July 31, 2023 • 53 mins
EPISODE 257: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: It's just guess but I think Trump is TERRIFIED that his “Property Manager” Carlos De Oliveira is about to flip. Trump freaked out again last night about Jack Smith and the documents and Hilary emails and Biden documents and the Special Counsel covering the Biden documents review – and without provocation from any known developments – and the LAST time he did that I told you “SOMETHING is going on at the Grand Jury but I’ll be damned if I know what” and hours later there was a superseding indictment on the documents so with that context let me say it again: SOMETHING is going on at the Grand Jury because Trump may not have MANY human traits but he is really good on exhibiting cause and effect. And this freakout may have something to do with either or both of two developments. At 10:30 this morning, at the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building in Miami, Courtroom 5, before Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres, we will see present himself for his first appearance who else but Trump’s newest co-defendant, his Mar-a-Lago “Property Manager” Carlos De Oliveira: the guy who gave us THE money quote, so far, of the destruction of evidence and obstruction case, “The boss wants the server deleted.”
And if the Trump freak out doesn’t owe to THAT indictment hearing, and the prospect that not everybody is as dumb as Walt Nauta, and that a YEAR ago Trump wasn’t sure De Oliveira wasn’t the kind of guy who’d flip, then it’s the fact that CLEARLY Trump’s Mar-a-Lago I-T Guy Yuscil Taveras already flipped.
B-Block (18:51) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The Trump stochastic terrorist who hunted Barack Obama moves to be released from jail, and we have a SCOTUS problem: Sam Alito isn't just corrupt, he's gone crazy (22:38) IN SPORTS: Max Scherzer, Jordan Hicks, others traded as baseball's deal deadline looms. But what the GM of the New York Mets said AFTER he traded Scherzer kind of paints himself and his owner into a corner in which they have to sign Shohei Ohtani (29:26) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ron DeSantis's pro-slavery campaign costs Orlando $4.6 million. NJ Congressman Christopher Smith wants to scuttle the World HIV/AIDS program over a conspiracy theory. And Musk reinstates Kanye West.
C-Block (35:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: The adorable Petros in Devore CA (36:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I made a flub on D-Day which reminded me of the day the president of MSNBC staked everything on covering the 60th Anniversary OF D-Day - and major news broke which he tried to avoid running in order to protect his dream!
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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 iHeartRadio. This
is a guess, but I think Trump is right now
(00:25):
terrified that his property manager, Carlos de Olivera is about
to flip. Trump freaked out again last night on social
media about Jack Smith and the documents and Hillary emails
and Biden documents and the special council covering the Biden
documents review, and without provocation from any known developments, and
(00:46):
the last time he did stuff like that, I told
you something is going on at the grand jury, but
I'll be damned if I know what. And hours later
there was a superseding indictment on the documents. So with
that context, let me say this again, something is going
on at the grand jury. Because Trump may not have
(01:07):
many human traits, but he is really good on exhibiting
cause and effect. And this freakout has to have something
to do with either or both of these developments. At
ten thirty this morning at the James Lawrence King Federal
Justice Building in Miami Courtroom five before Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres,
(01:31):
we were to see Present himself for his first appearance.
Who else but Trump's newest co defendant is Marri Lago
property manager and former valet, Carlos the Olivera, the guy
who gave us the money quote so far of the
destruction of evidence and obstruction case quote the boss wants
(01:55):
the server deleted. And if the Trump freakout does not
owe to that indictment hearing and the prospect that not
everybody is as dumb as Walt Naude, and that a
year ago Trump was not sure this de Olivera wasn't
the kind of guy who would flip, then it's the
fact that clearly Trump's Marilago it guy, you sealed Taveras
(02:19):
already flipped. I mean, we knew that Thursday, and I
mentioned it here Friday. Employee four was the it guy,
and he's the one di Olivia went to in hopes
of deleting the server, which isn't even what they were
supposed to do, by the way, And the it guy
is you sealed Tavers. And if Carlos de Olivera was
(02:41):
charged and you sealed Taveres was not charged, you didn't
have to be miss Cleo the psychic to guess which
one of them had flipped. You picked a fine time
to leave me, you seal. But over the weekend CNN
and The Washington Post, if you had any remaining doubts,
(03:03):
put the details together, and it's clear that after Trump
and Nauta were indicted in June, Jack Smith's team figured
out that the it guy Taveres knew more than he
had told them, and they sent him a target letter. And,
as the Post put it in amazingly prosaic terms, quote,
after Trump and Nauta were indicted in June, Tavers decided
(03:25):
he had more. He wanted to tell the authorities about
his conversations with di Olivia. Unquote you think quote Taveres
offered information implicating all three defendants in alleged conspiracy to
cover up evidence. So Taveres flipped and damned quickly. And
(03:51):
Trump has been worried about de Oliviera flipping for a year.
And if he does flip, that would leave two of
the four conspirators to destroy evidence, two guys with no
political acts to grind and nothing but previous records of
utter loyalty to this slug Trump. Those two guys testifying
against Trump and Walt Nauda, and boy, oh boy, at
(04:12):
that point, the pressure on Walt Nauda becomes almost unbearable.
And if Nauda flips on Trump. That's the ballgame if
the damn case ever gets to trial. And oh, by
the way, we are still waiting for the January sixth indictments,
if anybody still remembers that far back to when was
that again? Last Thursday, the weekend's other news, the Washington
(04:37):
Post report that Trump's Save America pack was to disclose
to the authorities today that it has spent forty million,
two hundred thousand dollars not on its purpose campaigning, but
on legal bills incurred by Trump and Nauda and di
Olivieria for the moment anyway, and everybody else in the
legal crosshairs. That suggests that there is an ad hoc, organic,
(05:01):
unintentional alternative to actually prosecuting Trump, just drown him in
bills from attorneys. It is so bad that the New
York Time says that this one pack had transferred sixty
million dollars to another Trump pack, and now it wants
it back because it doesn't have any money at all.
