November 16, 2022 • 37 mins
EPISODE 77: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: God what a terrible speech! Trump's official declaration he's running was so bad Fox News bailed out of it! And CNN bailed out of it! And Mick Mulvaney trashed it. And two ex-Trump Press Secretaries. AND DURING IT IVANKA TRUMP ANNOUNCED SHE'S LEAVING POLITICS! (5:00) The mainstream GOP continues to distance itself; Fox News lists 13 GOP presidential possibilities - none of them are Trump (5:40) Chris Christie trashes Trump to GOP Governors conference, gets applauded (8:30) These are not moral judgments, not patriotic ones, not decency ones, not pro-democracy ones. But these people have the survival instincts of cockroaches and somebody just flipped on every kitchen light in America (8:40) Even crazy Wendy Rogers in Arizona is wondering if she's been living in an echo chamber (11:15) And yet there's just enough loyalists to remain to make sure if the GOP can keep Trump at bay, he'll run as a third party candidate in 2024. They were the ones outside Trump Tower yesterday screaming "Trump or Death" - to which we say "OFFER ACCEPTED!"
B-Block (15:31) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Elsa in Brooklyn (16:26) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Latest on the Russian missile or rocket that hit Poland; (18:14) IN SPORTS: Angels with their annual dubious free agency signing; Richard Nixon's alma mater ends 107 years of football; and the merchandisers of the NBA finally outsmart themselves (22:03) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Republicans keeping 50-99% of what they raise for Herschel Walker and Fox's Kevin Corke are no match for Worst Persons Hall of Famer Bill O'Reilly - he's baaaack!
C-Block (26:43) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: O'Reilly's contretemps with the "News Nation" channel reminded me Dan Abrams has a show there, on the cable tv news version of 'Nick-At-Nite.' And THAT reminded me of the day MSNBC tried to switch the disrespected Abrams from hosting its unpopular 9 PM show, to being network General Manager. After the staff stopped laughing, it wound up being worse than we could have dreamed. Within ONE WEEK management had reassured us he would be fired. He became a Lame Duck in ONE WEEK!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
If a Trump falls in the forest and no one
(00:26):
is around to hear, does he make a sound quote.
I think even Trump is bored with this speech. Painful
to watch. Stephanie Grisham, Trump's White House Press secretary quote,
this is one of the most low energy, uninspiring speeches
I've ever heard from Trump. Even the crowd seems bored.
Not exactly what you want when announcing a presidential run.
(00:49):
Sarah Matthews, Trump's deputy White House Press Secretary under Kaylee
McKinney quote. Trump midterms two d and thirty two wins
and twenty two losses. The losses included senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada,
and New Hampshire, and governors in Arizona, p Sylvania, and Michigan.
Wins included dog catcher in Perump, Nevada. Not the same thing,
(01:11):
and people know it. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's White House Chief
of Staff quote. While I will always love and support
my father going forward, I will do so outside the
political arena. Evanka Trump. Fox News bailed out, bailed out
of the live coverage. First Hannity bailed out, and then
(01:33):
Ingram bailed out. It was so bad that even the
new CNN cut away ABC reported that before Trump finished
the speech, there was a crowd trying to get out
of the ballroom and security would not let them leave.
Here is the gist. The speech was the usual stuff,
(01:53):
only it was indoors. It didn't seem like he had
preread the copy. It didn't seem like he could really
see the teleprompter. The crowd was nearly silent. The speech
was supposed to be thirty minutes and presidential. It lasted
longer than an hour. Everything bad in the world was
because he was thrown out. Everything good that's ever happened,
You're welcome. Trump's official declaration that he is running was
(02:17):
significant only in that it defied reality. And his problem
now is that within the Republican Party, for the first
time in seven years, reality is up off the mat
and throwing punches. He is under investigation for espionage or worse,
and he may be indicted within six weeks. And most
importantly to his cult, he lost last week and all
(02:40):
the loyal lunatics like Doug Mastriano and Mark Fincham went
right over the cliff and yet somehow Trump is still standing.
His hair wasn't even must Now you know what I mean.
It is hard to register just how angry the Republicans
are at Trump, not his cultists, not the fascist. The
(03:01):
Republicans try to take your own anger, subtract the moral
and democracy elements, and replace it with a sense that
you paid for fascism and power, and this idiot screwed
it up and just selfishly giving that speech last night,
could screw it up again in Georgia and mix in
and added strong sense that you are Karen and he
(03:23):
is the shift manager at the gap, and maybe you'll
get a sense of how much the fascists believe they
did not get what they paid Trump for. Fox News
carried the speech live. It was on during Sean Hannity's show,
so that saved Sean from the painful experience of thinking.
But nine hours earlier, Fox News showed a massive graphic
(03:45):
dwarfing the anchors in size, depicting thirteen different Republican presidential
possibilities for everybody, from Hailey to Hogan to Hutchinson. No Trump,
and do not think that disinterest escaped Trump's notice. His
spokesperson said, the refusal of any actual network except CNN
(04:07):
and Fox to carry the speech live. Meant the First
Amendment was under attack. And I don't have enough time
to list everything that's wrong with that statement as I
try to keep these to less than forty five minutes
in length. Republican governors met in Orlando yesterday and Chris Christie.
Do you remember Chris Christie. He hadn't even been a
governor for four years. Chris Christie got up and blamed
(04:29):
Trump for Republicans losing in two thousand eighteen, losing in
two thousand twenty, and losing in two thousand twenty two.
And he got a huge round of applause from the governors.
According to source reporting from Axios, heartiest of the clappers
Doug Doocey, the Republican governor of Arizona, who is not
being succeeded in that job by Dolores Umbridge Lake. In
(04:50):
the mid terms, Christie told them the voters quote rejected crazy.
Do not blow past that quote from Christie, the voters
rejected crazy. You may notice a theme developing in the
actively anti Trump part of that party. Sarah Longwell of
the Anti Trump Republican Accountability Pack says she did endless
(05:11):
focus groups during the mid terms, and the independence and
swing voters were furious and frightened about the economy, but
there was a bigger problem. Quoting her, the reason was
always that the Republican candidate was nuts, specifically election denial. Wait,
the Republicans are stealing my lines. Trump is nuts. Trump's
(05:35):
candidates were nuts. The voters rejected crazy. So what if
the GOP had no problem with crazy when it got
them power. So what if these words are nothing more
than catchphrases and brand names to them. Nevertheless, they are
stigmatizing nuts. This is a watershed moment. The Republicans have
embraced nuts since Nixon and Joe McCarthy before him. Moreover,
(06:02):
there is the suspicious behavior of the very people the
Independents were describing to the Polster when they said the
Republican candidate was nuts. These people are conceding Adam Laxalt,
Tim Michaels in Wisconsin Lake Masters, even Dug Mastriano conceded,
and yesterday alex Via Aueva, the sheriff of Los Angeles County,
(06:25):
who had gangs of deputies in his own department, who
retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to prosecute a reporter from
the Los Angeles Times that he did not like the
real definition of nuts, the real definition of fascism. Even this,
Viennueva conceded his reelection bid to Robert Luna, and mind you,
(06:46):
Villeneueva waited a week to do it, and he was
losing sixty to forty. Even he has now conceded. I
will never suggest for a moment that these people have
developed conscience or patriotism, or decency or morals, or that
they could not switch back in an hour and a
half time. But they have the survival instincts of cockroaches.
