August 1, 2022 • 53 mins
IT'S ALIVE! The premiere episode of Countdown With Keith Olbermann steals from a) all his other programs b) Beethoven and Bach and c) Peter Finch as Howard Beale in the film "Network" - only with Olber-Beale screaming "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take Trump any more! Searing political commentary in Segment One, the news of the day and the Worst Persons In The World in Segment Two including the passing of basketball immortal Bill Russell AND the story of the man who spent years impersonating him. Then in "Things I Promised Not To Tell" in the final segment, the whole history of the Countdown franchise and what really happened at MSNBC all those years ago. Welcome and enjoy: we're starting off with a super-sized premiere edition! Good night and good luck!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. I don't have to
(00:29):
tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.
It's a recession. Everybody goes to work, but they're still
scared of losing their job. The corporations make sure the
dollar buys in Nickelsworth Banks are making record profits. Teachers
are told to keep a gun under the desk. Punks
are running wild in Congress, and there's nobody anywhere seems
to know what to do, and there's no end to it.
(00:49):
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our
planet will be unfit for life. And we sit watching
our TVs while some Fox newscaster tells us that today
Trump is the real victim and minorities are the real problem.
As if that's the way it's supposed to be. We
all know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't
(01:11):
go out anymore. We have the Senate in the House,
but slowly the democracy we're living and is getting smaller.
And all we say is please at least leave us
alone in our living rooms. Let me have my president
and my R. B. G. Shrine and my January six hearings,
and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone. While
I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you
to get mad. I want you to protest. I want
(01:33):
you to strike. I want you to write to your congressman,
because you don't need me to tell you what to write.
You know what to do about the recession and the
inflation and the Russians and the Nazis in the street.
All I know is first you've got to get mad.
You've got to say I'm a human being, God damnaged,
my life has value. So I want you to get
(01:55):
up now. I want all of you to get up
and out of your chairs. I want you to get
up right now and go to the window, open it
and stick your head out and yell, I am as
mad as hell and I'm not gonna take Trump anymore.
I want you to get up right now, get up,
go to your windows, open them, and stick your head
out and yell, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm
(02:15):
not gonna take Trump anymore. Things have got to change.
But first you've got to get mad. You've got to
say I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna
take Trump anymore. Then we'll figure out what to do
about the recession and the inflation in the oil cartels.
But first, get up out of your chairs, open your windows,
stick your head out, and yell and say it. I
am as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take
(02:37):
Trump anymore. The mold as hell, he'll take Trump anymore.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take Trump anymore. Sorry,
I couldn't resist. And for the first time in my life,
even through the brutal years of Reagan and even through
the psychotic years of Bush, that famous Howard Beal's speech
(02:57):
from the nineteen seventy six movie Network seems to fit
this moment. With some revisions. Of course, the Beal character
as portrayed by Peter Finch, and especially that speech, and
especially that catchphrase I'm as mad as hell and I'm
not going to take this anymore, spoke to long before
it became a cliche. This weird overlap between somebody who
(03:20):
is so enraged that he is angry mad as hell
and somebody who may be so insane that he is
crazy mad as hell. But there's also a third subtext
to it, which only occasionally gets mentioned and only occasionally
gets appreciated, And it is why Beale and mad as
Hell means something today. It's that line towards the start.
(03:42):
We all know things are bad. Worse than bad, they're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy. In short, it's
like Howard Beale, representing all of us, is going crazy
because nobody else is when they should be. If in
school you had read that a hundred years ago, or
a hundred and fifty years ago, or whenever a president
(04:02):
of the United States fraudulently denied he lost the election
and tried to overturn it in the courts and in
the Congress, and it didn't work because it was one
big lie. So he invited gangs of thugs and racists
and guns suckers and militias to come to the capital
during the most boasted about part of American democracy, the
(04:22):
peaceful transfer of power, And having invited them, he then
incited them to try to overthrow the government by violence.
You would have expected to then have read about the
police and the military and the laws that stopped him,
and the arrests and the indictments and the lifetimes in
prison and the vengeance that followed. Hell, what precipitated the
(04:45):
Civil War if not eleven states trying to stop the
peaceful transfer of power because they didn't like who got elected.
We are supposed to do something about this. When a
large minority of Americans stood up and said only whites
are real people. And when they said we will use
(05:06):
the police to lynch black people. And when they said
guns settle everything, and when they said women are here
only to breed, and when they said we own the
Supreme Court now, and when they said we will not
teach history because we don't want children to know there's
a more righteous way. And when they said this is
our world, and you the majority. Your votes do not
count here. Your cities do not count here, your lives
(05:28):
do not count here. Your president does not count here.
When all that happened within thirty nine days, our anger
and our vengeance democracies anger and vengeance began. It was
eighteen sixty one. But first you've got to get mad.
(05:49):
Today they have Trump and Schedule F and a plan
to impeach Biden for whatever, and they've already turned the
Supreme Court into the theocratic republican supreme religious Court, and
they've overturned abortion, and next will be marriage equality. And
they intend to investigate the January six committee members and
(06:10):
pardon everybody who actually attacked the capitol, even though you
and I grew up presuming you know, if I attacked
the capital during the peaceful transfer of power. I'm gonna
guess they'll give me about five seconds to stop before
they start shooting at me. And they want to put
Fauci in prison, and their passing laws prosecuting doctors and
(06:30):
prosecuting women who leave a state to go to another
state for an abortion. In other words, they want to
prosecute women who leave a slave state to go to
a free state and bring them back to the slave state.
And they have a Fox News, and another worse Fox News,
(06:50):
and another worser even than that Fox News. And what
do we have? We have once a week somebody who
says we must find a compromise with them. We must
be by partisan, we must be democrats and liberals who
act like Republicans and fascists and Nazis. We have Joe Mansion,
(07:14):
and for eighteen months, Joe Mansion has obstructed all the
good Joe Biden has tried to do and prevented all
the emergency measures we must have to keep the last
words by the last humans surviving the climate catastrophe on
this planet. From being as chairman of Excellent Mobile, I
don't want to report record profits for the year fifty two.
(07:41):
And when the bribe for Joe Mansion, the Senator from
fossil fuel gulch West Virginia, is finally sufficient to his
liking and he finally agrees with Chuck Schumer on the
seven hundred and forty billion dollar Climate and Deficit Reduction Bill,
what does he get? He gets to go on all
five network Sunday political television NIT, which shows proverbial full
(08:06):
ginsburg glory, glory, hallelujah. It's Joe Mansion, our lawgiver, the
true Democrat. And yet Kirsten Cinema could still kill the
thing today and Joe Mansion would then still look reasonable.
By contrast, tomorrow, he'd still be the hero who achieved nothing,
(08:30):
and of all that cinema stuff bothers you. I used
to go out with her. We all know things are bad.
Worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere has
going crazy, even the fascists who hate or fear Trump
have something closer to a plan than we do. The
(08:51):
This Town author Mark Leebevich, quoted a former Republican congressman
is saying, quote, look, we have no plan for this
except sitting around hoping he dies, unquote, which actually sounds
like more of a plan than our plan. Our plan
make sure Democrats help the craziest Trump supporters and election deniers,
(09:16):
and it's not I Q and On, it's just Q
and on nutbags get nominated because we're confident we can
beat them right right, right this weekend, it will be
nineteen months since the coup. They have plans for more coups.
(09:38):
A coup in Washington, a coup in every state, of
coup in every county. Looks like they compromise the Secret
Service and it's still compromised. Looks like they compromise the
inspector General at Homeland Security. They've compromised half the cops
in this country, a little less, a little more. They've compromised,
as my heroes, Bob Elliott Ray Golding once joked, everything
(09:59):
except the Visiting Nurse Association. They have built a cult
around denying. That's went twenty election. And if you haven't
figured out what's behind that nonsense, by the way, seemingly
quixotic and academic at the same time. Here's the little secret.
The idea about the twenty stuff still being talked about
is if L. Douche gets elected and goes back to
(10:22):
the White House, he will somehow make somebody like I
don't know, the Supreme Court confirm that yes, he actually
won in but was denied that rightful term in the
White House, so he will be given a third term
in t or at least allowed to run for it.
(10:44):
In short, was stolen from him. He's owed another term,
right That's in the Constitution, isn't it. Gee, maybe we
could just you know, skip the election outright. The fascists
have all this in the works. And what do we have.
We have Chuck Todd three weeks ago asking a Republican governor, quote,
(11:09):
what's best for the country? Do you think the country
can handle prosecuting a former president? And we have Lester
Holts one week ago telling the Attorney General of the
United States, quote, indictment of a former president and perhaps
a candidate for president would arguably tear the country apart.
Is that your concern? They have Fox News? We have
(11:37):
Fox News, only we call it NBC. I will do
this podcast every weekday morning, no holiday, mondays. Sorry I'm
getting old. It will be as best as I can
do with the podcast version of what the old TV
show was. I will explain to you later in this
first episode what exactly happened to the old TV show.
(12:00):
And here's a tease. It's none of the things you've heard.
And I'll have comments on the news and comments on
the sports. Did you know he used to do sports?
And the worst persons in the world are back? And
why Trump gets a tax break for burying his wife
in the golf course. But first I want to button
up this topic about getting mad as hell with two
(12:23):
quotes and one question. Quote number one, it's General William
To comes to Sherman, and it's meant metaphorically. So don't
think I'm talking about bloodshed, because you can't do political
bloodshed in this country unless you're a Republican. This was
Sherman the last time Americans tried to overthrow American democracy. Quote.