(05:22):
If you can't really drive Trump to a plea deal
by burning him to the ground with legal bills, at
least this serves to explain his campaign's newest catechism, wherein
Trump gets up and says, I am being indicted for you.
I am being indicted for you has a second, unspoken sentence,
I am being indicted for you, so you better help
(05:46):
me pay for it. This also explains the targets of
Trump's latest rages Republicans in the House and Senate. At
his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, he raised the stakes of
this part of the campaign, which is a campaign entirely
about avenging himself, or preferably having others avenge him for him.
(06:08):
Any Republican, he said, that does not act on democratic fraud,
should be immediately primaried. Well, that dovetails with the previously
inexplicable Trump demand last week. I think it was to
know why Senate Republicans weren't doing anything to stop Jack Smith. This,
of course, is known colloquially as blackmail, and central to
(06:32):
the Trump mob family is internal blackmail. You either do
the bidding of the Godfather, or you are an enemy,
and the omerta will be directed at you. Every authoritarian
politician in every country and every century has utilized this,
and it always ends the same way. From at least
(06:53):
the French Revolution on forward. One day one of the
previously loyal minions will decide they have had too much
of this and they go rogue and they either take
the Godfather out or they rat him out. If it
isn't clear, what Trump wants House and Senate Republicans to
do is to fabricate more investigations against Joe Biden and
(07:15):
his family and anybody else they can think of. The
rest of his rally quote was the Republicans are very
high class. You've got to get a little bit lower class.
Well he's wrong about that, obviously, but moving on for now,
Trump is still Anthony Fremont from that make your Skin
(07:36):
Crawl episode of The Twilight Zone It's a Good Life.
He is the kid played by the actor Billy Moomey
who has godlike powers and has either isolated his hometown Peaksville, Ohio,
from the rest of the world or he's just simply
destroyed the rest of the world. And he can read
minds and he can kill people by just thinking about it.
(07:57):
And you have to keep happy thoughts because otherwise Anthony
will get paranoid and he will wish you into the cornfield.
And one of the few remaining adults in this TV play,
Dan Hollis has a birthday party, and he gets drunk
at it, and he blurts out that if they were
all to rush Anthony at the same time, they could
kill him. And of course the rest of them are
(08:18):
too gutless to do it, and Anthony has time to
turn Dan into a jack in the box. I'm not
sure which one of the Republicans who has tried to
stand up to Trump over the last eight years might
be Dan Hollis, although if Trump has turned anybody into
a jack in the box, that has got to be
Lindsey Graham. But the one theory among the still see
(08:41):
Republicans has always been if they all told the truth
about Trump simultaneously, all of them, they could rush him
and kill his political career before he could destroy them first.
Of course, have never done this because nearly all of
Trump's would be opponents are too busy walking this imaginary
tightrope which exists only in their own minds, in which
(09:04):
they can run against Trump while somehow not letting his
base realize they are running against Trump, so that his
base will still support them after they defeat Trump. This
may make sense to Nicky Haley and Vivek Ramaswami, but
it doesn't make sense to anybody who isn't an idiot.
And every once in a while there is a moment
(09:26):
where it looks like all the Dan Hollises might just
simultaneously rush at Anthony Fremont Trump. After all, we're approaching
another such moment. I think Chris Christy has been beating
him up for weeks. Yeah, it may be feudle, it
may be hypocritical, it may be eight years too late.
(09:46):
None of these truths means it can't still be enjoyable.
Asa Hutchinson again said yesterday. Trump must stop attacking the
justice system, and the Republicans have to do something to
make him stop. And then there is Will Heard, the
ex Texas congressman who got up at the Des Moines
Republican Mega Mega event over the weekend and finished his
(10:07):
speech by telling uh the well truth.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
One of the things when you are elected leaders for
them to tell the truth, even if it's unpopular. Donald
Trump is not running for president and make America great again.
Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the
people that voted for him in twenty sixteen. In twenty twenty,
Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And if we elect.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I know I know, I know, I know, I know. Listen,
I know the truth. The truth is hard. But if
we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden
four more years in the White House, and America can't
handle that. God bless you, and God bless America.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Mister Hurd has not been turned into a jack in
the box yet. Mister Hurd has received a donation one
American dollar to get him to that forty thousand donor
threshold in order to win a place on the GOP
debate stage. He got that one dollar from me. This
is a first for me donating to a Republican and
(11:27):
presumably a last. Also, the last time I donated to anybody,
it was apparently a surprise to my then employers that
oh gosh, he's a liberal. So I didn't want anybody
confused by my chipping in my dollar to give Will
Hurd a chance to join Christian Hutchinson and Rush Anthony
while they still have a chance. Sadly, as apt as
(11:52):
they are and in some respects as fun as they are,
the metaphors of rushing Trump before he can rush you are,
we know all too well, in Trump's case, not metaphors
at all. U developments on that front. The Chicago Project
on Security Threats has polled Americans on this statement, quote,
the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump
(12:17):
to the presidency. The use of force is justified to
restore Donald Trump to the presidency. On April sixth of
this year, four and a half percent of Americans said
they agreed with that the use of force. On June
twenty sixth, that number had grown to seven percent. In
real terms, that is six million more Americans now who
(12:41):
would at least approve the use of violence or the
threat of it to put Trump back in power than
just in April. The total is eighteen million, and they
are less and less afraid of asserting this in public.