(07:08):
And somebody just switched on all the kitchen lights in America,
and it appears that that somebody is Donald Trump. Wendy Rogers,
the Arizona State senator who was censured in March by Republicans,
were going to a Holocaust denial conference with Nick Fuente's
(07:31):
who called for hanging her political enemies, who posted that
the mass shooting in the Buffalo supermarket might have been
staged by the government. Even Wendy Rogers cockroach scurried on
one of the right wing streaming shows as soon as
that light came on I'm shocked by some of these numbers. Wendy,
(07:52):
I gotta be honest. I mean, you know the state
really well. You've been a grassroots activist for a while.
The vibe on the ground was totally different than this,
wasn't it. Yes, Well, we wonder now if we were
in an echo chamber. I mean, look, I don't know,
I'm just beginning to get some perspective. You're wondering if
(08:15):
you were in an echo chamber, you think even she
and again not a moral level, not done a right
or wrong level, just on a what's in it for
me retaining power level. Even Wendy Rogers admits she's just
now getting some perspective. No, no fever has broken, no
(08:38):
Republican has suddenly gone saying, and no fascist has repudiated,
you know, overthrowing the government by violence. And the same
Republican Party hierarchy that fell before Trump's assaulting two thousand
fifteen and two thousand sixteen consists of the same bone
heads today. But the one part of the Trump message
that we in the Not Crazy Party have consistently and
(09:00):
self defeatingly ignored is that the essence of Trump for
those people who support him slavishly is the premise that
he wins, that he wins at the expense of his enemies,
and that those who support him win with him and
defeat their own enemies and claim their money and privileges
(09:21):
as a result of winning. And Trump has not one
crap since two thousand sixteen. This message has not resonated
everywhere yet, nor will it in the future. And hopefully
that fact will enable Trump and De Santis to bloody
each other enough so that Trump does decide to burn
(09:42):
the Republican Party down and run in twenty four as
an independent because there are still enough blockheads who will
vote for him anyway, even knowing it will guarantee a
Democrat in the White House. On January and I knew
I smelled something bad here in the neighborhood. Yesterday afternoon,
Freedom News TV was around the corner in front of
(10:04):
Trump Tower as about ten trumpeists waived flags and chanted
USA and stomped on a picture of Ron De Santis,
and one of them spoke three words which could easily
become the true Trump campaign motto. He has plenty of
time to gain Trump or death. Okay, you got it,
(10:33):
But who's gonna tell them. Who's gonna tell them what
the phrase this or death actually means, because you know
that they don't know that. In that construction, they are
saying that if they don't get Trump, they will take
death instead. And I guarantee you they have no clue
about that. Besides which Trump or death? I mean you
(10:56):
can have both. Just watch a replay and that speech
from last night that was Trump and death at the
same time for an hour still ahead, what is almost
(11:20):
certainly a Russian rocket or missile hit on the Polish
side of the Ukrainian border and killed two people and
leveled a silo. But is there an explanation? That's you know,
less envy of the world? E Bill O'Reilly is back
and the worst persons in the world are better for
it or or worse. And in things I promised not
(11:42):
to tell when MSNBC made its least respected show host
general manager of the network, and it's somehow went worse
and went worse more quickly than we all expected. It
only took a week. That's next this discountdown does is
(12:06):
countdown with Keith Larry David's impression of the late Yankee
Stadium announcer Bob Shepherd thank you, Larry. Still ahead on
Countdown what we know about the Russian rocket that landed
in Poland, plus the totally stupid reason a great set
(12:27):
of basketball uniforms can never be worn again, and Bill
O'Reilly wins Worst persons in the World. Need I say more? First,
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need you can help. Every dog has its day. There
are bad dogs, and there are bad people, and there
are more of the ladder Else's alleged humans went to
surrender her and her brother to the pound in Brooklyn,
(12:50):
discovered there was a fee to do that, so they left.
Shortly thereafter, they found Elsa and her brother tied to
a fence behind the pound. Elsa is not a shrinking violet.
She's an eighty pound Shepherd mix. But she is terrified
in the pound right now. She won't allow handling and
they will kill her if a rescue does not save
her immediately. Elsa will be my pinned tweet at tom
(13:13):
Jumbo Grumbo and also in my regular feed. If you
can pledge to help to fray a rescues costs, it
will be a huge help. If you can't donate, a
retweet can be almost as invaluable, I thank you and
Elsa thanks you. Poscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
(13:38):
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline the Polish Ukrainian border. The
bad news is sure looks like a Russian missile blew
up a silo on Polish soil, killing at least two.
The good news is it's either an overshoot or possibly
a Russian missile or rocket intercepted and deflected by Ukrainian defense.
How could any of this be good news? Well, it
(13:58):
would mean it was not an attack on a NATO country,
and therefore we don't have to bomb Moscow. As one
Bridge analyst noted, if the Russians really wanted to trigger
World War three, they probably would not have targeted a
farm silo in Poland. Dateline Fulton County, Georgia. Another Trump
flunkey is ordered to testify to the grand jury investigating
(14:19):
his attempt to alter the election results there. This time
it is the disgraced former General Michael Flynn. He is
scheduled now to testify next Tuesday and dateline Fox News.
Funny how after his mid term guarantees turned out to
be all wrong, Tucker Carlson was again missing in action
from his Fascism Hour. Last night, the guest host was
(14:42):
the former ESPN King of Blandness for two years running,
Will Caine. But Monday the guest host was Tulsey Gabbard,
whom Fox identified as a former Democrat. Telsea Gabbard is
a former Democrat and always has been. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(15:15):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
Baseball free agent season is under way. Tyler Anderson, pitching
for his fifth team in three seasons, makes his first
All Star team ever and has his first winning season
as a starting pitcher at age thirty two for the Dodgers,
(15:37):
and that gets him three years and thirty nine million
dollars out of the Angels. Now. I have no idea
why the Angels have only played three postseason games since
two thousand nine and lost all of them. The Yankees
resigned first baseman Anthony Rizzo twenty million a year for
two years. Just as important, in a year and a
half in New York, Rizzo has become tight with Yankee
(15:59):
free agent home run records center Aaron Judge. That is
rarely decisive among free agents, but it can't hurt College
football the one fifteen year old program at Whittier College
in California is coming to an end. Coaches fired, players notified,
but in public no comment from the school. Nobody has
made it official. Whittier started football in seven It has
(16:21):
won twenty six Southern California Intercollegiate Conference titles, one as
recently as two thousand seven. It was where Don kore
Yell and George Allen first coached and where they had
a tackle on the ninety two squad named Richard Millhouse Nixon,
I am not a crook. Also, I am not a
football player. And finally it happens, Sports, which is now
(16:45):
mostly about creating new uniforms and other junk so they
can sell you new uniforms and other junk, has finally
outsmarted itself from the city of merchandise. This news, the
NBA Milwaukee Bucks proudly debuted Cream City alternate uniforms that
honored the city's early architecture of police using off white
(17:05):
color that earned Milwaukee that nickname the Cream City. Turns out,
they can never wear them again because that color cream
or off white, screws with the digital technology that lets
them project advertisements onto the basketball court. On the television broadcasts.
