threatening, I guess, a kind of red meat fascist.
But on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little,
cramped looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked
small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a
(32:35):
bad tupei and a suit that was far worse than that.
When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two
thousand and three, I got the executive in charge of
Primetime to put it in my contract that Michael Savage
would never appear on my newscast in any form unless
it was an obituary, open and shut. But then on Friday,
(32:57):
April twenty fifth, two thousand and three, I came into work.
We were about a month into the show, and there
in the computer rundown of my newscast was a pre
recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon as he saw I
was in the office, the executive producer they had hired
from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker named Dennis Murray, pushed
his way into my office and said, we have to
run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also a mandatory Matt
(33:20):
Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins. So don't think
you can call Phil to get it dropped. He's not
in New York, he's not reachable, and he left. I
called my agent. I told her the story, and I'm
matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it, I
have to walk out, don't I mind you? She had
just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.
(33:41):
She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out,
but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving.
Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them.
It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing
and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier
if you have the high moral ground. So I called
Griffin's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and
(34:04):
meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you
should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a
car to take me home because my contract says you
can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody
just did nice working with you all, and tell Phil
to give me a call sometime sometime. Was three minutes later.
Griffin who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You
(34:26):
would really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in
the contract. I was putting my pens and books in
a box as we spoke. I told him he was
repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can
you look at the commentary and find me a reason,
a reason it isn't about politics, why it shouldn't run.
(34:47):
I said, you mean, like video quality, or racist language
or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good racist language
or something that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Call me back.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
The executive producer and I went to the video edit suite,
where a guy named Brenda o'melia was cutting out the
time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording this nonsense.
First of all, I said to the Xbox guy who
was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing a brown shirt
and a brown tie on top of his brown shirt.
He is literally dressed like a Hitler brown shirt. The
(35:25):
editor Omelia played the whole video for me, and as
I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing. I said,
even for racist, homophobic crap, this thing makes no sense.
He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right, because
George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small and
whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe in
a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite
(35:45):
in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and he's
dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough. Phil
Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I think
they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm. In fact,
I think I might be wrong. They ran two or
three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know they intended to,
(36:08):
God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was
about the time Michael Savage ended his own TV career.
On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three, show fifteen
out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen, Michael Savage
was on the air live on MSNBC when a caller
(36:28):
baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so you're one
of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, oh,
you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote, you should
only get aids and die, you pig how's that. Why
don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you
got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage.
You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a
(36:49):
sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noteses end
quote and Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote
that I just read that was way better than the
commentary they had him record for countdown. Days later, on Monday,
Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president
(37:09):
of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to
be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson,
for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news
and who consulted on my show on Current TV as
recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because
he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he
fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced,
(37:32):
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent,
and Sorenson said he answered yes, I literally had to
I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his
contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use
(37:53):
on the show. It literally says, if you say any
of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired
for cause and get no money. Remember remember what number
four on that list is number four or is quote
I hope you get AIDS and die unquote, And then
he said, I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob,
I literally had to fire him. I had to fire him.
(38:16):
It's in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was
a long pause on the other end of the phone,
and then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that
we have seen in television news since all the meetings
about what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and
NBC and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to
(38:38):
protect their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract. Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you have
to fire him? I've done all the damage I can do.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Here.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Here are the credits. Most of the music arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schhanelle. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Schanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No horns allowed. The sports music Whenever
(39:31):
We actually do sports Again is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two and it was written by Mitch Horren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend
Stevie van zandt everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and sixty
second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
(39:53):
democratically elected government of the United States. Don't forget to
keep arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:13):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. CNN
chairman Chris Lickt or someone leaking on his behalf to
(00:25):
a reporter from CNBC has inadvertently admitted that the network
did pack the live crowd at the Trump town hall
with Trump supporters, and licked Or a colleague inadvertently also
admitted he and CNN lied about who was going to
be in that audience. They have thus managed to reignite
the tire fire just when it seemed to be dying
(00:48):
down to just a putrid smolder, and on the eve
of CNN's annual advertising presentation, no less, and Lickt has
reportedly boasted, quote history will look kindly on the network's
decision to give Trump an hour of uninterrupted propaganda. Let
me read you three paragraphs from Alex Sherman's piece for
(01:09):
the CNBC website, and I think it'll be obvious what
the lie was and where the confession is. Quote. Lickt
has acknowledged internally there are some things he wished the
network had done differently. Unquote well, me too, I wish
the network had hired a different CEO. Sorry. Quoting again,
Lickt said he wished he had introduced the in person
(01:30):
audience to TV watchers so that viewers could better identify
who they were. CNBC quotes its sources familiar with his thinking.