(12:45):
War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple
remedies were within their choice. You know it, and they
know it. But they wanted war. And I say, let
us give them all they want, not a word of argument,
not a sign of let up, no cave in until
we are whipped or they are end Sherman quote. First,
(13:08):
you've got to get mad. What greater act of war
against the United States by someone owing allegiance to the
United States within the United States could there ever be
than to send armed militias into the United States Capital
than to encourage them to attack and kill members of Congress,
(13:29):
members of the Senate, even the Vice President. What greater
act of war against the United States could there be
than to try to prevent by violent revolution, the peaceful
transfer of power in the United States. I have no
complaints about the January sixth Committee. I do not buy
the argument that it's the Liz Cheney Show, And so
(13:51):
what if it were. Chairman Thompson and the other Democrats
have been terrific if, as I speculated months ago, they
are programming to the proverbial audience of one and it
is named Merrick Garland Dandy. But I don't see exactly
how they plan to end this. So what if first
(14:12):
they realized you've got to get mad, You've got to
say I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going
to take Trump anymore? What if they ended it with
another quote? What if the January six Committee ends its
final hearing by simply quoting just the start of Title
eighteen U s c. Chapter one fifteen, Section two three
(14:32):
eight one quote. Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States,
levies war against them, or adheres to their enemies giving
them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere,
is guilty of treason and shall suffer death. Just a
(15:05):
head my postscripts to the news segment plus Worse Persons
and Sports. Bill Russell obviously is the big story in sports,
but the guy who spent his life pretending to be
Bill Russell is in Worse Person's first. In each edition
of Countdown the Podcast, we will be featuring a dog
in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day.
You can find our first dog and all of our
(15:25):
subjects on my Twitter feed for pups in trouble, that's
at Tom Jumbo Grumbo Today. Are you near Chicago? Would
you like a forty nine pound five year old gal
with one white ear and one black ear Terrier pibble mix.
Loves to go camping, loves to eat your food that
you bring when you go camping, loves to camp her
head on your shoulder. She is at one tail dot
(15:48):
org in Chicago and her name is Oreo. The adoption
fees for this lovely dog looking for a home are covered.
Unconditional love is yours free, Oreo, one tail dot org
in Chicago, and she's on my Twitter feed at tom
Jumbo Grumbo coming up sports, Worst Persons in the World,
(16:23):
and the premiere of stories about my favorite topic, me
in Things I Promised not to tell, but first both
scripts to the news, some headlines and some thoughts. Michelle
Nichols has died to hera from Star Trek. It is
impossible to recreate the world in which her character was controversial,
(16:44):
largely because she helped to erase that world. Unlike other
women actresses of color in the nineteen sixties, she was
an astronaut on Star Trek. She was smart, she wasn't deferential,
and she was sexy. I was seven when Star Trek premiered.
I don't know for how many kids are adults in
this country. She was their first fosure to such a person.
(17:06):
All the struggles of her career and life did at
the very minimum this. She rewired the minds of millions,
and then she did recruiting videos for NASA in ninety
seven from the Friday News Dump Dateline Washington. First, the
Secret Service texts from January six disappeared, Then the Homeland
(17:28):
Security texts from January six disappeared. Then House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy's brain disappeared. Though Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath
that she and McCarthy spoke on January six about keeping
Trump from going to the Capitol during the coup, McCarthy
now says, quote, I don't remember that. This is what
is so confusing. I didn't watch the speech. I was working,
(17:49):
so I didn't see what was said. I had no
idea he was going to come to the Capitol. I
don't remember having any conversations with her. I don't recall, honest,
I ran out of gas. I I had a flat tire.
I didn't have enough money for cab fair. My tuxt
didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came
in from out of out. Someone stole my car. There
was an earthquake, a terrible flood. Locust said, why is
(18:10):
that my fault? I swear to God, I may have
embellished that last part of the quote just a little bit.
On the other hand, by the end of this week,
Kevin McCarthy may claim he can't remember his own name. Wait,
why would that be a bad thing? Also date Line Washington.
The problem is McCarthy may yet get away with his
(18:30):
role in the January six cover up, just like Trump
may yet get away with his role in the January
six coup. And BC News quoting more than a dozen
sources who worry if the Department of Justice has allocated
enough resources to the investigation, just like Trump may yet
get away with all this because quote, we don't have
the manpower. Here's a crazy ass idea. The Pentagon asked
(18:54):
for a fiscal two thousand, twenty two budget of seven
and twenty four billion freaking dollars. Congress gave it a
budget of seven and eighty two billion dollars. That would
be more. That would be fifty eight billion dollars more.
Four billion of that is for more boots. We need
(19:15):
more boats. How about giving the boats back and putting
four billion dollars into trying to save the goddamn democracy.
Gonna need a bigger boat. Dateline Philadelphia or is it
actually New Jersey? The draws campaign. I'm sorry. Apparently that's
the doctor Oz campaign is bailing water. According to Politico,
(19:39):
the National Republican Senatorial Committee held a call with big
roller campaign donors and basically they said that there's definitely
a Republican path to take the Senate by flipping Arizona,
Georgia and Nevada or New Hampshire and were defending North
Carolina and Wisconsin. And that's when somebody noticed the n
r SC had not mentioned Pennsylvania. Quote Oz just has
(20:00):
not hit his stride as a candidate. One call participant
to Politico, the viewpoint was it's more important to reallocate
money to seats that we feel we can win. A
committee official is quoted as also saying, we have a
path with Pennsylvania, and don't worry, we have a path
without Pennsylvania. In the latest polling, Draws trails the Democrat
(20:22):
John Fetterman by eleven and the would be Pennsylvania senator
who lives in New Jersey has never recovered from having
misspelled the name of the Pennsylvania town he thinks he
lives in Dateline Madison, Wisconsin. With Wisconsin Democrats coalescing behind
Mandela Barnes in the bid to take the Senate seat
(20:43):
away from Ron. I'm on my phone. No you're not.
I can see your phone. I can see your screen, Johnson.
It was inevitable time for former Governor Scott Walker, the
Clarence the cross eye line of the Tea Party, to
do something stupid. At two forty one prevailing local time Friday,
he tweeted, quote Democrats rally behind a racial who wants
(21:05):
to end cash bail. Did you say a racial? Two
minutes later, Walker replied to his own tweet without making
any attempt to alter the reality that he had just
called an African American Senate candidate a quote racial, by
adding quote a radical who wants to end the patrol
(21:26):
that's supposed to protect us illegal drugs and firearms from
coming across the border and finding their way to Wisconsin. Unquote.
I just skip the image of Scott Walker, the thing
he just evoked of that Wisconsin Mexico border. Let me
just reread the first part of that follow up tweet,
quote a radical who wants to end the patrol that's
(21:49):
supposed to protect us illegal drugs. So I have your
choice on Scott Walker. The first tweet was racist, and
the second tweet was unintelligible and dateline Hendersonville, North Carolina.
The latest employment innovation you will work for food the
chick fil A on Highlands Square Drive. They're asking for
(22:11):
quote volunteers to work its drive through express. Joel Benson,
the visionary innovator in charge, brings a new spin to
the workforce experience. New salary quote earned five free entrees
per shift one hour worked. Read the Facebook post. The
pay is lousy, but you get all the cholesterol you
(22:34):
can eat. Corporate says it knows nothing of this, and
the offer was withdrawn within hours of posting. As always,
life is just another Bob and Ray sketch come to life.
In the nineteen seventies, My hero is reported on a
fictional company making paper clips by hand, with a workforce
of two hundred assemblers. Price nineteen cents a box. How
(22:56):
is that possible? Ask the startled interviewer character Wally blue Well,
said the owner. We pay our employees two cents a day.
How is that possible? Past blue fortunately came the answer,
We got a ninety nine years sweetheart deal with the union.
Most of our staff lives in caves on the outskirts
of Town Blue then asks don't you worry about their
(23:19):
health and survival? And the owner says blankly, we don't
pry into the private lives of our employees. This is
(23:43):
Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is Countdown
with Keith Alberman, the old ESPN two show theme. Obviously
(24:09):
you know. Basketball's Bill Russell has died at the age
of eight eight, easily the game's most successful player to
n C double A titles, an Olympic gold medal, eleven
NBA championships in just thirteen seasons, the last two as
player coach. What you may not have heard of. He
and el Jin Baylor were the first African Americans to
make the All NBA First Team the All Star Team
(24:32):
in nineteen fifty eight fifty nine. He was also the
league's first African American coach, although the claim that he
was the first African American coaching any major sport is inaccurate.
Football Immortal Fritz Pollard was a head coach in the
NFL briefly in the nineteen twenties. Bill Russell was also
a broadcaster whose main virtue on the ABC and CBS
(24:53):
NBA coverage was his extraordinary laugh. He also did interview
after interview with sportscasters at college radio stations. No not me.
Jesse Agler from the s and Diego Padres mentioned this
and others then echoed it extraordinarily generous with his time
and his laugh and his contributions to society. On the
(25:15):
other end of the sports spectrum, there is the Saudi
Blood Money Golf Tournament which is over in New Jersey.
Hendrick Stenson, who used to be a professional golfer but
took blood money instead, defeating Matthew Wolf and Dustin Johnson
who used to be professional golfers but who took blood
money instead. For our purposes, we can just call this
tournament the Kasgi Memorial. The tournament was held naturally at
(25:36):
the Trump Course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Crowds were disappointing
at best. In The Wall Street Journal reported the tickets
for the penultimate round on Saturday it cost as little
as one dollar American money. The host was there. In
the pro am, Trump apparently completed only two or three
holes and shot a twelve thousand, three d sixty four
(25:57):
over par twelve four three six, but Trump insists he
made the cut and won the champ Beanship anyway. It
is by the way, a federal offense with a jail
term if not more than six months, or a fine
or both to use the presidential seal in a way
that can leave quote, a false impression of sponsorship or
approval by the government of the United States. So naturally
(26:21):
Trump put the seal on course flags, course towels, and
course golf carts. They played God Bless America at one point,
and Trump could not figure out what to do. He
eventually took off his trucker cap, then put his hand
over his heart or whatever is in there, and then
started patting his hand on his chest. And of course,
(26:41):
Trump too took the Saudi blood money, and when asked
about the effect of doing so on nine eleven Families,
l Douche said, it was really too bad that nobody
ever got to the bottom of nine eleven and everybody
was playing great golf and all the money was there,
and people were reminded that on nine eleven. When he
went on local TV in New York, the only thing
(27:03):
Trump was concerned earned about was that one of his
buildings was now the tallest one in downtown New York City,
but somehow overshadowing all of this the Saudi money. How
deathly bad Trump himself looked, how bad the golfers who
sold their souls looked. Was a little matter of the
new feature just off the first tea at the Trump
National Golf Club. His ex wife, her grave, Ivanna Ivannah,
(27:32):
who died last month, is buried just behind and to
the right of where you start when you played golf
at the Trump course. But it's tasteful. On her tombstone,
Trump did not include a marble Maga hat and did
not have them embossed the presidential seal. The burial of
the first Mrs Trump there brought to the four that
(27:53):
fifteen years ago Trump went to the town of Bedminster
with his plan to build a giant cemetery with a
room for a thousand souls on We're slightly under the course.