In short, the players disappear and their bodies become part
(17:27):
of the advertising. And I'm sure somebody in the NBA
marketing department heard that and said, the players become part
of the advertising. And you say that like it's a
bad thing. Still ahead, I insist this is the worst
(17:54):
management fiasco in television history. A guy appointed general manager
of a network and a everybody at the network laughs,
and then be within a week of the announcement, they've
decided to fire him, and the guy is a lame duck.
At one week Ahead, first to daily round up of
the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
(18:16):
today's worst persons in the world lebrons shared by Trump.
Jd Vance had bud other Republicans, including the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, and their victim was Herschel Walker. I'm actually
I'm actually defending Herschel Walker. Turns out all the leading
(18:36):
Republicans sent out email blitz is asking for donations for
Walker for the Georgia runoff, and in the fine print
of the Trump email praising Herschel and the jd Vance
email praising Herschel and the other emails praising Herschel the
small detail that if you donated to help Herschel, his
campaign would get ten per cent of the money you donated,
but Trump or Vance or Butt or the others would
(18:58):
keep for themselves. The NRSC, the committee is keeping for itself.
The Walker campaign called everybody out on this and the others,
even Trump, but not the NRSC. They backed down to fifty.
I can't imagine how Herschel Walker got out fundraised by
Raphael Warnock con Man, speaking of which, the silver Kevin
(19:20):
Cork and this is this is a weird story. This
guy was a SportsCenter anchor, very diligent, went to NBC
News as a correspondent, hard working, people liked him, but
the app shot at NBC was management thought he was overmatched,
let him go. He went to Fox. He was their
White House correspondent. He's now a DC News correspondent. On
(19:41):
their morning show yesterday, which I think is entitled Steve
Doocey and two People who are actually dumber than Steve Doocy,
I think that's what it's called. They threw to Kevin Cork,
who was considered a hard news, non opinion guy to
analyze or talk about or just fill time about Katie
Hobbs's victory in the Arizona governor's race. Cork quoted the
(20:02):
Hobbs tweet democracy is worth the wait. Thank you, Arizona.
I'm so honored and so proud to be your next governor,
And then Cork said, quote, but if you believe that
I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, if
that is, of course you think Carrie Lake agrees, which
apparently she doesn't. She tweeted this adroitly. Arizonan's no bs.
(20:22):
When they see it, they sure New Cork. This is
where one of the people Fox points that when civilization says, unanimously,
why do you call yourself news when there is no news?
If you called yourself orange juice when there was no
orange in your product, you go to jail. This is
a guy supposedly limited to facts or reality, not like
our winner, billow. Oh he's back. The Daily Beast Confider
(20:49):
media newsletter reports that when Bill O'Reilly, Mr Falafel himself
more iced T mfer right, you are Mr Chuck may Hoffer.
When he went on Chris Cuomo's new show on the
Channel News Nation on election night, he was identified as
Bill o'rile News Nation contributor. In other words, somebody had
hired him for money, even after the debacle at Fox
(21:12):
News with the eleventy billion dollars he and Fox had
to pay to the two six sexual harrassment victories victims,
or however many it was. But wait, there's more to this.
On November two, a News Nation spokesperson emailed The Daily
Beast Bill O'Reilly is not a paid contributor to News Nation.
Confronted by the election night idea of him as a contributor,
(21:35):
the same spokesperson then again emailed that is wrong. Nothing
has changed. Well this is easily settled, Chris Cuomo. Next
time you have him on there, just run the identifying
graphic over him, reading Bill O'Reilly not wearing pats, Bill,
I'm a contributor in fact at all. Like you'll sit
(21:57):
around and watch as I contribute O'Reilly Today's wires Fires
in the World to the number one story on AC
(22:19):
countdown on my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell. And with that Bill O'Reilly Chris Cuomo
thing in worse persons about that network News Nation, I
was reminded that there's another guy who has a show
on it, and if you have not seen this network,
you are among roughly eight billion people. It's kind of
like the nick at night of cable news. You turned
(22:40):
to it and five will get you ten that your
immediate reaction will be I didn't know he was still
alive anyway. It reminded me of this story about this
other guy. I was a witness to the greatest management
fiasco in television history, and it began on Monday, June twelve,
two thousand six. My girlfriend at the time, Katie tur
(23:04):
was coming in from l A for a week, and
my vacation had started the previous Friday at exactly nine
o one pm. At nine o two pm on that
Friday night, the acting chief of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, called me,
insisting that even though I was on vacation, we had
to meet for breakfast at nine thirty a m Monday.
I said that made it a not vacation, and he said,
(23:26):
we will give you two additional days off later. Something
is happening you need to know about first, I sighed.
The previous Wednesday, they had fired the president of MSNBC,
the one who had once chased me around our offices
in Secaucus, New Jersey, threatening to kill me because he
was squeamish about blood. See if that makes any logical
sense to you. He threatened to kill me because he
(23:49):
was squeamish about blood. Jeff Zucker, then the president of NBC,
had called my agent and asked how my relationship with
the aforementioned acting chief Phil Griffin was. It was obvious
they were going to put Griffin in charge, and as
the marquee anchor on the network, they needed me to
find it out from them rather than from a gossip
side or something. I could not begrudge them the courtesy.
(24:12):
So on the first weekday of my vacation, Griffin and
I met for breakfast, and as soon as coffee arrived,
he said, so listen, buddy, UM, I'm gonna be the
executive in charge of MSNBC, but I'm gonna be staying
here in the city, uh to oversee the Today Show.
So MSNBC will also have a general manager, uh, and
the general manager will being charge in Cacaucus, and the
(24:33):
new general manager will be Dan Abrams. Well, I paused
for a second and then burst into laughter. I mean
thirty seconds of a riotous belly laugh loud enough that
other people at the restaurant at Norma's in the Parker
Meridian in New York City turned around to look at
(24:54):
me to find out what was so funny. Then I
composed myself. Then I laughed again, then a third laugh,
then a fourth laugh. Oh my god, Phil, that is
the best. You get me to get up early on
the first day of my vacation and you hit me
with that, d Abrams running something we've known each other,
(25:14):
what Phil twenty five years next month? That is the
best joke you have ever told me, Dan Abrams and
I laughed again for another thirty seconds, and one of
my friends, who was a waiter there, came over and said,
everything okay. Because Phil could never interrupt anybody who was
praising him. He smiled back at me, and when I
finally stopped laughing, he said, well, well thanks, I guess,
(25:37):
but but I'm serious. We've been talking to Dan for
several months about this, and he just has the kind
of analytical mind that it had taken me more than
a minute to realize Griffin was serious. That he and
the president of NBC News Steve Cappus, and that President
of NBC Jeff Zucker had actually decided to take the
host of our nine PM show, which had been devoted
(25:59):
for years to excruciating lowest common denominator tabloid crap coverage
of the missing white woman of the week, to take
a man who had the respect of absolutely no one
on air or off at MSNBC, A man who made
me in that regard, look like St. Francis of ASSISI.
(26:22):
A man who had only been in television for twelve years,
a man who had never run anything in his life,
A man with indescribably bad hair that none of us
could identify. Was it a to pay? Was it a weave?