The crowd was a main character in the event, as
many Trump supporters cheered his responses and jeered CNN host
Caitlin Collins when she challenged him. Lickt would have liked
(01:52):
to openly question the crowd before the town hall began,
so the TV audience could better understand who they were
and why they were supporting Trump. From the day this
Chernobyl was announced, CNN announced, announced, again, and reiterated, and
(02:13):
said afterwards that the crowd was to be four hundred
Republican and independent voters who were planning on voting in
the state's Republican primary next February. The need to quote
better identify who they were and better understand who they
were could not have been an issue. We were supposed
to have already known who they were. They were presented
(02:34):
as some sort of cross section of Republicans in New Hampshire.
All of CNN's rationalizations in advance of the telecast a
week ago tonight were defensive but specific. The idea that
this idiot. Licked now regrets not introducing them during the
broadcast so viewers could better understand why they were supporting
(02:58):
Trump confirms in big, glowing, read capital letters that the
audience members were or supporting Trump. Lickd and CNN just
confessed that the crowd CNN pick was not representative of
the four out of ten New Hampshire Republicans who do
not support Trump, that it was a room full of
almost nothing but Trump's supporters, and CNN and Licked lied
(03:21):
about that. And everybody on CNN who did not acknowledge
that fact before the town hall or after it was
an accessory before or after the fact to this fundamental,
unforgivable dishonesty. Licked or whoever leaked this on his behalf,
and this has all the earmarks of a cable network
(03:41):
public relations department cleanup operation never stopped to think that
they were admitting that the audience was stacked, that the
crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore, they never stopped
to think that saying that in retrospect, they should have
talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists
before they started booing. Caitlin Collins and before Trump started
(04:02):
to egg them on supports the accusation by the Republican
governor of New Hampshire Chris Sanunu and the former Republican
Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they
saw in that studio at Saint Anselm's College was a
Trump supporter that they recognized by sight. This licked or
licked adjacent leak also supports the accusation by Chris Christie
(04:26):
that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the
crowd in one fell swoop. CNN has just admitted it
was an almost entirely pro Trump crowd and they should
not have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else but
that they did and licked wishes that they had not
done that lie to the viewers to the nation. This
(04:51):
elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance into
a literal kind of deception. A three card Monte game
in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully he
loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose
executives and announcers lied and told America it was some
(05:13):
kind of news or public events broadcast nobody is going
to do this. But frankly, given these revelations, these accidental
revelations by Chris Lick or whoever was leaking on his behalf,
this CNBC story turns the disaster into something that the
Senate Commerce Committee should conduct a hearing into and the
(05:35):
Department of Justice should investigate. This is no longer just
journalistic prostitution. It is quite literally commercial fraud and people
should be grilled over it and maybe be indicted over it. Again,
I'm not kidding you nor myself, this will not happen.
(05:55):
Chris Lick will not be indicted. Chris Lick will not
be called in front of some Senate Commerce subcommittee. But
this underscore is the degree to which the people now
running CNN, and in particular Chris lickt have figuratively left
our planet and are now operating completely inside a fantasy
(06:18):
land in which, no, they didn't just destroy the network's reputation.
They didn't finish off Anderson Cooper's career. They didn't expose
their supposed new star Caitlin Collins as an unpleasant lightweight.
They didn't flush away even the fig leaf that, no
matter how badly that all has gone in the last year,
especially last Wednesday. It was intended as some kind of corrective.