Sometimes it comes out unintentionally. The Right Side Broadcasting Network,
(13:01):
the propaganda's stream that makesan and Newsma both look like
the McNeil Lair News Hour carried Trump's rally in Pennsylvania,
and in what is nauseating but disturbingly effective pregame programming,
Right Side Broadcasting basically interviewed everybody waiting to get into
the rally. Hearing others openly speak hatred and violence and
(13:25):
madness reassures the other crazies that they aren't crazy, but
RSBN exceeded even those parameters. The voice of the quote
interviewer you will hear is that of someone named Matthew Alvarez.
I know nothing else about him except that his excuse
on RSBN afterwards will be that it's very noisy outside
(13:49):
and he never heard what the interviewee says. Hi you
guys or good, good good. I'm here to guarantee Trump
get back in and get rid of the corruption. It's
in the White House right now. It's just a crache.
These are just goil Biden a straight to this.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Country to disgrace, and so are all the so the
left and the rhinos, the globalists. Hey, gill Mall, gill Mall,
I agree with you on that, ma'am. I love your
shirt there. I stand with Trump. What a great shirt
to wear. That's where we are. I never heard that said,
even though he said it twice and I agreed with it.
(14:29):
Later this man Alvarez said, quote, all I know is
I'm here for God, for this country, for truth, for
President Trump. That kind of thing. Definitely not a proponent
of that kind of thing happening unquote at any other
moment in American media history. Matthew Albarez's career would have ended,
(14:50):
and he would have to gain employment in any field. Ever, again,
he would have had to change his name. Now he'll
probably wind up dating Marjorie Taylor Green or maybe Nancy
may also of interest here as we conclude the first
(15:13):
season of this news podcast, that's right tomorrow is the
one year anniversary, and thus will begin season two.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Say what about that Supreme Court justice declaring Congress has
no constitutional right to establish any rules whatsoever for his behavior,
his corrupt behavior, his corrupt, fundamentalist, horror for sale behavior.
Who does Sam Alito think he is Anthony from the
Twilight Zone or worse yet, Trump? That's next, This discountdown,
(15:49):
This his countdown with Keith Oldwoodman. Postscripts to the news,
some headline, some updates, some snark, some predictions, dateline, Washington
Taylor Taranto is trying to get out of prison. It
has been long enough that you may recognize the name
(16:10):
without remembering exactly what this guy did. He is the
January sixth defendant who amplified the post in which Trump
docks President Obama, and then he went there to find
the secret tunnels into Obama's house, and he live streamed
himself doing so for a week. It seemed as if
the authorities were gonna have to let him go because
(16:30):
the only January sixth charges against him were misdemeanor trespassing.
Two weeks ago, US attorneys finally indicted Taranto on additional charges,
felony counts of carrying a pistol without a license and
possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device. Now, Taranto's
attorney has filed a new motion asking for his release.
(16:50):
To quote it, he has no criminal record and is
likely facing a probationary sentence even if convicted at trial.
Nuts as that sounds, there is a real problem here.
The probation thing may be a pipe dream of the lawyer,
but the charges are not commensurate with what he was
trying to do at the Obama's home, nor just the charges.
(17:13):
Now do the charges seem to be grounds to detain
him until trial dateline the Supreme Court? Now we got
another problem here. Justice Samuel Alito turns out not only
to be corrupt, he seems to have actually gone crazy.
And I am presuming you saw the unbelievable kiss ass
op ed on Alito in The Wall Street Journal, in
(17:34):
which Alito railed against well against the fact that the
rest of us have caught on to how the conservatives
on the Supreme Court are theocratic prostitutes. Alito said, quote,
no provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to
regulate the Supreme Court. Period. So this suggests, mister Alito,
(17:57):
the justice with the Messiah complex has never read a
key original document from the founding of our nation. In
there is a sentence which reads as follows. In all
the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have
appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions,
and under such regulations as the Congress shall make unquote.
(18:23):
This little obscure document is called the Constitution of the
United States of America. It's Article three, Section two. The
only way Alito does not know this or can pretend
to ignore it is if his brain does not work right.
Can Congress please pass a justice crazy law. As for
the corrupt part the Wall Street Journal, here it can
(18:46):
rival the Supreme Court on it. One of the authors
of the piece is David Rivkin, who sat with Alito
for four hours for this piece. He is an attorney
who has all LOOKI here a tax case to be
heard next term by the Supreme Court. And Rivken wrote
to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week two insists that
it has no authority over the actions of his private client,
(19:09):
who you know may or may not own some of
the judges. His private client fell the name of Leonard Leo.
We have to change the Supreme Court or shut it down.
But fast. This is sports, Senate, wait, check that not anymore.
(19:43):
This is countdown with Keith Ulberman in sports? How quickly
things turn? In baseball a week ago, the Chicago Cubs
were trying to decide where to trade their revivified outfielder
Cody Bellinger, the twenty nineteen National League MVP, who had
been paid forty four and a half million dollars to
(20:04):
at two three over the next three seasons, but who
has been born again this year in Chicago and was
hitting three point fifteen And then the Cubs ran off
eight straight wins and vaulted back into the playoff race.