Was he hit by lightning? And that was the most
sincere thing about him? His hair? They had actually decided
to appoint this gossip monger with no experience to run
(26:46):
a network that was just now finally establishing itself as
a factor in American political media. Christ Phil, what are
you thinking? I said to him, He's a buffoon. I'd
rather work for Joe Scarborough. He's condescending, he insults his producers,
he insults our producers. He leaks constantly to the reporters
(27:09):
and the gossip blogs. Half of his exclusive sources turn
out to be wrong. And I might be the best
friend he has there. Phil Griffin chugged his coffee. Well,
I'm sorry about that. I mean, I mean, it's not
gonna make any practical difference for you. You You would countdown
will report directly to me. Dan is gonna have any
responsibilities for any of the primetime shows. He's only gonna
(27:31):
be hands on with the daytime shows. But but he'll
be the general manager of the network. And we think
he has a lot of exciting ideas. And I said
exciting ideas about what exciting ideas about Sean Bennett Ramsey. Phil,
we have just stopped being the running joke, the bottomless
punchline of cable news. And once this gets out, we
(27:52):
will be less respected than we were a year ago.
I paused, and the news bounced off the walls of
the restaurant and hit me afresh again. Dan Abram's general
manager of MSNBC. He will get you fired, Phil, I
(28:13):
don't know if he will get you fired because he's
trying to get you fired, or he'll get you fired
because he'll be so bad at this that everybody will quit.
But you've just committed professional suicide. U n campus and
Zooker dead men walking. Phil Griffin was now read. I
had only previously seen him read when he was very,
very drunk and we were in our twenties. I was
(28:34):
hoping you'd give him a chance, and I said some
very pleasant things about giving him a chance to destroy
what we had been building up for the last year.
And did Phil remember that my contract was up in
six months and CNN was already publicly courting me to
go there. I said, I'm gone. You might as well
release me from the contract right now. I'm out. And
(28:55):
then something else popped into my mind. Oh, and listen,
did you think there might be a problem because he
and I dated the same woman nine years ago, and
he told her she'd be making a mistake to get
involved with me. Phil's eyes widened. He had forgotten, Like
I said, he'll have nothing to do with Countdown. An
hour later, my home phone rang and it was Dan Abrams.
(29:18):
I just wanted to say how much I'm looking forward
to working with you on Countdown. As time goes by,
Phil will be more and more overwhelmed at the Today's show,
and I'll be making the day to day decisions. I'll
be your guy. After a few minutes of this, which
I swear I could hear his phone scratching against his
two pay and during which I said nothing, but uh huh.
(29:39):
My home phone rang again and it was the NBC president,
Jeff Zucker. So you guys report to Dan, and if
you need to go further, you can go to Phil.
And I said, Phil had just told me Abrams would
have nothing to do with countdown, and I intended to
make sure that was true. Zucker, showing the loyalty and
consistency that was so publicly displayed in the original Chris
Cuomo c and n Fiasco, immediately said, well, if this
(30:03):
doesn't work, f Dan Abrams, hell, F Phil Griffin, you
come to me. The first thing I had done when
I had gotten home was to call my executive producer,
Izzy Povich. She had been as fascinated as I had
been as to why I had to have a business
breakfast on day one of a vacation. Well, I sighed,
(30:23):
you'll never believe who the new general manager of MSNBC is.
She guessed Phil Griffin than me, and then the manager
of the New York Yankees, Joe Tory. I said, all
would have been better choices. I said, it's Dan Abrams.
She laughed so hard I had to pull the phone
(30:43):
away from my ear. After she finally calmed down, Izz,
he said, you had me going, Oh my god, what
a disaster that would be. I'm sorry I fell into
the bit. Yeah, just kidding, she laughed again. No, actually,
I'm not kidding. She laughed again and said come on,
and so I said, yeah, yeah, I'm kidding. She laughed again.
(31:04):
No actually I'm not kidding. Dan Abrams is the new
general manager, she laughed again. We must have done this
for two or three minutes. There was an old Eddie
Izzard bit I stole it from him about the death
of Engelbert Humperdink. I finally stopped when she said, wait,
I saw Danny Abrams getting out of his car in
the in the President's parking space this morning. Year. You're
(31:28):
you're you're not quit kidding. Oh my god. I have
to call my husband and tell him I'm quitting. Well,
it all worked out about as well as I had predicted.
At his first meeting with the producers, Dan Abrams revealed
his first exciting idea. He had apparently been given enough
lead time about his appointment to have made up giant
banners containing the new MSNBC network slogan, which he had
(31:50):
dreamed up. The banners he told the producers were going
to be hung around the studios, and in fact, we're
being hung around the studios. As they spoke, and behind
him there was one covered in a drape cloth and
he pulled the string. The cloth fell off, revealed in
his first exciting idea of the new network slogan, MSNBC
(32:10):
keeping it Real, keeping k E I p I n apostrophe,
no g keeping. That was the highlight of his tenure
as the general manager. The blowback against his appointment was
so universal nobody trying to hide it. Abram's first move
(32:32):
was to cancel a show hosted by an Xbox News
walking malaprop artist named Rita Cosby. She almost took hostages.
Abrams delayed the meeting to tell her staff from noon
until six pm. Abrams then gave an interview about his
vision for MSNBC and told the reporter quote, documentaries are
our most important programs, and the staffs of the uncancelled
(32:56):
prime time shows mine included nearly walked out because in
fact we were our most important programs. While Griffin vented
that mass resignation by swearing Abrams had been misquoted. Abrams
then launched a series of radio commercials for MSNBC documentaries.
Abrams tried to get a producer named Bill Wolf, who
(33:18):
had been told he was going to be the new
general manager, to instead host his own show. He told
me he had figured out the perfect guest host for
Countdown and was already in negotiations with him. Dan Rather,
my girlfriend Katie's father, then chimed in with a new
nickname for Abrams that spread across the television industry, Miles Miles,
(33:38):
as in Miles the boy producer from the sitcom Murphy Brown.
I even felt sorry for him, it was that bad,
and of course I was promptly repaid for this mistake.
A week after Abrams was hired, the cable news blogger
named Brian Stelter, who inexplicably wound up first at The
New York Times and then at CNN, and you heard
about him getting fired over the summer. Brian Stelter called
(34:01):
to say he had been told by a source at
NBC that I had just been fired at a meeting
an hour before by Abrams and an NBC executive named
Randy Falco. In fact, Abrams was at a meeting with
Zucker and the NBC News president campus as they desperately
tried to steer out of the fatal skid they had
all swerved into. Phil Griffin was furious. Griffin told me
(34:26):
he suspected Abrams had been somehow connected to this leak
about this fake story about me getting fired, and he
began an investigation of him and never trusted him again
one week appointed Monday, and a lame duck the following Monday,
keeping it real keeping. On August nine, three days shy
(34:51):
of the two months mark, Phil Griffin called my office
an hour and a half before my show. Okay, you
want to say I told you so. We've made it
clear to Dan that he won't be involved in any
major decisions going forward. He will remain general manager, but
I'm running everything. In a year or so, buddy, Well,
we'll say he found out he just had to go
back on the air, and he'll resign and we'll give
him the nine PM show. Probably you have to keep
(35:14):
this confidential. I did. I'm surprisingly good at that, at
least till I started this podcast. Fourteen months later, they
offered offed him, by which time I had already started
to lobby them to make the nine PM host not
Dan Abrams but Rachel Maddow. They finally gave into that
in September two and Dan did not have a show
(35:35):
or a title, and he finally got the message and
he left NBC in two thousand eleven. The last I
had heard of Dan Abrams before the News Nation retirement home.
He had launched a new website. It's called Whiskey Raiders
because it rates various brands of whiskey. You get it, Raiders,
(35:59):
ray Teurs, you get it. It's a pun resume of lee.