(06:41):
It was a good gesture. It was some kind of
restoration of journalistic ballots. They illicitly loaded the audience, they
eliminated dissent. They lied about it, and when caught they
said maybe they could have done better by not lying
about it. And the rest of the article is about
(07:03):
how Licked thinks that there's a bit of blowback now,
but that'll all get better and CNN will prevail in
the long term. I mean, the numbers came out last night.
It did win the demo ratings race last week before
it sank into fourth place in a three team league.
History will look kindly. CNBC's sources claim Lickt has told
(07:26):
people both inside and outside CNN on the network's decision
to interview Trump in front of cheering supporters in a
live town hall format pacedeboy, stop digging, stop talking, You're
(07:46):
not good at it. It is impossible to believe, even
from my perspective, as somebody who's been telling you that
Chris lick was brought in to destroy CNN since I
think the very first episode of this series last August.
It is still impossible for me to believe that a
full week after the most irredeemably disastrous programming decision in
(08:10):
the history of cable news, CNN's chairman is continuing to
find new ways to make it worse. Surely, by now
you would think he would have run out of extremities
to metaphorically shoot himself in instead licked or whoever leaked
on his behalf to a reporter from CNBC managed to
(08:31):
collect all the ashes of their networks and their careers
and somehow managed to light them ablaze anew. And this
happens on the eve of the twenty twenty three Upfront
presentation for advertisers for CNN and its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
If you were on your way to that event at
(08:53):
the theater at Madison Square Garden to buy advertising on CNN,
and you read this piece at the CNBC website, you
would instead skip the event in Madison Square Gardens theater.
And it's said, go down the stairs under Madison Square
Garden and go into Penn Station and get on a
train going anywhere that would get you the f away
(09:14):
from CNN. And all that I have quoted so far
from this article is the smarter part of it. Quote
Licked and other CNN executives also pointed to direction elements
CNN could have done differently, such as focusing the camera
only on Collins when she tried to fight off Trump's
(09:38):
lies about election fraud in twenty twenty, rather than using
wide shots on both Trump and Collins. That way, CNN
could draw the audience's focus to the substance of the
question rather than the spectacle of trump enquote, why sure, Chris,
That was the solution to Trump lying like an out
(09:59):
of control fire hose. Keep him off camera while he's lying,
inst keep a close up on the dead look in
the host's eyes as they ran the gamut of emotions
from A to B. That's the way you fight Trump's lies.
Calling for camera one instead of camera three, Chris, not
(10:20):
you know, deciding not to put a psychotic liar on
live in primetime where virtually no fact checking method known
to man could shut him up while an audience of
the cheerleaders you lied about inviting encouraged him to go
in for the kill. Quote. CNN could have also graphically
shown each question while Trump spoke. Lick apparently offered to
(10:43):
the CNBC people emphasizing his answers didn't always match the
topic at hand. Yes, that's it, Chris, exactly, That's what
the thing needed last week. Better graphics. Not don't ever
do something like this live, or if you are going
to do it live, you have a fact checker in
(11:04):
a studio, backstage or in another state or country, and
you go to the fact checker to counter Trump's lies
while you shut off Trump's microphone. No, don't do that.
Better graphics, Jesus H. Christ. Incidentally, the way I know
(11:26):
that this story was not somebody near Chris Lickt surreptitiously
calling up this Alex Sherman fella and telling him off
the record what Pasteboy said. The reason I know that
this all came from Lickt or via an intermediary with
licked approval. The way I know they also think this
(11:47):
went well. The way I know all this is the
simple fact that deep in the piece, it switches. It
goes from microscopic grudging, brain dead, maya culpa weak, pointless,
stupid but vaguely looking like introspection and verging on regret.
(12:09):
It goes from that to something else, which Lickt has
always been magnificently skilled at blaming other people. Quote, Lickt
said he wished that after the town hall, he'd had
the network anchors focus on the news Trump made. Say
(12:30):
the real problem here isn't Chris licks utter lack of
minimal journalistic standards and morality and the decisions he made
that burned CNN to the ground in seventy minutes. No no, no, no, no,
no no. It's the others, the others who did not
do what they should have telepathically known. Chris Lickt wanted.