When everybody everybody went to he trimmed it back to
just a family mausoleum with, according to the Washington Post,
(28:15):
nineteen ft high stone obelisks right in the middle of
the golf course. By the town council had agreed to
let Trump dig five hundred graves on the course for
members only, obviously so that they could presumably keep on
paying him membership unto eternity. Yet, as several tax lawyers
have confirmed, there might be another motive here. You plant
(28:38):
some stiff somewhere in the state of New Jersey, waves
your property tax, waves your income tax, and waves your
sales tax. Logic would suggest that if first wife Ivana
is buried near the first tea, then there's a nice
hole waiting for Marla Maples near the second te and
there should be a spot to plant Millanna on three.
(29:01):
I guess near the hole itself on three, so that
her spirit can help all the golfers with their putts.
Thank you, Nancy Faust And in the neat trick department.
(29:23):
To close out sports, Tracy Sandler, who covers the San
Francisco forty niners for Fan Girls Sports, tweeted something about
a San Francisco offensive tackle, quoting her Trent Williams is
back today. He had a baby a few days ago.
Now you would have thought that would have been a
bigger story somehow. Ah, that sounds familiar. What would countdown
(30:01):
be whether TV show, podcast, You're me just going door
to door with it without the daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Krueger effect exhibits who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. Lebronze to The New York Times
were printing non ironically a long article based on a
Frank Luntz focus group. What happened when seven Trump voters
(30:24):
and six Biden voters tried to find common ground? Well,
I hope somebody would have noticed Frank put his thumb
on the scales and had more Trump voters, which is
typical of him. Here's my Frank Luntz story. In two
thousand three, MSNBC had decided on a new show called
Countdown because the president of NBC News loved the name
and thought it would be cool to start with the
(30:44):
least important story and build up to the most important story,
like fifty seven minutes later, because that way everybody would
watch the whole hour. He never gave up on the
idea that this would work somehow, and he was not
going to give up on the idea that the perfect
host for Countdown was Sam Donaldson. There was an NBC
(31:08):
contract with Donaldson's name on it in circulation. When MSNBC
executives found out that ABC News had been trying to
get out from under their contract with Sam Donaldson. How
to avert the catastrophe ahead, Frank Luntz to the rescue.
Get us a focus group, Frank that tells the president
of NBC News not to hire Sam Donaldson, and that
(31:30):
the best choices this other guy. Now, how do I
know that I was the other guy? Presto. Frank's focus
groups somehow came back with that exact conclusion. The offer
to Donaldson was withdrawn. Coincidence, no doubt. The bronze to
everybody who fell for the Cartoon Network viral marketing scheme
(31:53):
about George Jetson being born yesterday July. Now, look, he's
a fictional character, so it's not like this matters. But
for God's sakes, if you're going to a a sist,
a certain date is a fictional character's fictional birth date,
prove it. As Gizmoto pointed out three years ago in
the jets in verse, there's a Jetson's verse. George was
(32:17):
forty years old as the series premiered on CBS. That
was in nineteen sixty two. The show is based a
century in the future twenty sixty two, So twenty sixty
two minus forty is twenty twenty two, So that's right,
But the reference to him being forty is in the
episode that first aired on December thirtieth, nineteen sixty two,
(32:39):
so his quote birthdate unquote could be any time in
twenty two except December thirty one. More importantly, if you
buy the George is born in twenty two stuff, you
are led to the edge of a troubling cartoon truth.
We know his wife Jane acknowledges in the first episode
that she's thirty three, daughter Judy is fifteen, meeting that
(33:04):
when Jane became a mom, she was eighteen, maybe seventeen.
But the winner Arthur Lee Trotter. He died in two thousand,
but for thirty years he scammed a succession of women,
whining and dining them and telling them he was basketball's
(33:24):
Bill Russell. He also at times claimed to have been
former football players John Mackie and Marv Fleming. In fact,
when he was arrested for impersonating Bill Russell, who died Sunday,
police in Louisiana were convinced he was not Bill Russell,
but he was Fleming. But he wasn't. But there was
a kind of genius to Arthur Lee Trotter. He stood
six ft tall, yet he insisted he was Bill Russell,
(33:46):
who was six ten. One of his women victims said,
you don't look like Bill Russell Trotter. Russell thought quickly,
I had got into a car accident and had to
have plastic surgery. Woman, I was expecting someone much taller Trotter.
Russell then said, I had ten inches a bone surgically
removed from my shins because I wanted to fit easier
(34:10):
into my new Mercedes. You know, in that got Trotter
another term in prison. In it would have gotten him
the Republican nomination for Senator from Georgia. Arthur Lee, not
Bill Russell Trotter. I know Arthur's dead, so what there
are rules here? There are no rules here. Arthur Trotter
(34:31):
Today's worst person in the wor so for our number
(35:21):
one story on the Countdown my favorite topic me. Each
podcast will conclude with me telling you a story from
my career or life, usually hanging off the day's news
or at least an anniversary of some kind. The people
I've known, the places I've worked, the innumerable morons I
have encountered, some of the women I've dated. If it's relevant,
like Laura, don't judge me. It all began in a
(35:44):
small five thousand one radio station in Fresno, California on Fridays. Instead,
we will read from the great works of the great
James Thurber, just like we used to do on the
TV show. And when I say we, of course, I
mean I. If you're not interested and you just want
the day's news, cool, turn it off. I will not
be offended, but I think these stories will explain, entertain
(36:07):
and often enraged you. Lord knows they will enrage me.
So as I launched this frail bark, we're better to
start than here. If you were a viewer of the
old TV show. Let me explain finally how that became
this My original n MSNBC news Hours, The Big Show
and The White House in Crisis were the first programs
(36:30):
that made MSNBC any money. I mean seriously, the network
otherwise hemorrhaged cash from its launch in nine until about
two thousand five. That's when the show I started. Upon
my return in two thousand three, Countdown, a low rated
nightly news digest that was a pretty good show, started
getting really political and suspicious of Bush and Iraq and
(36:52):
especially the Republicans political manipulation of the threat of terrorism,
and the viewers arrived in droves by the next year.
The ad salesman and contrary to all logic, they are
the ones from whom you get the truth in a
news company. They were sending me models of champagne and
revealing that Countdown was now earning a fifty million dollar
(37:13):
annual profit, then seventy five million, then a hundred million.
They liked me, they really really liked me. But management
at NBC not so much. Right after MSNBC started to
make money, it started making enemies. The Republicans came right
to our door and through it the psychos at Fox
(37:33):
News like O'Reilly and Hannity and Ales. Remember we called
them Fixed News or Fox Noise. They started calling the
executives at NBC and its parent company g E, demanding
that I stopped criticizing them softer than church music. These
fascists could not take criticism. When Tim Russer was still
(37:54):
alive and defending me internally and externally, watching every night
and sending me tips and warnings and ideas, and capable
of playing the Republicans inside NBC and outside NBC like fiddles,
everything was fine. Then came that horrible day June thousand eight,
Tim died, and suddenly NBC News was in the hands
(38:15):
of a lot of cowards and bullies like Tom Brokaw
and Joe Scarborough and Jeff Zucker and names you would
not know like Jeff Immelt and Steve Kappus and Phil
Griffin and Chris licked And I really wish you didn't
need to know Chris Lickt's name, but he was Scarborough's henchman,
and now he's the new president of CNN, and you
(38:36):
don't know how bad that news is for the future
of this country. Anyway. I will go into depth on
all this background in future episodes. How men like these
spent a year keeping Rachel Maddow off the air, telling
me I couldn't even put her on as my guest
host because nobody would watch a woman, or a lesbian
or another liberal. That's what they said. Then they lied
(39:00):
to me and told me they had hired her so
that one night Larry King talked her into going on
his show on CNN for two hundred and fifty dollars,
and I wound up hiring her out of my own
pocket to keep MSNBC from losing her. Literally the cash
in my wallet four hundred and thirty seven bucks. Anyway,
by August of two thousand eight, Republicans were threatening broke
(39:21):
Call that if he did not get me fired from
MSNBC's coverage of the presidential election, John McCain would not
show up for the debate that Brocall had inherited from
the late Tim Russers. So Brokell went in and threatened,
and that's a nice euphemism NBC management on behalf of
the GOP just to get to host one more debate.
(39:42):
I mean, he boasted about it in the New York Times.
Then within a year it was Fox blackmailing the executives
at GE actually getting the chairman of g E, Jeff Emil,
to threaten to take MSNBC off the air, just shut
it down if Fox continued to criticize him. Immilt because
his mommy was a Bill O'Reilly fan, and Billow kept
(40:02):
claiming her little boy Jeff was produced weapons used to
kill Americans in Iraq. I mean, honestly, these were adults
behaving like this. Well, as I tell everybody in the business,
there are no adults. It got worse and worse. Zooker
and Roger Ales meeting inside thirty Rock No Less to
decide what I could and could not say about Fox News,
(40:24):
negotiating what could be in our news and what could not,
and in NBC started suggesting that we put Republicans on
countdown like Michael Steele and the deplorable Scarborough. Nobody ever
asked me a direct question as to how in January
I left MSNBC and the highest rated cable news show
that was not on Fox. And I kept telling them,
(40:46):
just say, we don't consider Fox to be news. It
isn't news, so why are we comparing our ratings to them?