And now they are explaining, no, we will not be
trading Bellinger at the dealing deadline, but if you are
interested in trading this guy over here, that guy over there,
(20:25):
we'll make you an offer. The Cubs will not be
getting one oh five throwing relief pitcher Jordan Hicks going
from the Saint Louis Cardinals to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Saint Louis Is also dumped reliever Chris Stratton and started
Jordan Montgomery on Texas. The trading deadline in baseball is
six pm tomorrow, that is Tuesday afternoon, Thank you, Nancy Faust. Meanwhile,
(21:17):
the team that is buying the numbers having the most
underachieving season of all time. The twenty twenty three New
York Mets not only traded three times Cy Young Award
winner Max Schurzer to Texas for Atlanta outfielder Ronald Acunya's
kid brother, but they threw in about thirty five million
(21:38):
dollars to help cover his forty three million dollar annual
salary this year and next. And then the general manager
of the team, Billy Eppler, announced the Mets are not
doing a rebuild or a teardown and intend to contend
next year. The problem was Scherzer's slider doesn't slide all
the time anymore. He may still be good, sometimes may
(21:59):
be great, but he is no longer dependably anything special,
and with that the statement anyway, Eppler, who was the
general manager of the Los Angeles Angels when they signed
a certain player from Japan, and the Mets franchise owner
Steve Cohen, who is personally worth an estimated one billion dollars,
the two of them kind of painted themselves into a
(22:20):
corner that certain player from Japan. Eppler was present when
the Angels signed Shohei Otani, the American league's best hitter
and either its best or second best pitcher, who by
definition is the most valuable player every year because he
is essentially better than any other two players combined. Otani
is still unsigned for next season. He is expected to
(22:42):
remain such and to become a free agent this winter.
Cohen not only has money, but his team desperately needs
one a great youngish pitcher and two a great youngish slugger,
and Otani, who just turned twenty nine, is both of those.
Cohen and Eppler and the Mets can probably survive the
wrath of their fan base if they do not sign
(23:04):
Otani because he just doesn't want to play for the
Mets or in New York. But not if it turns
out to be a question of money. How much will
Otani get? The Orange County Register recently carefully extrapolated from
basically all previous free agent deals and calculated that, working
from them and adding inflation, show Heyotani is worth or
(23:24):
at least could get a salary of seventy million dollars
a season. But two winners ago, Steve Cohen signed the
just traded Max Scherzer for forty three million, and last
winter he signed fellow anti diluvian pitcher Justin Verlander for
forty three million more. And if you stop and think
about it, a player like Otani is actually worth more
(23:45):
than the sum of his parts because he only takes
up one spot on your roster, but basically phills two,
leaving you an open spot to go get somebody else
that's been doing even more damage for you. So will
the Mets offer show Heotani ninety million a year one
hundred million more? Of course, that raises one unfortunate point
(24:09):
that no math and no metric can address. The Mets have,
throughout their history now sixty one seasons, a really unfortunate
history when it comes to bringing in star players from
other teams, either by free agency or by trade and
not only not getting World championships out of them, but
seeing them basically bottom out and turn into mediocrits. Some
(24:33):
have worked out, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Mike Piazza, Pedro Martinez,
the others Hall of Fame outfielders Willie Mays, Duke Snyder,
and Richie Ashburn now Hall of Fame pitchers Tom Glavin
and Warren Spawn when they got rid of Spawn in
July of the first year. Hall of Fame infielders Eddie
Murray and Roberto Alomar and Roberto Alamar Is still hated
(24:56):
in New York and other players who had strong success elsewhere,
like catcher James McCann, first baseman Mo Vaughn, second baseman
Carlos Bjerga and Robinson Cano, shortstop Mike Bordick, third baseman
Joe Foy and Jim Fergosi, outfielders Jason Bay and Bobby
Bonilla and Juan Samuel and Vince Coleman and Vince Coleman
(25:17):
one night through lit firecrackers at Mets fans just as
if it needed to be worse, And pitchers like Brett
Saberhagen and Mickey Lolich and Victorsambrono and Frank Francisco and
and Max Schurzer when they really needed him, he came
up really small and even a manager, Arent Howe, who
(25:37):
the Mets basically traded for from Oakland. So there is
the horrifying thought that there is some sort of curse
on players the Mets spend the money on, or the
player talent on to import from other teams, and that
maybe on behalf of baseball, perhaps on behalf of all
(25:58):
of mankind, the Mets should not try to sign. Show
hey Otani still ahead on the all new pre anniversary
(26:22):
edition of Countdown, the last episode of the first season,
when the president of a news network is heartbroken because
there is breaking news. I saw it and I still
don't believe it. Things I promised not to tell next
first time for the daily roundup of the mis grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. The Bronze Ron DeSantis. It's a
(26:45):
good thing is commitment to woke is working so well
for his presidential campaign because it's killing his state. The
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest historically black college fraternity
in the US, was scheduled to hold its twenty twenty
five convention in Orlando, which is still in Florida last
time I look. It has now been canceled there thanks
(27:07):
to the DeSantis mindless, racist, self defenestrating insistence that American
slavery really existed just to you know, train blacksmiths using
whips and branding irons on them when they messed up.
But still is just a vocational program with whips and
branding irons. The Alpha Phi Alpha Convention, which will go
somewhere other than Florida, brings four thousand to six thousand
(27:29):
people to its host city and four million, six hundred
thousand dollars in estimated revenue for the host city. By
the way, a Fox News poll shows that that portion
of Americans who view wokeness as the top issue of
today is one percent. Well done, Ron DeSantis, ha, this
(27:51):
is me laughing the runner up, New Jersey Congressman Christopher Smith,
who will condemn untold numbers of people in Africa and
around the world to contracting and perhaps dying from HIV
and AIDS. For twenty years, pepfar President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS relief has saved and estimated twenty five million lives worldwide.
(28:15):
But our Congress may not renew our support of pep
FAR because this idiot Smith from Jersey believes a conspiracy
theory promulgated by the scumbags at the Heritage Foundation. Some
recent PEPFAR documents include the phrase sexual and reproductive health,
and the fascists believe that is code for paying for abortions.