(12:52):
The example in the CNBC story is Trump's claim that
he could have settled Ukraine in twenty four hours. Quote
CNN could have gone live to a reporter in Ukraine
as an example, which would have reminded the audience of
the network's journalistic range. Well, yes, that would have been
an interesting alternate option. A stupid one, but an alternate.
(13:13):
What is the reaction there in key of Charlie to
Trump lying, tell me, you know, in between those Russian
bombs dropping on your head. On the other hand, it
or anything else, would have reduced the time spent post
Trump rally in which Trump prostitutes like Congressman Byron Donald's
got to spew his own fire hose of lies on CNN,
(13:37):
a happenstance, by the way, which Chris Christie said was
also part of Chris Lick's offered to Trump when he
went in the tank to get Trump on CNN. We'll
put your surrogates in the postgame show better graphics.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So now what if you waghe through all the Chris
Licked off the record comments praising Chris Licked. There is
a frightening germ of news in there. Quote. Other networks
will likely follow CNN's lead in booking Trump interviews. NBC
and its news networks have been in contact with many
(14:18):
of the US presidential candidates, including Trump. NBC isn't likely
to do a Trump town hall given how CNNs went unquote,
but there is the implication, as there has been for
the last week, that other Trump town halls are under
consideration actively inside American television networks. More town halls after
(14:41):
that the Titanic was not enough, You're going to launch
another one? Well where then Fox Newsmax one American News
like he hasn't already done infomercials for each in every
possible format. So what networks? NBC is a no from
this story CBS for a Trump town hall ABC on
(15:04):
their broadcast channels, I don't think so on their news
streaming services. Trump would not give those streaming services seventy seconds,
let alone seventy minutes. The terrifying thing is if you
accept this and other reporting that some executives looked at
the hinden Trump CNN disaster and saw only the three
(15:26):
point three million viewers, and that somebody is considering another
live Trump town hall, and that it's not NBC or
ABC or CBS or CNBC or MSNBC, and Chris Licht
has all these stupid ideas about how he could have
made his Trump town hall go better. That if there
(15:46):
really is a network considering another live Nuremberg rally with Trump,
if all that is true, there is only one inevitable
conclusion quote. Lickt continues to stand by the concept of
the town hall, telling people both inside and outside CNN
that history will look kindly on the network's decision. Well,
(16:09):
if he really believes that it is sadly, tragically, unavoidably
true that the network that must be thinking about televising
another Trump town hall is CNN. Lauren Bobert getting divorced
(16:32):
husband furious, God, why would you be furious about that?
Marjorie Taylor, Karen Green wants to talk to the manager,
all the managers. She proposed three impeachments in one day.
And they asked Dianne Feinstein about her absence from the Senate,
and Dianne Feinstein's answer was basically, what absence? Uh oh,
(16:52):
that's next. This discountdown.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
This is countdown with Keith Oberman.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Postscripts to the new use some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Dateline, New York. A follow off to the
lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani yesterday, not the work naked part,
nor the anti semitic part, the selling presidential pardons for
two million dollars a piece in splitting the dough with
Trump part. Nobody seemed to notice this yesterday.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
My friend since nineteen seventy four, the great columnist from Philadelphia,
Will Bunch, he noticed it from the New York Times
of January seventeenth, twenty twenty one, a story about the
former CIA agent John Kiriaku, who had been convicted of
a legally disclosing classified information about twenty twelve, and who
gave a Trump ally fifty thousand dollars to lobby Trump
(17:48):
for a pardon before Trump left office. There was a
PostScript to this quote. Mister Kiriaku was separately told that
mister Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Juliani, could help him
secure a pardon for two million dollars. Mister Kiriaku rejected
the offer, but an associate, fearing that mister Giuliani was
(18:09):
illegally selling pardons, alerted the FBI Special Counsel's Office. Mister Smith,
please thank you. I'll wait Dateline Washington. As we discovered
during the Trump administration, if you impeach somebody in the House,
but the other party is running the Senate, your impeachment
can be just a performative act, a stunt. Having said that,
(18:33):
it is still pretty impressive. Marjorie Taylor Barney Rubble getting
divorced from Taylor. Karen Green announced yesterday she was introducing
articles of impeachment against the FBI Director Christopher Ray, and
she introduced articles of impeachment against the US Attorney in
the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves. And she continued to
(18:53):
press for articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland
Security Alejandro majorcis because well, because three performative stunts gets
three times thelicity that just one will. Dayline Washington something
slightly more substantial in the case of Congressman George if
that is your real name, Santos, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia
(19:16):
of California has introduced a privileged motion to expel Santos
from the House. Making it privileged means it still needs
a three quarters vote to eject Katara Ravacha's alter ego,
but it has to be voted upon within two days
of being introduced, and it will at least get Republicans
on the record like they care, even the ones who
(19:39):
already said he should resign.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
He he, thank you.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Nancy Faus. Dateline Washington. Reporters Benjamin Orescus of the La
Times and Jim Newle of Slate say they ran into
Senator Dianne Feinstein after she voted yesterday at the Capitol.