Was I fired? Did I quit? Was it something else?
So I've never actually told the actual story because I
wasn't asked a direct question about it. Well, one of
the perks they threw at me when I resigned with
MSNBC rather than jumping to CNN in two thousand six
(41:08):
two thousand and seven was a slot on the Sunday
night NBC football broadcast. It was a nice change. I
got to work with my old ESPN partner, Dan Patrick.
It wasn't life and death. I could do the catch
phrases and the silly voices and say they're not gonna
get them. But right before the season, Jeff Zucker called
me into his office told me I was not focusing
(41:29):
enough on countdown, and I was off the football show. Now,
the following portion is, of course a pure hypothetical, which
is really better designed for a college course in contract law.
But if in a case like this hypothetical, the guy
doing a let's say, hypothetical football show wasn't actually being
(41:50):
paid to do the hypothetical football show, If doing that
hypothetical football show were a perk, if it was a
non cash payment or an incentive to sign a contract
rather than to go to some other hypothetical network like
CN the hypothetical end, Well, then when that hypothetical announceres
taken off that hypothetical football show, the people who hypothetically
(42:12):
took him off the show have hypothetically breached his hypothetical contract,
and all of a sudden, the hypothetical companies hypothetical lawyers
are asking the hypothetical announcer how much money it would
hypothetically cost them to hypothetically cure a hypothetical breach. Back
to the non hypothetical portion of our story. So now
(42:32):
it's a few months later, the week before mid terms,
which I would be anchoring on MSNBC, and while I
would be covering the Senate governor races. Right through election night,
we were done reporting on the House. I did an
interview on Thursday, I think, with the Congressman Raoul Galva
of Arizona, and then I did a special comment on
Friday about all the Tea partiers running for Congress that year,
(42:53):
and that was it. And that night I was on
the phone with my friend Kirsten Cinema. Yep, that Kirsten Cinema.
How many Kirsten Cinemas could there be? She told me
that Galva and another Arizona representative had gotten a lot
of death threats late in the campaign and they had
spent virtually every last dollar they had on security. Kirsten asked,
(43:15):
can you donate to these campaigns? And I said I
had never donated before, but yeah, to Grahalva and to
a senator in the South I think. And the other
Arizona representative who had gotten a lot of death threats,
her name was Gabby Gifford's. The next Tuesday, I anchored
those mid terms, didn't mention one House race or candidate,
(43:36):
and everything was fine, and then somebody called one of
the political websites to say, oh, Alderman donated to some Democrats,
and they called NBC public relations. An NBC public Relations
called the president of MSNBC, and the president of m
MSNBC called me and he said, this looks bad. I know,
what's your right to do it. It's not like we're
gonna suspend you her anything stupid like that. Why would
(43:56):
we do that. This is sort of our fault too,
But it just looks bad. Can you you know, can
you say something? And I said, you're right, it does
look bad. I'll apologize on the show tomorrow, even though
I don't have to. I will voluntarily stop any campaign
contributions as long as I'm doing this show. And he
(44:16):
said great, and I said great. And I wrote the
apology that night and I sent it to him and
he said great. And I said great, because I already
had part of tomorrow's show written. And that was it.
And the next morning, without a hearing, without a phone call,
without an email, without a warning, this hysterical teenager disguised
as an adult named Steve Cappus, president of NBC News,
(44:39):
he puts out a press release in which he angrily
suspends me indefinitely without pay for violations of the NBC
News Employee rule book that says NBC News employees can't
make donations to political campaigns. Now, NBC had an obvious,
huge problem. Within hours, there was a petition on social
(45:00):
media demanding my reinstatement two hundred and fifty thousand signature.
I was stunned. NBC tried to get Chris Hayes to
fill in for me that night. He refused. Even people
at Fox News went on the air and said this
was absurd. And at NBC there was a lot of
shushing and worrying because everybody at NBC News made political donations.
(45:23):
They just hit them by donating in their wife's name
or the kid's name, or to some sort of fund
or whatever. I was the only one who admitted to it.
But this guy Cappus, he was piste off and dug
in and demanded I be suspended for a month through
I don't know, a hundred years without pay at least,
and all. This is already public and well documented. But hypothetically, again,
(45:49):
there could have been more to it. See if you
hypothetically suspend your hypothetical announcer guy again for violating the
employee handbook. What happens if that hypothetical announcer is not
actually an employee. What if the hypothetical employer has written
the contract of the hypothetical announcer so that it specifically declares,
(46:14):
several different hypothetical times in the hypothetical contract that the
hypothetical announcer is not an employee, but just say to
pick a term out of thin air and independent Contractor
what if, hypothetically the employer could be NBC, could be
a bakery somewhere. What if hypothetically the employer did this
(46:38):
in contract legal ease so they did not have to
pay the hypothetical announcer health insurance or dental. Well, then
hypothetically that phrase breach re enters the chat and the
hypothetical companies hypothetical lawyers go to the executive who just
suspended the employee who legally is not an employee, and
(46:58):
they say, hypothetically, again, you now have four hypothetical choices.
One reinstate the hype pathetical non employee immediately and hope
we don't get sued. To reinstate the hypothetical non employee,
immediately apologize and write up a new contract for God's sake. Three,
end the show, pay the hypothetical non employee every dollar
(47:20):
you over the remainder of the hypothetical contract, and hope
you don't get sued for damages anyway. Or four hypothetically
throw a lot of money in the air and negotiate
a settlement, and and the hypothetical show hypothetically. In the
short term, what happened was, and I'm quoting from the
New York Times, they told me on Friday I was suspended.
(47:41):
I was back on the air Tuesday. They didn't even
dock my pay or charge me for any days off,
making this wilder still. Hours after I was suspended, Al
Gore called me. Al owned a struggling TV network called Current,
and he said, what NBC is doing is illegal, and
if you sue them, you could own the place. But
(48:03):
I think I have a our idea that can be
the start of something big. You can bring countdown to
Current TV. We'll give you fifty million dollars plus bonuses,
plus a piece of the network. You'll be an owner.
This is me talking in the long term. For two months,
these two roller coasters went up and down, and my
(48:24):
agents negotiated attentive contract with Current while there was a
hypothetical attempt to settle the other hypothetical non employee cluster
hypothetical f and then literally during the MSNBC Countdown show
on January during a commercial break, everything got finalized all
(48:45):
at once. My agent told me it was done. I
went on the air and said so, and nobody, not
even the staff knew, which I am still sorry about.
Very greatly unavoidable, but that's the way it worked. So no,
I was not fired, Countdown was not canceled. The current
TV deal had already been in place for a week.
And by the way, during every step of this, I
(49:08):
kept Matto and her agents, who had been my agent
for twenty seven years, fully informed, And so that very
night that Countdown ended on MSNBC, Mattow was on Bill
maher show right after it all happened, and naturally he
asked her about it, and she lied and said it's
the first time hearing of it, and I thought, uh, blay,
(49:30):
that might be the end of that friendship, and we
haven't spoken since. Anyway, the current thing turned out to
be a scam and it blew up rather quickly, and
I'll tell that story in a future episode two. On
the other hand, I don't have to work for money again.
But the weirdest thing started happening in September two thousand eleven,
(49:51):
not eight months after I left MSNBC feelers from the
new owners of NBC Comcast what I consider coming back
to MSNBC. Yes, I would. Then they got cold feet.
Then the next year, more feelers. This time I got
cold feet, and I started negotiating and go back to
ESPN instead, and I did. In two thousand fourteen, I
(50:13):
actually met with the new NBC News executives for two hours,
and they wanted me to bring Countdown back as soon
as possible. And then the Brian Williams scandal broken, these
new executives all got themselves fired. And then in October
two thousand fifteen, I met with the new new executives
and they wanted me to come back. They made an
actual offer, and it was stupid. It was predicated on
(50:35):
my doing a show without commentaries, like what was the
point of Countdown? Or me without the commentaries? And even
that guy got fired in two thousand nineteen, and the
new chairman of the entire NBC corporation, Jeff Shell, was
an old friend of mine from Fox Sports and he
wanted me to bring the show back, and we got close,
(50:56):
and then the word came in from the guy who
was negotiating for me that the chairman of NBC News,
Caesar Conde, had told him the whole thing had cratered
because one person at NBC had never and would never
forgive me for something. And that person, said Conde, was
(51:17):
Rachel Maddow. Rachel Maddow, Percy's our Conde vetoed the last
chance and and did literally a decade of talks about
putting this program back on MSNBC. By the way, NBC's
denial of this last set of flirtations was that, yes,
for two years, NBC CEO Jeff Shell kept scheduling meetings
(51:39):
with me, but I should have known he didn't really
mean it. Basically, their explanation was, I should have known
the chairman of NBC was a liar. As the kids say,
weird flex but okay, and that's the short version. So
last winter, that's when I began exploring a new venue
(52:00):
for Countdown, and here we are a daily podcast, Saint
Keith new platform. Him and I don't have to shave
or wear makeup, and I hope you'll enjoy the content
as much as I already enjoy be not shaving, so
(52:22):
I've done all the damage I can do here. The
Countdown theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by
Countdown Music directors Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle. Guitarist, bass and
drums by Brian Ray. Produced by T k O Brothers.
Beethoven selections like this one performed by my friends in
(52:44):
no horns allowed our sports music. The Oberman theme written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. That was
the famous Nancy Faust on the organ. Our announcer today
was the one and only Larry David. Everything else is
my fault. If you can, please rate and review this
podcast and subscribe, because apparently that's how all this works.