(28:39):
It isn't, but don't tell Congressman Christopher Smith that because
he believes his conspiracy theories and his fascist society rumors
and instructions instead of you know reality. As chairman of
the Congressional Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organization's Subcommittee, Smith,
whose only real taste of the real world was forty
(29:01):
five years ago when he worked in the family sporting
goods store in raw Wi, is holding up the reauthorization
so this sloth gets to decide who lives and who dies.
But our winner, Musk, the asshole. Not only did Elon
Musk install a new illuminated sign atop Twitter headquarters in
(29:22):
San Francisco without a permit, apparently, without sufficient support to
keep it from blowing over, apparently and in specific violation
of his lease on the building, but his people refuse
to let San Francisco building inspectors even see it over
the weekend. Not only did he do all that, but
he unsuspended the Twitter account of the anti semite and
(29:43):
lunatic Kanye West and gave Kanye West a verification badge,
claiming that his handle Yee yay Yee, is West's brand logo.
Now I'm genuinely confused. I thought the Nazi swastika was
Kanye West's brand logo. Elon Musk gotta be brain damaged.
(30:05):
Two days wist pleason. Ain't the world just ahead? I
need to correct a mistake I made here, and that,
in turn reminded me of yet another story from the
(30:26):
annals of MSNBC. Talk about mistakes. This one is from
nineteen years ago, and it seems way less believable today
than it did then. And by the way, it didn't
seem all that believable then. First time to feature another
dog in need you can help. Every dog has its
day to the high kill Shelter at DeVore, California, and Petros.
(30:48):
And Petros got there three weeks ago with a suspicious
neck injury. The injury is healed. He's great, so now
they may kill him because of overcrowding. Petros is an
absolutely one adorable lab Golden Retriever mix with a gigantic
tail wag, a huge but wiggle, and a big smile.
And he needs either a foster or adopter in southern
(31:09):
California or our pledges to help her rescue defray the
costs of getting him out of there in time. You
can find video of Petros on my Twitter feeds. Warning
he is unbelievably cute. Your pledges and your retweets are
gratefully accepted. Let's save him. Petros. Thanks you, and I
(31:30):
thank you finally to the number one story on the
Countdown and a correction. First Friday here, in bashing Senator
Tommy Tubberville about his claim that his father participated in
(31:51):
D Day, I said the Washington Post had found a
contemporary newspaper account that said Tubberville's father had been in
Europe since June seventh, nineteen forty four, when D Day
was June fifth, nineteen forty four. Of course D Day
was June sixth, nineteen forty four. So I was wrong,
and apparently so was Senator Tubberville about whether or not
(32:12):
his father was at D Day, and that in turn
reminded me of a story about covering D Day, so
to my favorite topic, me and things I promised not
to tell and D Day plus sixty. It was June sixth,
two thousand and four, and MSNBC's new president, Rick Kaplan
(32:35):
needed to make a mark on the network for his
new bosses, and he decided this was going to be
it on June sixth, two thousand and four, maybe the
last even numbered anniversary of D Day, where we'd have
a lot of people left who were there. We'd turned
the network all D Day. June sixth, two thousand and
four basically was going to be June sixth, nineteen forty four,
(32:57):
relived Tom Brokaw live on the visius of Normandy and
somebody there and Somebody here and his ma Ai too,
MSNBC news anchors, me and Lester Holt anchoring two hour
blocks devoted to the anniversary and then switching off and
he came back, and I would go away, and then
I'd come back and he would go just wal to Wall.
I'm Rick Kaplan, and I used to produce for Walter
(33:19):
Cronkite to not only lock in his new gig at MSNBC,
but set himself up for his next goal executive in
charge of the Today Show or NBC Nightly News, or
something bigger than that little crapshack we ran at MSNBC.
For my part, I was dispatched first to interview one
of the surprisingly large number of soldiers and sailors and
airmen who survived D Day and went on to fame.
(33:43):
There were actors Charles Derning and James Dewhan Scotty on
Star Trek, and the author J. D. Salinger and Seaman's
second Class Yogi Bearra. I met Yogi at his museum
in New Jersey, and I swear to God he and
his son demanded a friendly bribe to do the interview.
And what they wanted was my copy of the nineteen
(34:03):
sixty three Top's Yogi Bearra baseball card. Seriously, that's the
toughest one to find, Yogi said, we never have enough
of them here. I always enjoyed Yogi, but he had
more to say about his nineteen sixty three baseball card
and its relative scarcity than he did about the D
Day invasion, and his chief on his rocket launcher boat
(34:25):
telling him to keep his head down or he might
get to watch it fly off his neck. Anyway, the
Barre interview was fine, and it was done, and we
edited like fifteen very very short answers into about two
minutes of not bad narrative. And I had written a
couple of other D Day features and I'd written some
other scripts on Friday, and by Sunday we were all
crammed into the main MSNBC conference room in Secaucus, New Jersey,
(34:49):
everybody working a sixth day. And you would have thought
this guy, Rick Kaplan, president of the network, was leading
the actual invasion of Normandy, not merely a cable TV
network coverage of the sixtieth anniversary. Thereof Aaplin was waxing
poetic about how important this was for us and how
it would put us on the map against CNN and Fox,
(35:11):
and how he had covered all the contingencies. And that's
when people's phones started vibrating and ringing. Kaplan was still
enjoying the sound of his own voice as these phones
gradually drowned him out. When one of the producers finished
whispering into his BlackBerry and then said, excuse me, Rick,
we have a problem. Ronald Reagan has just died without
(35:32):
a word. Twenty people at that conference table rose and
then froze, realizing that before they abandoned this meeting to
go get on the air as quickly as possible, and
then to lay out what would be rolling coverage till
at least midnight of Reagan's death and life and reaction
to it till further notice. We couldn't just start. We
(35:53):
basically had to wait for the president of the network,
who was sitting there, Rick Kaplan, to say, Okay, we'll
figure out the D Day stuff later. It's Reagan day.