I'll just read a combination of their two stories. Quote.
When a fellow reporter asked her what the response from
her colleagues had been like since her return, the conversation
(20:49):
took an odd turn. Quote, what have I heard about?
What she asked about your return. The reporter replied, I
haven't been gone. She said, you should follow the I
haven't been gone. I've been working. When asked whether she
meant that she'd been working from home, she turned feisty. No,
(21:10):
I've been here. I've been voting, she said, please, you
either know or don't know. So Senator Feinstein thinks she's
been in Washington the last three months. And when she
got mad with two reporters for questioning about about that,
(21:31):
the phrase that she used to reply to them was
you either know or don't know. Truer words have never
been spoken. Still, Ah boy, oh boy. Coming up a
(22:02):
little more on Licked and CNN and Deja vu all
over again. Twenty years ago, another cable news outlet suddenly
decided to go hard right that did not go well
MSNBC and the day it fired Michael Savage and pretty
much everybody in church. First, the daily round up of
(22:23):
the Miss Grant's morons and Dunn Kruger effects specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world. The brons. South
Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, like the old Bob and Ray
character who announced he was not going to make the
mistake most political candidates did. He was going for the
nomination of both parties. Mace just blah blah blah about
(22:43):
the Bull Durham investigation and then said, I am the
furthest thing from a Trump shill, but what the FBI
did to him is ft. Yeah. Last February, after he
endorsed her primary opponent, Mace flew to New York and
stood outside Trump Tower and videoed herself pledging fealty to
(23:04):
the fuery. She is, in fact the definition of a
Trump shill. The runner up, Ron DeSantis, who has joined
the chorus insisting that New York's alleged subway strangler Daniel Penny,
is in fact the real victim here after he put
a disturbed man in a choke hold for fifteen minutes
(23:25):
until the man died, when he simply could have restrained
him or subdued him until the police came, like a
normal person and not a potential murderer. DeSantis has called
Penny quote a good Samaritan. And here is a reminder, anybody,
including Ron DeSantis, who calls him a good Samaritan, has
never read a Bible in their life, because in the
(23:47):
story in there about the good Samaritan, spoiler alert, The
good Samaritan doesn't kill anybody but our winner. Jason Bobert,
husband of the congresswoman and former MacDonald's night manager. It
was revealed yesterday she has filed for divorce from him.
They met when she was sixteen and he was just
(24:08):
about to be arrested for exposing himself to other young
women in a bowling alley. Apparently this is the way
of all Congressional Karens. The Taylor Greens are getting divorced too.