(53:05):
We are here every morning. Let's countdown for this seventy
second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
government of the United States. I'm Keith all Reman. Good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(53:32):
ol Reman is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. I don't have to
(00:29):
tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad.
It's a recession. Everybody goes to work, but they're still
scared of losing their job. The corporations make sure the
dollar buys in Nickelsworth Banks are making record profits. Teachers
are told to keep a gun under the desk. Punks
are running wild in Congress, and there's nobody anywhere seems
to know what to do, and there's no end to it.
(00:49):
We know the air is unfit to breathe and our
planet will be unfit for life. And we sit watching
our TVs while some Fox newscaster tells us that today
Trump is the real victim and minorities are the real problem.
As if that's the way it's supposed to be. We
all know things are bad. Worse than bad. They're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't
(01:11):
go out anymore. We have the Senate in the House,
but slowly the democracy we're living and is getting smaller.
And all we say is please at least leave us
alone in our living rooms. Let me have my president
and my R. B. G. Shrine and my January six hearings,
and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone. While
I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you
to get mad. I want you to protest. I want
(01:33):
you to strike. I want you to write to your congressman,
because you don't need me to tell you what to write.
You know what to do about the recession and the
inflation and the Russians and the Nazis in the street.
All I know is first you've got to get mad.
You've got to say I'm a human being, God damnaged,
my life has value. So I want you to get
(01:55):
up now. I want all of you to get up
and out of your chairs. I want you to get
up right now and go to the window, open it
and stick your head out and yell, I am as
mad as hell and I'm not gonna take Trump anymore.
I want you to get up right now, get up,
go to your windows, open them, and stick your head
out and yell, I'm as mad as hell, and I'm
(02:15):
not gonna take Trump anymore. Things have got to change.
But first you've got to get mad. You've got to
say I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna
take Trump anymore. Then we'll figure out what to do
about the recession and the inflation in the oil cartels.
But first, get up out of your chairs, open your windows,
stick your head out, and yell and say it. I
am as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take
(02:37):
Trump anymore. The mold as hell, he'll take Trump anymore.
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take Trump anymore. Sorry,
I couldn't resist. And for the first time in my life,
even through the brutal years of Reagan and even through
the psychotic years of Bush, that famous Howard Beal's speech
(02:57):
from the nineteen seventy six movie Network seems to fit
this moment. With some revisions. Of course, the Beal character
as portrayed by Peter Finch, and especially that speech, and
especially that catchphrase I'm as mad as hell and I'm
not going to take this anymore, spoke to long before
it became a cliche. This weird overlap between somebody who
(03:20):
is so enraged that he is angry mad as hell
and somebody who may be so insane that he is
crazy mad as hell. But there's also a third subtext
to it, which only occasionally gets mentioned and only occasionally
gets appreciated, And it is why Beale and mad as
Hell means something today. It's that line towards the start.
(03:42):
We all know things are bad. Worse than bad, they're crazy.
It's like everything everywhere is going crazy. In short, it's
like Howard Beale, representing all of us, is going crazy
because nobody else is when they should be. If in
school you had read that a hundred years ago, or
a hundred and fifty years ago, or whenever a president
(04:02):
of the United States fraudulently denied he lost the election
and tried to overturn it in the courts and in
the Congress, and it didn't work because it was one
big lie. So he invited gangs of thugs and racists
and guns suckers and militias to come to the capital
during the most boasted about part of American democracy, the
(04:22):
peaceful transfer of power, And having invited them, he then
incited them to try to overthrow the government by violence.
You would have expected to then have read about the
police and the military and the laws that stopped him,
and the arrests and the indictments and the lifetimes in
prison and the vengeance that followed. Hell, what precipitated the
(04:45):
Civil War if not eleven states trying to stop the
peaceful transfer of power because they didn't like who got elected.
We are supposed to do something about this. When a
large minority of Americans stood up and said only whites
are real people. And when they said we will use
(05:06):
the police to lynch black people. And when they said
guns settle everything, and when they said women are here
only to breed, and when they said we own the
Supreme Court now, and when they said we will not
teach history because we don't want children to know there's
a more righteous way. And when they said this is
our world, and you the majority. Your votes do not
count here. Your cities do not count here, your lives
(05:28):
do not count here. Your president does not count here.
When all that happened within thirty nine days, our anger
and our vengeance democracies anger and vengeance began. It was
eighteen sixty one. But first you've got to get mad.
(05:49):
Today they have Trump and Schedule F and a plan
to impeach Biden for whatever, and they've already turned the
Supreme Court into the theocratic republican supreme religious Court, and
they've overturned abortion, and next will be marriage equality. And
they intend to investigate the January six committee members and
(06:10):
pardon everybody who actually attacked the capitol, even though you
and I grew up presuming you know, if I attacked
the capital during the peaceful transfer of power. I'm gonna
guess they'll give me about five seconds to stop before
they start shooting at me. And they want to put
Fauci in prison, and their passing laws prosecuting doctors and
(06:30):
prosecuting women who leave a state to go to another
state for an abortion. In other words, they want to
prosecute women who leave a slave state to go to
a free state and bring them back to the slave state.
And they have a Fox News, and another worse Fox News,
(06:50):
and another worser even than that Fox News. And what
do we have? We have once a week somebody who
says we must find a compromise with them. We must
be by partisan, we must be democrats and liberals who
act like Republicans and fascists and Nazis. We have Joe Mansion,
(07:14):
and for eighteen months, Joe Mansion has obstructed all the
good Joe Biden has tried to do and prevented all
the emergency measures we must have to keep the last
words by the last humans surviving the climate catastrophe on
this planet. From being as chairman of Excellent Mobile, I
don't want to report record profits for the year fifty two.
(07:41):
And when the bribe for Joe Mansion, the Senator from
fossil fuel gulch West Virginia, is finally sufficient to his
liking and he finally agrees with Chuck Schumer on the
seven hundred and forty billion dollar Climate and Deficit Reduction Bill,
what does he get? He gets to go on all
five network Sunday political television NIT, which shows proverbial full
(08:06):
ginsburg glory, glory, hallelujah. It's Joe Mansion, our lawgiver, the
true Democrat. And yet Kirsten Cinema could still kill the
thing today and Joe Mansion would then still look reasonable.
By contrast, tomorrow, he'd still be the hero who achieved nothing,
(08:30):
and of all that cinema stuff bothers you. I used
to go out with her. We all know things are bad.
Worse than bad, they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere has
going crazy, even the fascists who hate or fear Trump
have something closer to a plan than we do. The
(08:51):
This Town author Mark Leebevich, quoted a former Republican congressman
is saying, quote, look, we have no plan for this
except sitting around hoping he dies, unquote, which actually sounds
like more of a plan than our plan. Our plan
make sure Democrats help the craziest Trump supporters and election deniers,
(09:16):
and it's not I Q and On, it's just Q
and on nutbags get nominated because we're confident we can
beat them right right, right this weekend, it will be
nineteen months since the coup. They have plans for more coups.
(09:38):
A coup in Washington, a coup in every state, of
coup in every county. Looks like they compromise the Secret
Service and it's still compromised. Looks like they compromise the
inspector General at Homeland Security. They've compromised half the cops
in this country, a little less, a little more. They've compromised,
as my heroes, Bob Elliott Ray Golding once joked, everything
(09:59):
except the Visiting Nurse Association. They have built a cult
around denying. That's went twenty election. And if you haven't
figured out what's behind that nonsense, by the way, seemingly
quixotic and academic at the same time. Here's the little secret.
The idea about the twenty stuff still being talked about
is if L. Douche gets elected and goes back to
(10:22):
the White House, he will somehow make somebody like I
don't know, the Supreme Court confirm that yes, he actually
won in but was denied that rightful term in the
White House, so he will be given a third term
in t or at least allowed to run for it.
(10:44):
In short, was stolen from him. He's owed another term,
right That's in the Constitution, isn't it. Gee, maybe we
could just you know, skip the election outright. The fascists
have all this in the works. And what do we have.
We have Chuck Todd three weeks ago asking a Republican governor, quote,
(11:09):
what's best for the country? Do you think the country
can handle prosecuting a former president? And we have Lester
Holts one week ago telling the Attorney General of the
United States, quote, indictment of a former president and perhaps
a candidate for president would arguably tear the country apart.
Is that your concern? They have Fox News? We have
(11:37):
Fox News, only we call it NBC. I will do
this podcast every weekday morning, no holiday, mondays. Sorry I'm
getting old. It will be as best as I can
do with the podcast version of what the old TV
show was. I will explain to you later in this
first episode what exactly happened to the old TV show.
(12:00):
And here's a tease. It's none of the things you've heard.
And I'll have comments on the news and comments on
the sports. Did you know he used to do sports?
And the worst persons in the world are back? And
why Trump gets a tax break for burying his wife
in the golf course. But first I want to button
up this topic about getting mad as hell with two
(12:23):
quotes and one question. Quote number one, it's General William
To comes to Sherman, and it's meant metaphorically. So don't
think I'm talking about bloodshed, because you can't do political
bloodshed in this country unless you're a Republican. This was
Sherman the last time Americans tried to overthrow American democracy. Quote.