Let's go. Except he didn't say that, looking crestfallen, looking
like a kid who's had his toys stolen and then broken.
As he watched Rick Kaplan swept the room with his gaze,
(36:16):
he stopped on me, Thanks, couldn't we just uh, couldn't
we just do uh, half an hour of Reagan and
then half an hour of my D Day and then
half an hour And he trailed off and I said, Rick,
(36:37):
it's a two term president. I mean, I think he
was full of crap, But apparently a lot of American
thinks he's some sort of icon. And by the way,
it just it just happened like eleven minutes ago. It
didn't happen sixty years ago. I'm sorry. He was almost
literally pouting, but what about all my D day coverage
(37:01):
president of the network, And I said, well, we can
those pieces throughout the day tomorrow. They won't just disappear.
We don't have to go degous the tapes. Okay. We
realized that the president of the news network was not
going to be any use helping us cover the first
big breaking news story of his presidency because it couldn't
(37:22):
bear to change his plans to accommodate breaking presidential news.
This was at the end of month three of the
Rick Kaplan MSNBC presidency. He was already on the ropes
with us. He would later be the guy who chased
me around the studios because he was squeamish and I'd
mentioned blood on the air and he thought I was
(37:43):
trying to sabotage his great show with Rita Cosby. He
would soon be the network president who did not know
what was live on TV and what was on delay.
I'll tell you that story in a minute too. However,
the Rick Kaplan story starts in the men's room at MSNBC.
It is February seventeenth to thousand and four at one
(38:06):
of those moronic corporate speak town halls. The bosses have
just introduced Rick Kaplan as the new president of the network.
Kaplan speaks for an hour without interruption. He does not
mention that he was the president of CNN when it's
nineteen year streak at number one in the cable news
ratings came to an abrupt end. He does, however, mention
(38:26):
that he is six feet seven inches tall, but he
does not seem to be six feet seven inches tall.
As this nonsense ends, I rush into the men's room
and find, to my amusement, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Jesse Ventura,
(38:48):
Lester Holt, and one unoccupied urinoll. As I moved to
occupy it, it dawns on me that Ventura, the former
professional wrestler, is the shortest man in the bathroom, at
six feet two. All five of us are silent. Finally,
Matthews says it, Helen Hell, can he say he's six
(39:08):
foot seven? He's barely taller than I am and I'm
six four? Oh man, are you slightly taller than me?
You're slightly shorter than me? How is he six seven?
Everybody keeps looking forward of course, into the wall in
front of us. I'm six three and a half laster.
He's your height. I saw you standing with him, you
tour even what are you six ' five? Lester says,
(39:30):
uh huh and flushes. Scarborough chimes in, I'm just olver
sixty four. We're almost dyed. Aye, he's not six seven. Finally,
Ventura speaks, I've been thrown around a ring by guys
who were six seven. This guy's not six seven. From
the sink, Lester Holt now says, have any of you
(39:50):
known anybody our height who lies and says they're taller?
Matthews again, who lies about their height? I flush? This
guy does. Gentlemen, we are in trouble here for the
presidency of Rick Kaplan at MSNBC. That might have been sorry,
I can't resist it the high water mark. Later, on Friday,
(40:14):
March fifth, two thousand and four, Kaplan, who had been
there three weeks, assembled the hosts and producers of the
primetime shows on the network that would have been me. Scarborough,
Dan abrams our staffs, the new Jersey staff of Chris
Matthews Show, and he told us that the next day
was going to be Monday. Somebody from Scarborough's staff helpfully
corrected him, mister Kaplan, I'm sorry, tomorrow is Saturday. Kaplan
(40:38):
sternly explained he was now president of this network and
we all sucked. And if he said today was Friday
and tomorrow was Monday, then today was Friday and tomorrow
was Monday. He wanted to see us react to sudden
changes in our plans. We were being told we were
being called into work a sixth day tomorrow for no reason.
(40:59):
Kaplan then started yelling at us, You guys don't get it.
You're all working tomorrow, but who doesn't come in is fired.
We are going to do the whole pro primetime lineup.
Your breaking news is today's breaking news, the guilty verdict
in the Martha Stewart case. Start booking your guests because
tomorrow is Monday, not Saturday. Just on my staff, Saturday
(41:21):
was supposed to be my reporter's engagement party, a surprise
party thrown by one of my producers for his wife's birthday,
and the day another producer was closing on buying a house.
I have a vague memory of what we put on
the air. I have a stronger memory of the new
president of MSNBC, losing the staffs of all four of
(41:42):
his primetime shows on his fifth day on the job
and never ever getting them back. Kaplan then went to
a corkboard on our office wall on which our show
Rundown was displayed. He ordered producers to move segments around,
and he berated me for not having anticipated his whims
and at one point he screamed, stop, what the hell
(42:02):
are you doing? And he got up and he grabbed
the pushpin, which held up an index card bearing the
name of a guest. You don't use green pins with
yellow index cards. You use yellow pins with yellow index cards.
What kind of a newsman are You can't imagine how
(42:22):
this guy choked away CNN's monopoly on cable news ratings.
I was reminded recently that later on December eighth, two
thousand and five, seventeen years ago tomorrow, he did one
of the most unintentionally funniest things I have ever witnessed.
A plane slid off the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago.