He chose that pun because somebody else had already taken
keeping it real. I've done all the damage I can
(36:26):
do here. Thanks for listening and keeping it real. Without
a leturgy follow this podcast if you can tell a friend.
We are number one among news and political podcasts not
produced by a network. And you know why that is.
It's because I'm putting the ass back into podcast. Here
are the credits. Most of the music, including our theme
from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
(36:48):
Ray and John Philip Chanelle. There the countdown musical directors,
all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle guitarist, bass
and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by t k O Brothers,
and Brian is also in charge of Keeping it Real.
Other Beethoven selections been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two
(37:10):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis and it
appears here courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
Larry David. Everything else that's pretty much my fault. So
that's countdown for this the six day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
(37:30):
United States. Arrest him now while we still can. There
will be a new episode tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith Alderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, good luck, and keeping it Real.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
(37:51):
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
If a Trump falls in the forest and no one
(00:26):
is around to hear, does he make a sound quote.
I think even Trump is bored with this speech. Painful
to watch. Stephanie Grisham, Trump's White House Press secretary quote,
this is one of the most low energy, uninspiring speeches
I've ever heard from Trump. Even the crowd seems bored.
Not exactly what you want when announcing a presidential run.
(00:49):
Sarah Matthews, Trump's deputy White House Press Secretary under Kaylee
McKinney quote. Trump midterms two d and thirty two wins
and twenty two losses. The losses included senate races in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada,
and New Hampshire, and governors in Arizona, p Sylvania, and Michigan.
Wins included dog catcher in Perump, Nevada. Not the same thing,
(01:11):
and people know it. Mick Mulvaney, Trump's White House Chief
of Staff quote. While I will always love and support
my father going forward, I will do so outside the
political arena. Evanka Trump. Fox News bailed out, bailed out
of the live coverage. First Hannity bailed out, and then
(01:33):
Ingram bailed out. It was so bad that even the
new CNN cut away ABC reported that before Trump finished
the speech, there was a crowd trying to get out
of the ballroom and security would not let them leave.
Here is the gist. The speech was the usual stuff,
(01:53):
only it was indoors. It didn't seem like he had
preread the copy. It didn't seem like he could really
see the teleprompter. The crowd was nearly silent. The speech
was supposed to be thirty minutes and presidential. It lasted
longer than an hour. Everything bad in the world was
because he was thrown out. Everything good that's ever happened,
You're welcome. Trump's official declaration that he is running was
(02:17):
significant only in that it defied reality. And his problem
now is that within the Republican Party, for the first
time in seven years, reality is up off the mat
and throwing punches. He is under investigation for espionage or worse,
and he may be indicted within six weeks. And most
importantly to his cult, he lost last week and all
(02:40):
the loyal lunatics like Doug Mastriano and Mark Fincham went
right over the cliff and yet somehow Trump is still standing.
His hair wasn't even must Now you know what I mean.
It is hard to register just how angry the Republicans
are at Trump, not his cultists, not the fascist. The
(03:01):
Republicans try to take your own anger, subtract the moral
and democracy elements, and replace it with a sense that
you paid for fascism and power, and this idiot screwed
it up and just selfishly giving that speech last night,
could screw it up again in Georgia and mix in
and added strong sense that you are Karen and he
(03:23):
is the shift manager at the gap, and maybe you'll
get a sense of how much the fascists believe they
did not get what they paid Trump for. Fox News
carried the speech live. It was on during Sean Hannity's show,
so that saved Sean from the painful experience of thinking.
But nine hours earlier, Fox News showed a massive graphic
(03:45):
dwarfing the anchors in size, depicting thirteen different Republican presidential
possibilities for everybody, from Hailey to Hogan to Hutchinson. No Trump,
and do not think that disinterest escaped Trump's notice. His
spokesperson said, the refusal of any actual network except CNN
(04:07):
and Fox to carry the speech live. Meant the First
Amendment was under attack. And I don't have enough time
to list everything that's wrong with that statement as I
try to keep these to less than forty five minutes
in length. Republican governors met in Orlando yesterday and Chris Christie.
Do you remember Chris Christie. He hadn't even been a
governor for four years. Chris Christie got up and blamed
(04:29):
Trump for Republicans losing in two thousand eighteen, losing in
two thousand twenty, and losing in two thousand twenty two.
And he got a huge round of applause from the governors.
According to source reporting from Axios, heartiest of the clappers
Doug Doocey, the Republican governor of Arizona, who is not
being succeeded in that job by Dolores Umbridge Lake. In
(04:50):
the mid terms, Christie told them the voters quote rejected crazy.
Do not blow past that quote from Christie, the voters
rejected crazy. You may notice a theme developing in the
actively anti Trump part of that party. Sarah Longwell of
the Anti Trump Republican Accountability Pack says she did endless
(05:11):
focus groups during the mid terms, and the independence and
swing voters were furious and frightened about the economy, but
there was a bigger problem. Quoting her, the reason was
always that the Republican candidate was nuts, specifically election denial. Wait,
the Republicans are stealing my lines. Trump is nuts. Trump's
(05:35):
candidates were nuts. The voters rejected crazy. So what if
the GOP had no problem with crazy when it got
them power. So what if these words are nothing more
than catchphrases and brand names to them. Nevertheless, they are
stigmatizing nuts. This is a watershed moment. The Republicans have
embraced nuts since Nixon and Joe McCarthy before him. Moreover,
(06:02):
there is the suspicious behavior of the very people the
Independents were describing to the Polster when they said the
Republican candidate was nuts. These people are conceding Adam Laxalt,
Tim Michaels in Wisconsin Lake Masters, even Dug Mastriano conceded,
and yesterday alex Via Aueva, the sheriff of Los Angeles County,
(06:25):
who had gangs of deputies in his own department, who
retaliated against whistleblowers who tried to prosecute a reporter from
the Los Angeles Times that he did not like the
real definition of nuts, the real definition of fascism. Even this,
Viennueva conceded his reelection bid to Robert Luna, and mind you,
(06:46):
Villeneueva waited a week to do it, and he was
losing sixty to forty. Even he has now conceded. I
will never suggest for a moment that these people have
developed conscience or patriotism, or decency or morals, or that
they could not switch back in an hour and a
half time. But they have the survival instincts of cockroaches.
(07:08):
And somebody just switched on all the kitchen lights in America,
and it appears that that somebody is Donald Trump. Wendy Rogers,
the Arizona State senator who was censured in March by Republicans,
were going to a Holocaust denial conference with Nick Fuente's
(07:31):
who called for hanging her political enemies, who posted that
the mass shooting in the Buffalo supermarket might have been
staged by the government. Even Wendy Rogers cockroach scurried on
one of the right wing streaming shows as soon as
that light came on I'm shocked by some of these numbers. Wendy,
(07:52):
I gotta be honest. I mean, you know the state
really well. You've been a grassroots activist for a while.