(12:45):
War is the remedy our enemies have chosen. Other simple
remedies were within their choice. You know it, and they
know it. But they wanted war. And I say, let
us give them all they want, not a word of argument,
not a sign of let up, no cave in until
we are whipped or they are end Sherman quote. First,
(13:08):
you've got to get mad. What greater act of war
against the United States by someone owing allegiance to the
United States within the United States could there ever be
than to send armed militias into the United States Capital
than to encourage them to attack and kill members of Congress,
(13:29):
members of the Senate, even the Vice President. What greater
act of war against the United States could there be
than to try to prevent by violent revolution, the peaceful
transfer of power in the United States. I have no
complaints about the January sixth Committee. I do not buy
the argument that it's the Liz Cheney Show, And so
(13:51):
what if it were. Chairman Thompson and the other Democrats
have been terrific if, as I speculated months ago, they
are programming to the proverbial audience of one and it
is named Merrick Garland Dandy. But I don't see exactly
how they plan to end this. So what if first
(14:12):
they realized you've got to get mad, You've got to
say I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going
to take Trump anymore? What if they ended it with
another quote? What if the January six Committee ends its
final hearing by simply quoting just the start of Title
eighteen U s c. Chapter one fifteen, Section two three
(14:32):
eight one quote. Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States,
levies war against them, or adheres to their enemies giving
them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere,
is guilty of treason and shall suffer death. Just a
(15:05):
head my postscripts to the news segment plus Worse Persons
and Sports. Bill Russell obviously is the big story in sports,
but the guy who spent his life pretending to be
Bill Russell is in Worse Person's first. In each edition
of Countdown the Podcast, we will be featuring a dog
in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day.
You can find our first dog and all of our
(15:25):
subjects on my Twitter feed for pups in trouble, that's
at Tom Jumbo Grumbo Today. Are you near Chicago? Would
you like a forty nine pound five year old gal
with one white ear and one black ear Terrier pibble mix.
Loves to go camping, loves to eat your food that
you bring when you go camping, loves to camp her
head on your shoulder. She is at one tail dot
(15:48):
org in Chicago and her name is Oreo. The adoption
fees for this lovely dog looking for a home are covered.
Unconditional love is yours free, Oreo, one tail dot org
in Chicago, and she's on my Twitter feed at tom
Jumbo Grumbo coming up sports, Worst Persons in the World,
(16:23):
and the premiere of stories about my favorite topic, me
in Things I Promised not to tell, but first both
scripts to the news, some headlines and some thoughts. Michelle
Nichols has died to hera from Star Trek. It is
impossible to recreate the world in which her character was controversial,
(16:44):
largely because she helped to erase that world. Unlike other
women actresses of color in the nineteen sixties, she was
an astronaut on Star Trek. She was smart, she wasn't deferential,
and she was sexy. I was seven when Star Trek premiered.
I don't know for how many kids are adults in
this country. She was their first fosure to such a person.
(17:06):
All the struggles of her career and life did at
the very minimum this. She rewired the minds of millions,
and then she did recruiting videos for NASA in ninety
seven from the Friday News Dump Dateline Washington. First, the
Secret Service texts from January six disappeared, Then the Homeland
(17:28):
Security texts from January six disappeared. Then House Minority Leader
Kevin McCarthy's brain disappeared. Though Cassidy Hutchinson testified under oath
that she and McCarthy spoke on January six about keeping
Trump from going to the Capitol during the coup, McCarthy
now says, quote, I don't remember that. This is what
is so confusing. I didn't watch the speech. I was working,
(17:49):
so I didn't see what was said. I had no
idea he was going to come to the Capitol. I
don't remember having any conversations with her. I don't recall, honest,
I ran out of gas. I I had a flat tire.
I didn't have enough money for cab fair. My tuxt
didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came
in from out of out. Someone stole my car. There
was an earthquake, a terrible flood. Locust said, why is
(18:10):
that my fault? I swear to God, I may have
embellished that last part of the quote just a little bit.
On the other hand, by the end of this week,
Kevin McCarthy may claim he can't remember his own name. Wait,
why would that be a bad thing? Also date Line Washington.
The problem is McCarthy may yet get away with his
(18:30):
role in the January six cover up, just like Trump
may yet get away with his role in the January
six coup. And BC News quoting more than a dozen
sources who worry if the Department of Justice has allocated
enough resources to the investigation, just like Trump may yet
get away with all this because quote, we don't have
the manpower. Here's a crazy ass idea. The Pentagon asked
(18:54):
for a fiscal two thousand, twenty two budget of seven
and twenty four billion freaking dollars. Congress gave it a
budget of seven and eighty two billion dollars. That would
be more. That would be fifty eight billion dollars more.
Four billion of that is for more boots. We need
(19:15):
more boats. How about giving the boats back and putting
four billion dollars into trying to save the goddamn democracy.
Gonna need a bigger boat. Dateline Philadelphia or is it
actually New Jersey? The draws campaign. I'm sorry. Apparently that's
the doctor Oz campaign is bailing water. According to Politico,
(19:39):
the National Republican Senatorial Committee held a call with big
roller campaign donors and basically they said that there's definitely
a Republican path to take the Senate by flipping Arizona,
Georgia and Nevada or New Hampshire and were defending North
Carolina and Wisconsin. And that's when somebody noticed the n
r SC had not mentioned Pennsylvania. Quote Oz just has
(20:00):
not hit his stride as a candidate. One call participant
to Politico, the viewpoint was it's more important to reallocate
money to seats that we feel we can win. A
committee official is quoted as also saying, we have a
path with Pennsylvania, and don't worry, we have a path
without Pennsylvania. In the latest polling, Draws trails the Democrat
(20:22):
John Fetterman by eleven and the would be Pennsylvania senator
who lives in New Jersey has never recovered from having
misspelled the name of the Pennsylvania town he thinks he
lives in Dateline Madison, Wisconsin. With Wisconsin Democrats coalescing behind
Mandela Barnes in the bid to take the Senate seat
(20:43):
away from Ron. I'm on my phone. No you're not.
I can see your phone. I can see your screen, Johnson.
It was inevitable time for former Governor Scott Walker, the
Clarence the cross eye line of the Tea Party, to
do something stupid. At two forty one prevailing local time Friday,
he tweeted, quote Democrats rally behind a racial who wants
(21:05):
to end cash bail. Did you say a racial? Two
minutes later, Walker replied to his own tweet without making
any attempt to alter the reality that he had just
called an African American Senate candidate a quote racial, by
adding quote a radical who wants to end the patrol
(21:26):
that's supposed to protect us illegal drugs and firearms from
coming across the border and finding their way to Wisconsin. Unquote.
I just skip the image of Scott Walker, the thing
he just evoked of that Wisconsin Mexico border. Let me
just reread the first part of that follow up tweet,
quote a radical who wants to end the patrol that's
(21:49):
supposed to protect us illegal drugs. So I have your
choice on Scott Walker. The first tweet was racist, and
the second tweet was unintelligible and dateline Hendersonville, North Carolina.
The latest employment innovation you will work for food the
chick fil A on Highlands Square Drive. They're asking for
(22:11):
quote volunteers to work its drive through express. Joel Benson,
the visionary innovator in charge, brings a new spin to
the workforce experience. New salary quote earned five free entrees
per shift one hour worked. Read the Facebook post. The
pay is lousy, but you get all the cholesterol you
(22:34):
can eat. Corporate says it knows nothing of this, and
the offer was withdrawn within hours of posting. As always,
life is just another Bob and Ray sketch come to life.
In the nineteen seventies, My hero is reported on a
fictional company making paper clips by hand, with a workforce
of two hundred assemblers. Price nineteen cents a box. How
(22:56):
is that possible? Ask the startled interviewer character Wally blue Well,
said the owner. We pay our employees two cents a day.
How is that possible? Past blue fortunately came the answer,
We got a ninety nine years sweetheart deal with the union.
Most of our staff lives in caves on the outskirts
of Town Blue then asks don't you worry about their
(23:19):
health and survival? And the owner says blankly, we don't
pry into the private lives of our employees. This is
(23:43):
Sports Center. Wait, check that not anymore. This is Countdown
with Keith Alberman, the old ESPN two show theme. Obviously
(24:09):
you know. Basketball's Bill Russell has died at the age
of eight eight, easily the game's most successful player to
n C double A titles, an Olympic gold medal, eleven
NBA championships in just thirteen seasons, the last two as
player coach. What you may not have heard of. He
and el Jin Baylor were the first African Americans to
make the All NBA First Team the All Star Team
(24:32):
in nineteen fifty eight fifty nine. He was also the
league's first African American coach, although the claim that he
was the first African American coaching any major sport is inaccurate.
Football Immortal Fritz Pollard was a head coach in the
NFL briefly in the nineteen twenties. Bill Russell was also
a broadcaster whose main virtue on the ABC and CBS
(24:53):
NBA coverage was his extraordinary laugh. He also did interview
after interview with sportscasters at college radio stations. No not me.
Jesse Agler from the s and Diego Padres mentioned this
and others then echoed it extraordinarily generous with his time
and his laugh and his contributions to society. On the
(25:15):
other end of the sports spectrum, there is the Saudi
Blood Money Golf Tournament which is over in New Jersey.
Hendrick Stenson, who used to be a professional golfer but
took blood money instead, defeating Matthew Wolf and Dustin Johnson
who used to be professional golfers but who took blood
money instead. For our purposes, we can just call this
tournament the Kasgi Memorial. The tournament was held naturally at
(25:36):
the Trump Course in Bedminster, New Jersey. Crowds were disappointing
at best. In The Wall Street Journal reported the tickets
for the penultimate round on Saturday it cost as little
as one dollar American money. The host was there. In
the pro am, Trump apparently completed only two or three
holes and shot a twelve thousand, three d sixty four
(25:57):
over par twelve four three six, but Trump insists he
made the cut and won the champ Beanship anyway. It
is by the way, a federal offense with a jail
term if not more than six months, or a fine
or both to use the presidential seal in a way
that can leave quote, a false impression of sponsorship or
approval by the government of the United States. So naturally
(26:21):
Trump put the seal on course flags, course towels, and
course golf carts. They played God Bless America at one point,
and Trump could not figure out what to do. He
eventually took off his trucker cap, then put his hand
over his heart or whatever is in there, and then
started patting his hand on his chest. And of course,
(26:41):
Trump too took the Saudi blood money, and when asked
about the effect of doing so on nine eleven Families,
l Douche said, it was really too bad that nobody
ever got to the bottom of nine eleven and everybody
was playing great golf and all the money was there,
and people were reminded that on nine eleven. When he
went on local TV in New York, the only thing
(27:03):
Trump was concerned earned about was that one of his
buildings was now the tallest one in downtown New York City,
but somehow overshadowing all of this the Saudi money. How
deathly bad Trump himself looked, how bad the golfers who
sold their souls looked. Was a little matter of the
new feature just off the first tea at the Trump
National Golf Club. His ex wife, her grave, Ivanna Ivannah,
(27:32):
who died last month, is buried just behind and to
the right of where you start when you played golf
at the Trump course. But it's tasteful. On her tombstone,
Trump did not include a marble Maga hat and did
not have them embossed the presidential seal. The burial of
the first Mrs Trump there brought to the four that
(27:53):
fifteen years ago Trump went to the town of Bedminster
with his plan to build a giant cemetery with a
room for a thousand souls on We're slightly under the course.