As I mentioned, the punchline here is Jason Bobert was
reported to be furious when he was served with her
divorce papers.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Good God, why.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Jason? In memory of the marriage, flags and fly zippers
will be lowered to half staff. Bobert two days worst
person had another word that starts.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
With pee in the world.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Still ahead on countdown. Let's circle back to Chris Licht's
insistence as recently as yesterday that history will look kindly
on his career ending, network ending decision to let Trump
take the wheel a week ago tonight in the now
immortally infamous Trump town hall. Well it won't. And I
know this because what Licked is trying to do. I've
already lived through this once twenty years ago, when MSNBC
(25:18):
tried to swerve hard right. It's centered on a skunk
named Michael Savage, and no history did not look kindly
on it. The history of it, in fact, was everybody
got fired except me. First. Once again, every dog has
its day. Shiloh was thrown from a car in Atlanta,
nine month old puppy, run of the mill, mutt, soulful eyes,
(25:39):
big ears, and now a broken jaw because somebody threw
him from a car. Rescue Dog's Rock is fundraising for
the surgery via giving Grid. You can find Shiloh there
on giving Grid or on my Twitter feeds. Your donations
and retweets are humbly solicited. I thank you, and Shiloh
thanks you. I'll repeat my point. This is no voting accident.
(26:21):
The reason Lick is in charge of CNN is virtually
every mainstream media organization in this country has already had
the meeting they had at CNN. Let's discuss how if
America goes fully fascist in twenty twenty five or earlier,
we can still protect this company's profits. I say this
not merely because I know most of the people running
(26:41):
the mainstream media organizations. But because these conversations have already happened,
and they happened long ago, largely because the first not
white guy president was elected just seven years and two
months after nine to eleven, we forget how seriously and
terrifyingly we already have teetered on the edge of full
fledged fascism here after the attacks on the World Trades Say,
(27:04):
and the Pentagon. Nine to eleven happened between my two
tenures at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a
half after it happened, and by then the place I
went back to work had already hired a sort of
Alex Jones prototype radio host named Michael Savage, and it
was slowly trying to build him into the host of
a weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal
(27:29):
opportunity bigot. His real name was Michael Wiener, and all
you need to know about him is that he was
a Wiener who pretended he was a Savage. What happened
to him when they tried to stick him into primetime
and what he said that led to his firing and
the blowing up of the Let's out Fox Fox News
plan of the then NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright
is a great story. I will relish telling you in
(27:51):
a moment, but first a little context to this. MSNBC
and Fox Nudes launched within weeks of each other in
nineteen ninety six, and for a while, in fact, until
I left MSNBC in December nineteen ninety eight, we were
ahead of Fox in many time periods, though CNN crushed
(28:12):
us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine to eleven,
and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All
you need to know about him is that after he
left the position of running NBC, he became a contributor
to Fox Business. At MSNBC, right gave Oliver North his
own show and Laura Ingram her own show. He had
(28:34):
given a program to Alan Keyes, a Republican who somehow
managed to lose Senate races in two different states and
washed out three different times in Republican presidential primaries. His
MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches. Though he was
alone in a studio with no audience, Alan Keys could
not break himself up his habit of spraying the room
(28:56):
with his eyes. The viewer at home would see him
looking off camera to his left, then looking at the camera,
then looking off camera to the right. He went back
and forth like a sprinkler. I remember once looking at
him and yelling at the TV, hey, hell over here,
I'm the one in the middle. Bob Wright also brought
in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise
(29:18):
much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired Phil Donahue, although
to be fair, that was really more about money than
it was about politics. But he replaced Dona Hughes's show
with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly
right leaning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It
was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say,
(29:40):
the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they
changed it to Countdown with Keith Olberman. MSNBC's lineup was
remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight
pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven, through the
beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then I left
to go back to sports and baseball at Fox. Then
(30:02):
the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hawkin for
three months. Then Ali North got his shot a month later.
They started having rotating liberals co host with Ali North
in April nineteen ninety nine, and it became North and
Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months. In
May they cut North and Begala to half an hour.
In June they canceled them and replaced them with a
(30:24):
half hour An Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry
was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry
was replaced by Lori Doo. In August two thousand, they
started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September,
they cut that show to four days a week and
launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually
(30:45):
called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after
one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on.
Then they canceled that a month later to make room
for a newscast with Forest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty
of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision
two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one,
they canceled Forrest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(31:08):
for the third different time. Then in July they moved
the News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm.
Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and
instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot.
Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue.