Nothing funny about that, obviously, but Kaplan called into our
(42:46):
control room demanding we changed something about our live coverage
that he didn't like. We promptly made the change. He
was right. Five minutes later he called in and started
swearing at one of our producers. I told you to
change that. F you, you're fired. And the producer said,
we changed it five minutes ago when you called in, silence, Rick,
(43:07):
are you watching the network on some sort of delay?
Are you watching on TVO or something? Silence again. Finally
he said, okay, good work, see you tomorrow and hung up.
He didn't know he was watching it on a delay.
Kaplan was also one of these forget the mean thing
I said yesterday. God knows I have kind of guys.
(43:29):
By Monday, he had heard people laughing at some of
my on air jokes and his front runner instincts took over.
He called me and the producer in for a meeting.
I have only one criticism of your show. Which of
these stories will you be talking about? Thing is genius?
The fifth story, the fourth story, then the third story.
It's original and fresh. I hesitated. I almost said to him, yeah,
(43:53):
this old counting thing. We just invented that. The music
is genius, the graphics are genius. You're a genius, but
you're missing something off meus, something genius. After each one
of these stories after you thank your guests, you should
do a list of the things you didn't tell us
about those stories. So like, after the fifth story, you
should say, now here are the other five things we
didn't tell you about the fifth story. Get it a
(44:14):
full screen graphic, and you telling people, And then four
things for the fourth story, and three for the third.
I thought for a moment, and I said, okay, but
what happens if we make those graphics up and then
a minute beforehand the guest brings up one of those
things we claim we didn't tell you. When he just
told you, we had lost Rick Caplan's attention by that point. Hmmm,
(44:37):
he grunted. For a second. I thought his eyes were
pointing outwards in different directions, but he snapped himself back
into this reality. Huh could happen? You'll figure it out anyway.
Too late to do it today, figure it out and
do it tomorrow. Thanks the producer. And I had to
then explain to the staff of Countdown that from now on,
for every story they had to deliberately leave out one
(45:00):
or two or three or four or five facts or details,
something interesting enough to be made into a full screen graphic,
but not interesting enough to be included in their scripts
or the interviews with the guests. Suddenly I thought a
lot of people's eyes were pointing outwards in different directions.
The line producer, Greg Kordick, who was in charge not
(45:21):
of content but of timing things and making sure things
like graphics got made, said, matter of factly, this will
add five hours to everybody's workday. And so it did.
After the next day's show and we listed the top
five things we didn't tell you about today's fifth story,
and the top four things we didn't tell you about
today's fourth story, etc. And we had to shorten all
(45:41):
the scripts and shorten each interview just to make room
for all of this extraneous crap. Greg, the producer, said,
people here will be quitting by Thursday and dying by Monday.
And I said, you're right. Plus it ruins the interviews
and it weakens the show. Don't do it tomorrow with Kaplan, yells,
I'll take the eight. So now it's Wednesday. And not
only don't I hear anything from Kaplan about the Tuesday
(46:03):
show and his the top five things we didn't tell
you about today's fifth story, Jazz, but after the Wednesday show,
when we don't do it. I'm sitting there waiting for
an enraged phone call because we didn't. Thursday morning at home,
I'm waiting for an enraged email. Thursday afternoon, I'm waiting
for an enraged Kaplin in person. Nothing. He never said
(46:24):
a word. The week passes nothing, a month, two months,
it's summer. Nothing. The rest of two thousand and four
flies by nothing. We did it once, we never did
it again, and then he never said anything. It is
now January two thousand and five, and he still hasn't
(46:46):
said anything. And I'm told by Phil Griffin, my first
producer in television sports and sixteen years later, my first
producer in television news, who has since become the vice
president of MSNBC, that Kaplain wants to see us in
his office. It's not a big deal, Phil says, he's
in a good mood. He just wants to make us
feel like we have input in to his decisions. This
is a what do you think meeting? Now, I have
(47:09):
to ask you to carefully picture the layout of Rick
Kaplan's office at MSNBC in the year two thousand and five.
Envision a long, narrow room. Baseball's MLB network now operates there,
and they have cleverly turned Kaplan's office into a wardrobe room,
perfect since it was really just a long closet. Anyways,
(47:30):
Rick Kaplan, who was six foot five but lied and
said he was six foot seven, sat at the very
back of this room. So you come in the front door,
you turn to your right, and maybe thirty thirty five
forty feet away from you, in the farthest corner, facing
his computer on his desk, flush against the left hand wall,
is the president of MSNBC. A few feet into the
(47:52):
room is where you sit. Halfway between these two points.
Against the right hand wall is where another executive can sit.
So Phil Griffin sits there. I'm just inside the door.
He is fifteen feet ahead of me to the right.
Rick Kaplan is thirty feet or forty feet ahead of
me to the left. Picture this carefully, the way these
(48:13):
chairs and desks are arranged. If you're me and Phil
Griffin is looking at you, Rick Kaplan can only see
the back of Phil Griffin's head and not his face.
If they are both looking at you, they cannot see
each other. Weird, seemingly trivial turned out to be essential.
(48:34):
We begin this meaningless meeting and talk about guests and graphics, fonts,
and Kaplan talks about how much the ratings have gone
up in his year as president. And finally, I say,
I do have one suggestion. I think the show is
going to be very successful, and I think if we
want to make any changes, we should make them now
before it becomes successful. And I say, I have never
(48:54):
heard anybody say they like the fifth story, fourth story,
third story stuff. If you want to continue the name
countdown because people know it by now, that's great, I guess.
But the five four three two one numbering is a
conceit and it's a lot of extra work for everybody,
and I think we should kill it now. Kaplan is aghast.
(49:17):
He is pale. He is not angry, he is just stunned.