When everybody everybody went to he trimmed it back to
just a family mausoleum with, according to the Washington Post,
(28:15):
nineteen ft high stone obelisks right in the middle of
the golf course. By the town council had agreed to
let Trump dig five hundred graves on the course for
members only, obviously so that they could presumably keep on
paying him membership unto eternity. Yet, as several tax lawyers
have confirmed, there might be another motive here. You plant
(28:38):
some stiff somewhere in the state of New Jersey, waves
your property tax, waves your income tax, and waves your
sales tax. Logic would suggest that if first wife Ivana
is buried near the first tea, then there's a nice
hole waiting for Marla Maples near the second te and
there should be a spot to plant Millanna on three.
(29:01):
I guess near the hole itself on three, so that
her spirit can help all the golfers with their putts.
Thank you, Nancy Faust And in the neat trick department.
(29:23):
To close out sports, Tracy Sandler, who covers the San
Francisco forty niners for Fan Girls Sports, tweeted something about
a San Francisco offensive tackle, quoting her Trent Williams is
back today. He had a baby a few days ago.
Now you would have thought that would have been a
bigger story somehow. Ah, that sounds familiar. What would countdown
(30:01):
be whether TV show, podcast, You're me just going door
to door with it without the daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Krueger effect exhibits who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. Lebronze to The New York Times
were printing non ironically a long article based on a
Frank Luntz focus group. What happened when seven Trump voters
(30:24):
and six Biden voters tried to find common ground? Well,
I hope somebody would have noticed Frank put his thumb
on the scales and had more Trump voters, which is
typical of him. Here's my Frank Luntz story. In two
thousand three, MSNBC had decided on a new show called
Countdown because the president of NBC News loved the name
and thought it would be cool to start with the
(30:44):
least important story and build up to the most important story,
like fifty seven minutes later, because that way everybody would
watch the whole hour. He never gave up on the
idea that this would work somehow, and he was not
going to give up on the idea that the perfect
host for Countdown was Sam Donaldson. There was an NBC
(31:08):
contract with Donaldson's name on it in circulation. When MSNBC
executives found out that ABC News had been trying to
get out from under their contract with Sam Donaldson. How
to avert the catastrophe ahead, Frank Luntz to the rescue.
Get us a focus group, Frank that tells the president
of NBC News not to hire Sam Donaldson, and that
(31:30):
the best choices this other guy. Now, how do I
know that I was the other guy? Presto. Frank's focus
groups somehow came back with that exact conclusion. The offer
to Donaldson was withdrawn. Coincidence, no doubt. The bronze to
everybody who fell for the Cartoon Network viral marketing scheme
(31:53):
about George Jetson being born yesterday July. Now, look, he's
a fictional character, so it's not like this matters. But
for God's sakes, if you're going to a a sist,
a certain date is a fictional character's fictional birth date,
prove it. As Gizmoto pointed out three years ago in
the jets in verse, there's a Jetson's verse. George was
(32:17):
forty years old as the series premiered on CBS. That
was in nineteen sixty two. The show is based a
century in the future twenty sixty two, So twenty sixty
two minus forty is twenty twenty two, So that's right,
But the reference to him being forty is in the
episode that first aired on December thirtieth, nineteen sixty two,
(32:39):
so his quote birthdate unquote could be any time in
twenty two except December thirty one. More importantly, if you
buy the George is born in twenty two stuff, you
are led to the edge of a troubling cartoon truth.
We know his wife Jane acknowledges in the first episode
that she's thirty three, daughter Judy is fifteen, meeting that
(33:04):
when Jane became a mom, she was eighteen, maybe seventeen.
But the winner Arthur Lee Trotter. He died in two thousand,
but for thirty years he scammed a succession of women,
whining and dining them and telling them he was basketball's
(33:24):
Bill Russell. He also at times claimed to have been
former football players John Mackie and Marv Fleming. In fact,
when he was arrested for impersonating Bill Russell, who died Sunday,
police in Louisiana were convinced he was not Bill Russell,
but he was Fleming. But he wasn't. But there was
a kind of genius to Arthur Lee Trotter. He stood
six ft tall, yet he insisted he was Bill Russell,
(33:46):
who was six ten. One of his women victims said,
you don't look like Bill Russell Trotter. Russell thought quickly,
I had got into a car accident and had to
have plastic surgery. Woman, I was expecting someone much taller Trotter.
Russell then said, I had ten inches a bone surgically
removed from my shins because I wanted to fit easier
(34:10):
into my new Mercedes. You know, in that got Trotter
another term in prison. In it would have gotten him
the Republican nomination for Senator from Georgia. Arthur Lee, not
Bill Russell Trotter. I know Arthur's dead, so what there
are rules here? There are no rules here. Arthur Trotter
(34:31):
Today's worst person in the wor so for our number
(35:21):
one story on the Countdown my favorite topic me. Each
podcast will conclude with me telling you a story from
my career or life, usually hanging off the day's news
or at least an anniversary of some kind. The people
I've known, the places I've worked, the innumerable morons I
have encountered, some of the women I've dated. If it's relevant,
like Laura, don't judge me. It all began in a
(35:44):
small five thousand one radio station in Fresno, California on Fridays. Instead,
we will read from the great works of the great
James Thurber, just like we used to do on the
TV show. And when I say we, of course, I
mean I. If you're not interested and you just want
the day's news, cool, turn it off. I will not
be offended, but I think these stories will explain, entertain
(36:07):
and often enraged you. Lord knows they will enrage me.
So as I launched this frail bark, we're better to
start than here. If you were a viewer of the
old TV show. Let me explain finally how that became
this My original n MSNBC news Hours, The Big Show
and The White House in Crisis were the first programs
(36:30):
that made MSNBC any money. I mean seriously, the network
otherwise hemorrhaged cash from its launch in nine until about
two thousand five. That's when the show I started. Upon
my return in two thousand three, Countdown, a low rated
nightly news digest that was a pretty good show, started
getting really political and suspicious of Bush and Iraq and
(36:52):
especially the Republicans political manipulation of the threat of terrorism,
and the viewers arrived in droves by the next year.
The ad salesman and contrary to all logic, they are
the ones from whom you get the truth in a
news company. They were sending me models of champagne and
revealing that Countdown was now earning a fifty million dollar
(37:13):
annual profit, then seventy five million, then a hundred million.
They liked me, they really really liked me. But management
at NBC not so much. Right after MSNBC started to
make money, it started making enemies. The Republicans came right
to our door and through it the psychos at Fox
(37:33):
News like O'Reilly and Hannity and Ales. Remember we called
them Fixed News or Fox Noise. They started calling the
executives at NBC and its parent company g E, demanding
that I stopped criticizing them softer than church music. These
fascists could not take criticism. When Tim Russer was still
(37:54):
alive and defending me internally and externally, watching every night
and sending me tips and warnings and ideas, and capable
of playing the Republicans inside NBC and outside NBC like fiddles,
everything was fine. Then came that horrible day June thousand eight,
Tim died, and suddenly NBC News was in the hands
(38:15):
of a lot of cowards and bullies like Tom Brokaw
and Joe Scarborough and Jeff Zucker and names you would
not know like Jeff Immelt and Steve Kappus and Phil
Griffin and Chris licked And I really wish you didn't
need to know Chris Lickt's name, but he was Scarborough's henchman,
and now he's the new president of CNN, and you
(38:36):
don't know how bad that news is for the future
of this country. Anyway. I will go into depth on
all this background in future episodes. How men like these
spent a year keeping Rachel Maddow off the air, telling
me I couldn't even put her on as my guest
host because nobody would watch a woman, or a lesbian
or another liberal. That's what they said. Then they lied
(39:00):
to me and told me they had hired her so
that one night Larry King talked her into going on
his show on CNN for two hundred and fifty dollars,
and I wound up hiring her out of my own
pocket to keep MSNBC from losing her. Literally the cash
in my wallet four hundred and thirty seven bucks. Anyway,
by August of two thousand eight, Republicans were threatening broke
(39:21):
Call that if he did not get me fired from
MSNBC's coverage of the presidential election, John McCain would not
show up for the debate that Brocall had inherited from
the late Tim Russers. So Brokell went in and threatened,
and that's a nice euphemism NBC management on behalf of
the GOP just to get to host one more debate.
(39:42):
I mean, he boasted about it in the New York Times.
Then within a year it was Fox blackmailing the executives
at GE actually getting the chairman of g E, Jeff Emil,
to threaten to take MSNBC off the air, just shut
it down if Fox continued to criticize him. Immilt because
his mommy was a Bill O'Reilly fan, and Billow kept
(40:02):
claiming her little boy Jeff was produced weapons used to
kill Americans in Iraq. I mean, honestly, these were adults
behaving like this. Well, as I tell everybody in the business,
there are no adults. It got worse and worse. Zooker
and Roger Ales meeting inside thirty Rock No Less to
decide what I could and could not say about Fox News,
(40:24):
negotiating what could be in our news and what could not,
and in NBC started suggesting that we put Republicans on
countdown like Michael Steele and the deplorable Scarborough. Nobody ever
asked me a direct question as to how in January
I left MSNBC and the highest rated cable news show
that was not on Fox. And I kept telling them,
(40:46):
just say, we don't consider Fox to be news. It
isn't news, so why are we comparing our ratings to them?