The vibe on the ground was totally different than this,
wasn't it. Yes, Well, we wonder now if we were
in an echo chamber. I mean, look, I don't know,
I'm just beginning to get some perspective. You're wondering if
(08:15):
you were in an echo chamber, you think even she
and again not a moral level, not done a right
or wrong level, just on a what's in it for
me retaining power level. Even Wendy Rogers admits she's just
now getting some perspective. No, no fever has broken, no
(08:38):
Republican has suddenly gone saying, and no fascist has repudiated,
you know, overthrowing the government by violence. And the same
Republican Party hierarchy that fell before Trump's assaulting two thousand
fifteen and two thousand sixteen consists of the same bone
heads today. But the one part of the Trump message
that we in the Not Crazy Party have consistently and
(09:00):
self defeatingly ignored is that the essence of Trump for
those people who support him slavishly is the premise that
he wins, that he wins at the expense of his enemies,
and that those who support him win with him and
defeat their own enemies and claim their money and privileges
(09:21):
as a result of winning. And Trump has not one
crap since two thousand sixteen. This message has not resonated
everywhere yet, nor will it in the future. And hopefully
that fact will enable Trump and De Santis to bloody
each other enough so that Trump does decide to burn
(09:42):
the Republican Party down and run in twenty four as
an independent because there are still enough blockheads who will
vote for him anyway, even knowing it will guarantee a
Democrat in the White House. On January and I knew
I smelled something bad here in the neighborhood. Yesterday afternoon,
Freedom News TV was around the corner in front of
(10:04):
Trump Tower as about ten trumpeists waived flags and chanted
USA and stomped on a picture of Ron De Santis,
and one of them spoke three words which could easily
become the true Trump campaign motto. He has plenty of
time to gain Trump or death. Okay, you got it,
(10:33):
But who's gonna tell them. Who's gonna tell them what
the phrase this or death actually means, because you know
that they don't know that. In that construction, they are
saying that if they don't get Trump, they will take
death instead. And I guarantee you they have no clue
about that. Besides which Trump or death? I mean you
(10:56):
can have both. Just watch a replay and that speech
from last night that was Trump and death at the
same time for an hour still ahead, what is almost
(11:20):
certainly a Russian rocket or missile hit on the Polish
side of the Ukrainian border and killed two people and
leveled a silo. But is there an explanation? That's you know,
less envy of the world? E Bill O'Reilly is back
and the worst persons in the world are better for
it or or worse. And in things I promised not
(11:42):
to tell when MSNBC made its least respected show host
general manager of the network, and it's somehow went worse
and went worse more quickly than we all expected. It
only took a week. That's next this discountdown does is
(12:06):
countdown with Keith Larry David's impression of the late Yankee
Stadium announcer Bob Shepherd thank you, Larry. Still ahead on
Countdown what we know about the Russian rocket that landed
in Poland, plus the totally stupid reason a great set
(12:27):
of basketball uniforms can never be worn again, and Bill
O'Reilly wins Worst persons in the World. Need I say more? First,
in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in
need you can help. Every dog has its day. There
are bad dogs, and there are bad people, and there
are more of the ladder Else's alleged humans went to
surrender her and her brother to the pound in Brooklyn,
(12:50):
discovered there was a fee to do that, so they left.
Shortly thereafter, they found Elsa and her brother tied to
a fence behind the pound. Elsa is not a shrinking violet.
She's an eighty pound Shepherd mix. But she is terrified
in the pound right now. She won't allow handling and
they will kill her if a rescue does not save
her immediately. Elsa will be my pinned tweet at tom
(13:13):
Jumbo Grumbo and also in my regular feed. If you
can pledge to help to fray a rescues costs, it
will be a huge help. If you can't donate, a
retweet can be almost as invaluable, I thank you and
Elsa thanks you. Poscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
(13:38):
some snarks, some predictions. Dateline the Polish Ukrainian border. The
bad news is sure looks like a Russian missile blew
up a silo on Polish soil, killing at least two.
The good news is it's either an overshoot or possibly
a Russian missile or rocket intercepted and deflected by Ukrainian defense.
How could any of this be good news? Well, it
(13:58):
would mean it was not an attack on a NATO country,
and therefore we don't have to bomb Moscow. As one
Bridge analyst noted, if the Russians really wanted to trigger
World War three, they probably would not have targeted a
farm silo in Poland. Dateline Fulton County, Georgia. Another Trump
flunkey is ordered to testify to the grand jury investigating
(14:19):
his attempt to alter the election results there. This time
it is the disgraced former General Michael Flynn. He is
scheduled now to testify next Tuesday and dateline Fox News.
Funny how after his mid term guarantees turned out to
be all wrong, Tucker Carlson was again missing in action
from his Fascism Hour. Last night, the guest host was
(14:42):
the former ESPN King of Blandness for two years running,
Will Caine. But Monday the guest host was Tulsey Gabbard,
whom Fox identified as a former Democrat. Telsea Gabbard is
a former Democrat and always has been. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(15:15):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
Baseball free agent season is under way. Tyler Anderson, pitching
for his fifth team in three seasons, makes his first
All Star team ever and has his first winning season
as a starting pitcher at age thirty two for the Dodgers,
(15:37):
and that gets him three years and thirty nine million
dollars out of the Angels. Now. I have no idea
why the Angels have only played three postseason games since
two thousand nine and lost all of them. The Yankees
resigned first baseman Anthony Rizzo twenty million a year for
two years. Just as important, in a year and a
half in New York, Rizzo has become tight with Yankee
(15:59):
free agent home run records center Aaron Judge. That is
rarely decisive among free agents, but it can't hurt College
football the one fifteen year old program at Whittier College
in California is coming to an end. Coaches fired, players notified,
but in public no comment from the school. Nobody has
made it official. Whittier started football in seven It has
(16:21):
won twenty six Southern California Intercollegiate Conference titles, one as
recently as two thousand seven. It was where Don kore
Yell and George Allen first coached and where they had
a tackle on the ninety two squad named Richard Millhouse Nixon,
I am not a crook. Also, I am not a
football player. And finally it happens, Sports, which is now
(16:45):
mostly about creating new uniforms and other junk so they
can sell you new uniforms and other junk, has finally
outsmarted itself from the city of merchandise. This news, the
NBA Milwaukee Bucks proudly debuted Cream City alternate uniforms that
honored the city's early architecture of police using off white
(17:05):
color that earned Milwaukee that nickname the Cream City. Turns out,
they can never wear them again because that color cream
or off white, screws with the digital technology that lets
them project advertisements onto the basketball court. On the television broadcasts.
In short, the players disappear and their bodies become part
(17:27):
of the advertising. And I'm sure somebody in the NBA
marketing department heard that and said, the players become part
of the advertising. And you say that like it's a
bad thing. Still ahead, I insist this is the worst
(17:54):
management fiasco in television history. A guy appointed general manager
of a network and a everybody at the network laughs,
and then be within a week of the announcement, they've
decided to fire him, and the guy is a lame duck.
At one week Ahead, first to daily round up of
the misgrants, morons and Donning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
(18:16):
today's worst persons in the world lebrons shared by Trump.
Jd Vance had bud other Republicans, including the National Republican
Senatorial Committee, and their victim was Herschel Walker. I'm actually
I'm actually defending Herschel Walker. Turns out all the leading
(18:36):
Republicans sent out email blitz is asking for donations for
Walker for the Georgia runoff, and in the fine print
of the Trump email praising Herschel and the jd Vance
email praising Herschel and the other emails praising Herschel the
small detail that if you donated to help Herschel, his
campaign would get ten per cent of the money you donated,
but Trump or Vance or Butt or the others would
(18:58):
keep for themselves. The NRSC, the committee is keeping for itself.
The Walker campaign called everybody out on this and the others,
even Trump, but not the NRSC. They backed down to fifty.