They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(31:30):
anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to
host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith Olrman. That's twenty different
shows or formats in four years and four months. So
Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him
this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and
(31:53):
virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next
set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing
the News at eight, then Scarborough at nine, then Jesse
Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character. They
began this plot by giving Savage his own show an
hour every Saturday afternoon on March eighth, two thousand and three.
(32:15):
Everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage sounded kind
of threatening, I guess, a kind of red meat fascist.
But on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little,
cramped looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked
small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a
(32:35):
bad tupei and a suit that was far worse than that.
When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two
thousand and three, I got the executive in charge of
Primetime to put it in my contract that Michael Savage
would never appear on my newscast in any form unless
it was an obituary, open and shut. But then on Friday,
(32:57):
April twenty fifth, two thousand and three, I came into work.
We were about a month into the show, and there
in the computer rundown of my newscast was a pre
recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon as he saw I
was in the office, the executive producer they had hired
from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker named Dennis Murray, pushed
his way into my office and said, we have to
run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also a mandatory Matt
(33:20):
Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins. So don't think
you can call Phil to get it dropped. He's not
in New York, he's not reachable, and he left. I
called my agent. I told her the story, and I'm
matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it, I
have to walk out, don't I mind you? She had
just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.
(33:41):
She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out,
but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving.
Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them.
It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing
and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier
if you have the high moral ground. So I called
Griffin's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and
(34:04):
meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you
should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a
car to take me home because my contract says you
can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody
just did nice working with you all, and tell Phil
to give me a call sometime sometime. Was three minutes later.
Griffin who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You
(34:26):
would really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in
the contract. I was putting my pens and books in
a box as we spoke. I told him he was
repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can
you look at the commentary and find me a reason,
a reason it isn't about politics, why it shouldn't run.
(34:47):
I said, you mean, like video quality, or racist language
or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good racist language
or something that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Call me back.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
The executive producer and I went to the video edit suite,
where a guy named Brenda o'melia was cutting out the
time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording this nonsense.
First of all, I said to the Xbox guy who
was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing a brown shirt
and a brown tie on top of his brown shirt.
He is literally dressed like a Hitler brown shirt. The
(35:25):
editor Omelia played the whole video for me, and as
I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing. I said,
even for racist, homophobic crap, this thing makes no sense.
He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right, because
George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small and
whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe in
a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite
(35:45):
in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and he's
dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough. Phil
Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I think
they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm. In fact,
I think I might be wrong. They ran two or
three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know they intended to,
(36:08):
God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was
about the time Michael Savage ended his own TV career.
On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three, show fifteen
out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen, Michael Savage
was on the air live on MSNBC when a caller
(36:28):
baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so you're one
of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, oh,
you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote, you should
only get aids and die, you pig how's that. Why
don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you
got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage.
You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a
(36:49):
sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noteses end
quote and Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote
that I just read that was way better than the
commentary they had him record for countdown. Days later, on Monday,
Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president
(37:09):
of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to
be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson,
for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news
and who consulted on my show on Current TV as
recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because
he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he
fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced,
(37:32):
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent,
and Sorenson said he answered yes, I literally had to
I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his
contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use
(37:53):
on the show. It literally says, if you say any
of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired
for cause and get no money. Remember remember what number
four on that list is number four or is quote
I hope you get AIDS and die unquote, And then
he said, I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob,
I literally had to fire him. I had to fire him.
(38:16):
It's in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was
a long pause on the other end of the phone,
and then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that
we have seen in television news since all the meetings
about what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and
NBC and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to
(38:38):
protect their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract. Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you have
to fire him? I've done all the damage I can do.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Here.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Here are the credits. Most of the music arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schhanelle. They
are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by
John Phillip Schanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray,
produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No horns allowed. The sports music Whenever
(39:31):
We actually do sports Again is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two and it was written by Mitch Horren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The
best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend
Stevie van zandt everything else was pretty much my fault.
So that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and sixty
second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
(39:53):
democratically elected government of the United States. Don't forget to
keep arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(40:13):
Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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Keith Olbermann
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