Was I fired? Did I quit? Was it something else?
So I've never actually told the actual story because I
wasn't asked a direct question about it. Well, one of
the perks they threw at me when I resigned with
MSNBC rather than jumping to CNN in two thousand six
(41:08):
two thousand and seven was a slot on the Sunday
night NBC football broadcast. It was a nice change. I
got to work with my old ESPN partner, Dan Patrick.
It wasn't life and death. I could do the catch
phrases and the silly voices and say they're not gonna
get them. But right before the season, Jeff Zucker called
me into his office told me I was not focusing
(41:29):
enough on countdown, and I was off the football show. Now,
the following portion is, of course a pure hypothetical, which
is really better designed for a college course in contract law.
But if in a case like this hypothetical, the guy
doing a let's say, hypothetical football show wasn't actually being
(41:50):
paid to do the hypothetical football show, If doing that
hypothetical football show were a perk, if it was a
non cash payment or an incentive to sign a contract
rather than to go to some other hypothetical network like
CN the hypothetical end, Well, then when that hypothetical announceres
taken off that hypothetical football show, the people who hypothetically
(42:12):
took him off the show have hypothetically breached his hypothetical contract,
and all of a sudden, the hypothetical companies hypothetical lawyers
are asking the hypothetical announcer how much money it would
hypothetically cost them to hypothetically cure a hypothetical breach. Back
to the non hypothetical portion of our story. So now
(42:32):
it's a few months later, the week before mid terms,
which I would be anchoring on MSNBC, and while I
would be covering the Senate governor races. Right through election night,
we were done reporting on the House. I did an
interview on Thursday, I think, with the Congressman Raoul Galva
of Arizona, and then I did a special comment on
Friday about all the Tea partiers running for Congress that year,
(42:53):
and that was it. And that night I was on
the phone with my friend Kirsten Cinema. Yep, that Kirsten Cinema.
How many Kirsten Cinemas could there be? She told me
that Galva and another Arizona representative had gotten a lot
of death threats late in the campaign and they had
spent virtually every last dollar they had on security. Kirsten asked,
(43:15):
can you donate to these campaigns? And I said I
had never donated before, but yeah, to Grahalva and to
a senator in the South I think. And the other
Arizona representative who had gotten a lot of death threats,
her name was Gabby Gifford's. The next Tuesday, I anchored
those mid terms, didn't mention one House race or candidate,
(43:36):
and everything was fine, and then somebody called one of
the political websites to say, oh, Alderman donated to some Democrats,
and they called NBC public relations. An NBC public Relations
called the president of MSNBC, and the president of m
MSNBC called me and he said, this looks bad. I know,
what's your right to do it. It's not like we're
gonna suspend you her anything stupid like that. Why would
(43:56):
we do that. This is sort of our fault too,
But it just looks bad. Can you you know, can
you say something? And I said, you're right, it does
look bad. I'll apologize on the show tomorrow, even though
I don't have to. I will voluntarily stop any campaign
contributions as long as I'm doing this show. And he
(44:16):
said great, and I said great. And I wrote the
apology that night and I sent it to him and
he said great. And I said great, because I already
had part of tomorrow's show written. And that was it.
And the next morning, without a hearing, without a phone call,
without an email, without a warning, this hysterical teenager disguised
as an adult named Steve Cappus, president of NBC News,
(44:39):
he puts out a press release in which he angrily
suspends me indefinitely without pay for violations of the NBC
News Employee rule book that says NBC News employees can't
make donations to political campaigns. Now, NBC had an obvious,
huge problem. Within hours, there was a petition on social
(45:00):
media demanding my reinstatement two hundred and fifty thousand signature.
I was stunned. NBC tried to get Chris Hayes to
fill in for me that night. He refused. Even people
at Fox News went on the air and said this
was absurd. And at NBC there was a lot of
shushing and worrying because everybody at NBC News made political donations.
(45:23):
They just hit them by donating in their wife's name
or the kid's name, or to some sort of fund
or whatever. I was the only one who admitted to it.
But this guy Cappus, he was piste off and dug
in and demanded I be suspended for a month through
I don't know, a hundred years without pay at least,
and all. This is already public and well documented. But hypothetically, again,
(45:49):
there could have been more to it. See if you
hypothetically suspend your hypothetical announcer guy again for violating the
employee handbook. What happens if that hypothetical announcer is not
actually an employee. What if the hypothetical employer has written
the contract of the hypothetical announcer so that it specifically declares,
(46:14):
several different hypothetical times in the hypothetical contract that the
hypothetical announcer is not an employee, but just say to
pick a term out of thin air and independent Contractor
what if, hypothetically the employer could be NBC, could be
a bakery somewhere. What if hypothetically the employer did this
(46:38):
in contract legal ease so they did not have to
pay the hypothetical announcer health insurance or dental. Well, then
hypothetically that phrase breach re enters the chat and the
hypothetical companies hypothetical lawyers go to the executive who just
suspended the employee who legally is not an employee, and
(46:58):
they say, hypothetically, again, you now have four hypothetical choices.
One reinstate the hype pathetical non employee immediately and hope
we don't get sued. To reinstate the hypothetical non employee,
immediately apologize and write up a new contract for God's sake. Three,
end the show, pay the hypothetical non employee every dollar
(47:20):
you over the remainder of the hypothetical contract, and hope
you don't get sued for damages anyway. Or four hypothetically
throw a lot of money in the air and negotiate
a settlement, and and the hypothetical show hypothetically. In the
short term, what happened was, and I'm quoting from the
New York Times, they told me on Friday I was suspended.
(47:41):
I was back on the air Tuesday. They didn't even
dock my pay or charge me for any days off,
making this wilder still. Hours after I was suspended, Al
Gore called me. Al owned a struggling TV network called Current,
and he said, what NBC is doing is illegal, and
if you sue them, you could own the place. But
(48:03):
I think I have a our idea that can be
the start of something big. You can bring countdown to
Current TV. We'll give you fifty million dollars plus bonuses,
plus a piece of the network. You'll be an owner.
This is me talking in the long term. For two months,
these two roller coasters went up and down, and my
(48:24):
agents negotiated attentive contract with Current while there was a
hypothetical attempt to settle the other hypothetical non employee cluster
hypothetical f and then literally during the MSNBC Countdown show
on January during a commercial break, everything got finalized all
(48:45):
at once. My agent told me it was done. I
went on the air and said so, and nobody, not
even the staff knew, which I am still sorry about.
Very greatly unavoidable, but that's the way it worked. So no,
I was not fired, Countdown was not canceled. The current
TV deal had already been in place for a week.
And by the way, during every step of this, I
(49:08):
kept Matto and her agents, who had been my agent
for twenty seven years, fully informed, And so that very
night that Countdown ended on MSNBC, Mattow was on Bill
maher show right after it all happened, and naturally he
asked her about it, and she lied and said it's
the first time hearing of it, and I thought, uh, blay,
(49:30):
that might be the end of that friendship, and we
haven't spoken since. Anyway, the current thing turned out to
be a scam and it blew up rather quickly, and
I'll tell that story in a future episode two. On
the other hand, I don't have to work for money again.
But the weirdest thing started happening in September two thousand eleven,
(49:51):
not eight months after I left MSNBC feelers from the
new owners of NBC Comcast what I consider coming back
to MSNBC. Yes, I would. Then they got cold feet.
Then the next year, more feelers. This time I got
cold feet, and I started negotiating and go back to
ESPN instead, and I did. In two thousand fourteen, I
(50:13):
actually met with the new NBC News executives for two hours,
and they wanted me to bring Countdown back as soon
as possible. And then the Brian Williams scandal broken, these
new executives all got themselves fired. And then in October
two thousand fifteen, I met with the new new executives
and they wanted me to come back. They made an
actual offer, and it was stupid. It was predicated on
(50:35):
my doing a show without commentaries, like what was the
point of Countdown? Or me without the commentaries? And even
that guy got fired in two thousand nineteen, and the
new chairman of the entire NBC corporation, Jeff Shell, was
an old friend of mine from Fox Sports and he
wanted me to bring the show back, and we got close,
(50:56):
and then the word came in from the guy who
was negotiating for me that the chairman of NBC News,
Caesar Conde, had told him the whole thing had cratered
because one person at NBC had never and would never
forgive me for something. And that person, said Conde, was
(51:17):
Rachel Maddow. Rachel Maddow, Percy's our Conde vetoed the last
chance and and did literally a decade of talks about
putting this program back on MSNBC. By the way, NBC's
denial of this last set of flirtations was that, yes,
for two years, NBC CEO Jeff Shell kept scheduling meetings
(51:39):
with me, but I should have known he didn't really
mean it. Basically, their explanation was, I should have known
the chairman of NBC was a liar. As the kids say,
weird flex but okay, and that's the short version. So
last winter, that's when I began exploring a new venue
(52:00):
for Countdown, and here we are a daily podcast, Saint
Keith new platform. Him and I don't have to shave
or wear makeup, and I hope you'll enjoy the content
as much as I already enjoy be not shaving, so
(52:22):
I've done all the damage I can do here. The
Countdown theme from Beethoven's Ninth arranged, produced and performed by
Countdown Music directors Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. All
orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle. Guitarist, bass and
drums by Brian Ray. Produced by T k O Brothers.
Beethoven selections like this one performed by my friends in
(52:44):
no horns allowed our sports music. The Oberman theme written
by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. That was
the famous Nancy Faust on the organ. Our announcer today
was the one and only Larry David. Everything else is
my fault. If you can, please rate and review this
podcast and subscribe, because apparently that's how all this works.
(53:05):
We are here every morning. Let's countdown for this seventy
second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the
government of the United States. I'm Keith all Reman. Good Morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(53:32):
ol Reman is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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