I can't imagine how Herschel Walker got out fundraised by
Raphael Warnock con Man, speaking of which, the silver Kevin
(19:20):
Cork and this is this is a weird story. This
guy was a SportsCenter anchor, very diligent, went to NBC
News as a correspondent, hard working, people liked him, but
the app shot at NBC was management thought he was overmatched,
let him go. He went to Fox. He was their
White House correspondent. He's now a DC News correspondent. On
(19:41):
their morning show yesterday, which I think is entitled Steve
Doocey and two People who are actually dumber than Steve Doocy,
I think that's what it's called. They threw to Kevin Cork,
who was considered a hard news, non opinion guy to
analyze or talk about or just fill time about Katie
Hobbs's victory in the Arizona governor's race. Cork quoted the
(20:02):
Hobbs tweet democracy is worth the wait. Thank you, Arizona.
I'm so honored and so proud to be your next governor,
And then Cork said, quote, but if you believe that
I got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, if
that is, of course you think Carrie Lake agrees, which
apparently she doesn't. She tweeted this adroitly. Arizonan's no bs.
(20:22):
When they see it, they sure New Cork. This is
where one of the people Fox points that when civilization says, unanimously,
why do you call yourself news when there is no news?
If you called yourself orange juice when there was no
orange in your product, you go to jail. This is
a guy supposedly limited to facts or reality, not like
our winner, billow. Oh he's back. The Daily Beast Confider
(20:49):
media newsletter reports that when Bill O'Reilly, Mr Falafel himself
more iced T mfer right, you are Mr Chuck may Hoffer.
When he went on Chris Cuomo's new show on the
Channel News Nation on election night, he was identified as
Bill o'rile News Nation contributor. In other words, somebody had
hired him for money, even after the debacle at Fox
(21:12):
News with the eleventy billion dollars he and Fox had
to pay to the two six sexual harrassment victories victims,
or however many it was. But wait, there's more to this.
On November two, a News Nation spokesperson emailed The Daily
Beast Bill O'Reilly is not a paid contributor to News Nation.
Confronted by the election night idea of him as a contributor,
(21:35):
the same spokesperson then again emailed that is wrong. Nothing
has changed. Well this is easily settled, Chris Cuomo. Next
time you have him on there, just run the identifying
graphic over him, reading Bill O'Reilly not wearing pats, Bill,
I'm a contributor in fact at all. Like you'll sit
(21:57):
around and watch as I contribute O'Reilly Today's wires Fires
in the World to the number one story on AC
(22:19):
countdown on my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell. And with that Bill O'Reilly Chris Cuomo
thing in worse persons about that network News Nation, I
was reminded that there's another guy who has a show
on it, and if you have not seen this network,
you are among roughly eight billion people. It's kind of
like the nick at night of cable news. You turned
(22:40):
to it and five will get you ten that your
immediate reaction will be I didn't know he was still
alive anyway. It reminded me of this story about this
other guy. I was a witness to the greatest management
fiasco in television history, and it began on Monday, June twelve,
two thousand six. My girlfriend at the time, Katie tur
(23:04):
was coming in from l A for a week, and
my vacation had started the previous Friday at exactly nine
o one pm. At nine o two pm on that
Friday night, the acting chief of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, called me,
insisting that even though I was on vacation, we had
to meet for breakfast at nine thirty a m Monday.
I said that made it a not vacation, and he said,
(23:26):
we will give you two additional days off later. Something
is happening you need to know about first, I sighed.
The previous Wednesday, they had fired the president of MSNBC,
the one who had once chased me around our offices
in Secaucus, New Jersey, threatening to kill me because he
was squeamish about blood. See if that makes any logical
sense to you. He threatened to kill me because he
(23:49):
was squeamish about blood. Jeff Zucker, then the president of NBC,
had called my agent and asked how my relationship with
the aforementioned acting chief Phil Griffin was. It was obvious
they were going to put Griffin in charge, and as
the marquee anchor on the network, they needed me to
find it out from them rather than from a gossip
side or something. I could not begrudge them the courtesy.
(24:12):
So on the first weekday of my vacation, Griffin and
I met for breakfast, and as soon as coffee arrived,
he said, so listen, buddy, UM, I'm gonna be the
executive in charge of MSNBC, but I'm gonna be staying
here in the city, uh to oversee the Today Show.
So MSNBC will also have a general manager, uh, and
the general manager will being charge in Cacaucus, and the
(24:33):
new general manager will be Dan Abrams. Well, I paused
for a second and then burst into laughter. I mean
thirty seconds of a riotous belly laugh loud enough that
other people at the restaurant at Norma's in the Parker
Meridian in New York City turned around to look at
(24:54):
me to find out what was so funny. Then I
composed myself. Then I laughed again, then a third laugh,
then a fourth laugh. Oh my god, Phil, that is
the best. You get me to get up early on
the first day of my vacation and you hit me
with that, d Abrams running something we've known each other,
(25:14):
what Phil twenty five years next month? That is the
best joke you have ever told me, Dan Abrams and
I laughed again for another thirty seconds, and one of
my friends, who was a waiter there, came over and said,
everything okay. Because Phil could never interrupt anybody who was
praising him. He smiled back at me, and when I
finally stopped laughing, he said, well, well thanks, I guess,
(25:37):
but but I'm serious. We've been talking to Dan for
several months about this, and he just has the kind
of analytical mind that it had taken me more than
a minute to realize Griffin was serious. That he and
the president of NBC News Steve Cappus, and that President
of NBC Jeff Zucker had actually decided to take the
host of our nine PM show, which had been devoted
(25:59):
for years to excruciating lowest common denominator tabloid crap coverage
of the missing white woman of the week, to take
a man who had the respect of absolutely no one
on air or off at MSNBC, A man who made
me in that regard, look like St. Francis of ASSISI.
(26:22):
A man who had only been in television for twelve years,
a man who had never run anything in his life,
A man with indescribably bad hair that none of us
could identify. Was it a to pay? Was it a weave?
Was he hit by lightning? And that was the most
sincere thing about him? His hair? They had actually decided
to appoint this gossip monger with no experience to run
(26:46):
a network that was just now finally establishing itself as
a factor in American political media. Christ Phil, what are
you thinking? I said to him, He's a buffoon. I'd
rather work for Joe Scarborough. He's condescending, he insults his producers,
he insults our producers. He leaks constantly to the reporters
(27:09):
and the gossip blogs. Half of his exclusive sources turn
out to be wrong. And I might be the best
friend he has there. Phil Griffin chugged his coffee. Well,
I'm sorry about that. I mean, I mean, it's not
gonna make any practical difference for you. You You would countdown
will report directly to me. Dan is gonna have any
responsibilities for any of the primetime shows. He's only gonna
(27:31):
be hands on with the daytime shows. But but he'll
be the general manager of the network. And we think
he has a lot of exciting ideas. And I said
exciting ideas about what exciting ideas about Sean Bennett Ramsey. Phil,
we have just stopped being the running joke, the bottomless
punchline of cable news. And once this gets out, we
(27:52):
will be less respected than we were a year ago.
I paused, and the news bounced off the walls of
the restaurant and hit me afresh again. Dan Abram's general
manager of MSNBC. He will get you fired, Phil, I
(28:13):
don't know if he will get you fired because he's
trying to get you fired, or he'll get you fired
because he'll be so bad at this that everybody will quit.
But you've just committed professional suicide. U n campus and
Zooker dead men walking. Phil Griffin was now read. I
had only previously seen him read when he was very,
very drunk and we were in our twenties. I was
(28:34):
hoping you'd give him a chance, and I said some
very pleasant things about giving him a chance to destroy
what we had been building up for the last year.
And did Phil remember that my contract was up in
six months and CNN was already publicly courting me to
go there. I said, I'm gone. You might as well
release me from the contract right now. I'm out. And
(28:55):
then something else popped into my mind. Oh, and listen,
did you think there might be a problem because he
and I dated the same woman nine years ago, and
he told her she'd be making a mistake to get
involved with me. Phil's eyes widened. He had forgotten, Like
I said, he'll have nothing to do with Countdown. An
hour later, my home phone rang and it was Dan Abrams.
(29:18):
I just wanted to say how much I'm looking forward
to working with you on Countdown. As time goes by,
Phil will be more and more overwhelmed at the Today's show,
and I'll be making the day to day decisions. I'll
be your guy. After a few minutes of this, which
I swear I could hear his phone scratching against his
two pay and during which I said nothing, but uh huh.
(29:39):
My home phone rang again and it was the NBC president,
Jeff Zucker. So you guys report to Dan, and if
you need to go further, you can go to Phil.
And I said, Phil had just told me Abrams would
have nothing to do with countdown, and I intended to
make sure that was true. Zucker, showing the loyalty and
consistency that was so publicly displayed in the original Chris
Cuomo c and n Fiasco, immediately said, well, if this
(30:03):
doesn't work, f Dan Abrams, hell, F Phil Griffin, you
come to me. The first thing I had done when
I had gotten home was to call my executive producer,
Izzy Povich. She had been as fascinated as I had
been as to why I had to have a business
breakfast on day one of a vacation. Well, I sighed,
(30:23):
you'll never believe who the new general manager of MSNBC is.
She guessed Phil Griffin than me, and then the manager
of the New York Yankees, Joe Tory. I said, all
would have been better choices. I said, it's Dan Abrams.
She laughed so hard I had to pull the phone
(30:43):
away from my ear. After she finally calmed down, Izz,
he said, you had me going, Oh my god, what
a disaster that would be. I'm sorry I fell into
the bit. Yeah, just kidding, she laughed again. No, actually,
I'm not kidding. She laughed again and said come on,
and so I said, yeah, yeah, I'm kidding. She laughed again.
(31:04):
No actually I'm not kidding. Dan Abrams is the new
general manager, she laughed again. We must have done this
for two or three minutes. There was an old Eddie
Izzard bit I stole it from him about the death
of Engelbert Humperdink. I finally stopped when she said, wait,
I saw Danny Abrams getting out of his car in
the in the President's parking space this morning. Year. You're
(31:28):
you're you're not quit kidding. Oh my god. I have
to call my husband and tell him I'm quitting. Well,
it all worked out about as well as I had predicted.
At his first meeting with the producers, Dan Abrams revealed
his first exciting idea. He had apparently been given enough
lead time about his appointment to have made up giant
banners containing the new MSNBC network slogan, which he had
(31:50):
dreamed up. The banners he told the producers were going
to be hung around the studios, and in fact, we're
being hung around the studios. As they spoke, and behind
him there was one covered in a drape cloth and
he pulled the string. The cloth fell off, revealed in
his first exciting idea of the new network slogan, MSNBC
(32:10):
keeping it Real, keeping k E I p I n apostrophe,
no g keeping. That was the highlight of his tenure
as the general manager. The blowback against his appointment was
so universal nobody trying to hide it. Abram's first move
(32:32):
was to cancel a show hosted by an Xbox News
walking malaprop artist named Rita Cosby. She almost took hostages.
Abrams delayed the meeting to tell her staff from noon
until six pm. Abrams then gave an interview about his
vision for MSNBC and told the reporter quote, documentaries are
our most important programs, and the staffs of the uncancelled
(32:56):
prime time shows mine included nearly walked out because in
fact we were our most important programs. While Griffin vented
that mass resignation by swearing Abrams had been misquoted. Abrams
then launched a series of radio commercials for MSNBC documentaries.
Abrams tried to get a producer named Bill Wolf, who
(33:18):
had been told he was going to be the new
general manager, to instead host his own show. He told
me he had figured out the perfect guest host for
Countdown and was already in negotiations with him. Dan Rather,
my girlfriend Katie's father, then chimed in with a new
nickname for Abrams that spread across the television industry, Miles Miles,
(33:38):
as in Miles the boy producer from the sitcom Murphy Brown.
I even felt sorry for him, it was that bad,
and of course I was promptly repaid for this mistake.
A week after Abrams was hired, the cable news blogger
named Brian Stelter, who inexplicably wound up first at The
New York Times and then at CNN, and you heard
about him getting fired over the summer. Brian Stelter called
(34:01):
to say he had been told by a source at
NBC that I had just been fired at a meeting
an hour before by Abrams and an NBC executive named
Randy Falco. In fact, Abrams was at a meeting with
Zucker and the NBC News president campus as they desperately
tried to steer out of the fatal skid they had
all swerved into. Phil Griffin was furious. Griffin told me
(34:26):
he suspected Abrams had been somehow connected to this leak
about this fake story about me getting fired, and he
began an investigation of him and never trusted him again
one week appointed Monday, and a lame duck the following Monday,
keeping it real keeping. On August nine, three days shy
(34:51):
of the two months mark, Phil Griffin called my office
an hour and a half before my show. Okay, you
want to say I told you so. We've made it
clear to Dan that he won't be involved in any
major decisions going forward. He will remain general manager, but
I'm running everything. In a year or so, buddy, Well,
we'll say he found out he just had to go
back on the air, and he'll resign and we'll give
him the nine PM show. Probably you have to keep
(35:14):
this confidential. I did. I'm surprisingly good at that, at
least till I started this podcast. Fourteen months later, they
offered offed him, by which time I had already started
to lobby them to make the nine PM host not
Dan Abrams but Rachel Maddow. They finally gave into that
in September two and Dan did not have a show
(35:35):
or a title, and he finally got the message and
he left NBC in two thousand eleven. The last I
had heard of Dan Abrams before the News Nation retirement home.
He had launched a new website. It's called Whiskey Raiders
because it rates various brands of whiskey. You get it, Raiders,
(35:59):
ray Teurs, you get it. It's a pun resume of lee.
He chose that pun because somebody else had already taken
keeping it real. I've done all the damage I can
(36:26):
do here. Thanks for listening and keeping it real. Without
a leturgy follow this podcast if you can tell a friend.
We are number one among news and political podcasts not
produced by a network. And you know why that is.
It's because I'm putting the ass back into podcast. Here
are the credits. Most of the music, including our theme
from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by Brian
(36:48):
Ray and John Philip Chanelle. There the countdown musical directors,
all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle guitarist, bass
and drums by Brian Ray. Produced by t k O Brothers,
and Brian is also in charge of Keeping it Real.
Other Beethoven selections been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two
(37:10):
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis and it
appears here courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
Larry David. Everything else that's pretty much my fault. So
that's countdown for this the six day since Donald Trump's
first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the
(37:30):
United States. Arrest him now while we still can. There
will be a new episode tomorrow. Till then, I'm Keith Alderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, good luck, and keeping it Real.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
(37:51):
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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