But you can't do that. Five four three two one
is part of the reasons the ratings went up. The
ratings went up when I came up with the idea
of the top five things we didn't tell you about
today's top five stories, and the top four things we
(49:37):
didn't tell you about today's number four story, et cetera.
We can't stop that. That's why people watch. My idea
took me a split second to even remember what the
hell it was he was talking about. I had forgotten
the whole five things we didn't tell you Albatross weeks
after the one show we did it, and then the
(49:59):
staff rebelled and I said, screw it, and I'll take
the heat. And I was about to say this out
loud when I suddenly realized that Phil Griffin, fifteen feet
away on the right, his face turned to me and
thus invisible to Kaplan thirty feet away on the left,
was making his eyes as wide as possible, and Phil
was looking right at me and silently mouthing the word no, no, no, no, no,
(50:20):
all the while keeping his head completely still, so Kaplan
didn't know he was talking to me. Silently. I got
Phil's message. I dropped the subject. I didn't say it.
The meeting ended maybe two minutes later with Kaplan saying
keep up the good work, and ushering us out by saying,
and keep up with the top five things we didn't
(50:41):
tell you about today's five fifth story. Oh that's what's
making it really cook. When we were out of earshot
of Rick Kaplan, Griffin thanked me for being able to
read his panicked lips. I used an oath to liven
up my question? What the blank was that all about?
And Griffin said, now you know what every day of
(51:02):
my life has become. It's not worth the time to
try to correct him. He believes what he believes, and
he won't be checked or contradicted. And I said, we
only did the five things. We didn't tell you a
thing once, only once. It's like a year later. How
in the hell could he possibly think we're still doing it?
(51:23):
Griffin laughed, like a soldier on a World War One
battlefield who has just run out of bullets. See that's
the problem, buddy. He only watches MSNBC here in the office,
the place he's renting it doesn't have cable. President of
MSNBC doesn't have cable at home. On June sixth, two
(51:46):
thousand and six, they fired Rick Caplan as the president
of MSNBC. They let him resign. They also let him
keep his secret, the darkest of secrets for him and
for MSNBC, that, for his two years on the throne,
the president of an all news cable channel did not
have cable. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(52:20):
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits most of
the music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, Guitars, bass
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group
No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
(52:42):
from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Guess what all of the
music appeared in today's show. Our announcer today was my
friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad. Everything else is pretty
much my fault. Remember not only in this format. Countdown
(53:02):
is now also available on YouTube for those of you
who like the animated version of me. That's countdown for
this the nine hundred and thirty six days since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him again while we still can.
The next scheduled Countdown is tomorrow. It will be our
first anniversary episode. Thus ends the first series Boltins as
(53:27):
the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(53:50):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. This
is a guess, but I think Trump is right now
(00:25):
terrified that his property manager, Carlos de Olivera is about
to flip. Trump freaked out again last night on social
media about Jack Smith and the documents and Hillary emails
and Biden documents and the special council covering the Biden
documents review, and without provocation from any known developments, and
(00:46):
the last time he did stuff like that, I told
you something is going on at the grand jury, but
I'll be damned if I know what. And hours later
there was a superseding indictment on the documents. So with
that context, let me say this again, something is going
on at the grand jury. Because Trump may not have
(01:07):
many human traits, but he is really good on exhibiting
cause and effect. And this freakout has to have something
to do with either or both of these developments. At
ten thirty this morning at the James Lawrence King Federal
Justice Building in Miami Courtroom five before Magistrate Judge Edwin G. Torres,
(01:31):
we were to see Present himself for his first appearance.
Who else but Trump's newest co defendant is Marri Lago
property manager and former valet, Carlos the Olivera, the guy
who gave us the money quote so far of the
destruction of evidence and obstruction case quote the boss wants
(01:55):
the server deleted. And if the Trump freakout does not
owe to that indictment hearing and the prospect that not
everybody is as dumb as Walt Naude, and that a
year ago Trump was not sure this de Olivera wasn't
the kind of guy who would flip, then it's the
fact that clearly Trump's Marilago it guy, you sealed Taveras
(02:19):
already flipped. I mean, we knew that Thursday, and I
mentioned it here Friday. Employee four was the it guy,
and he's the one di Olivia went to in hopes
of deleting the server, which isn't even what they were
supposed to do, by the way, And the it guy
is you sealed Tavers. And if Carlos de Olivera was
(02:41):
charged and you sealed Taveres was not charged, you didn't
have to be miss Cleo the psychic to guess which
one of them had flipped. You picked a fine time
to leave me, you seal. But over the weekend CNN
and The Washington Post, if you had any remaining doubts,
(03:03):
put the details together, and it's clear that after Trump
and Nauta were indicted in June, Jack Smith's team figured
out that the it guy Taveres knew more than he
had told them, and they sent him a target letter. And,
as the Post put it in amazingly prosaic terms, quote,
after Trump and Nauta were indicted in June, Tavers decided
(03:25):
he had more. He wanted to tell the authorities about
his conversations with di Olivia. Unquote you think quote Taveres
offered information implicating all three defendants in alleged conspiracy to
cover up evidence. So Taveres flipped and damned quickly. And
(03:51):
Trump has been worried about de Oliviera flipping for a year.
And if he does flip, that would leave two of
the four conspirators to destroy evidence, two guys with no
political acts to grind and nothing but previous records of
utter loyalty to this slug Trump. Those two guys testifying
against Trump and Walt Nauda, and boy, oh boy, at
(04:12):
that point, the pressure on Walt Nauda becomes almost unbearable.
And if Nauda flips on Trump. That's the ballgame if
the damn case ever gets to trial. And oh, by
the way, we are still waiting for the January sixth indictments,
if anybody still remembers that far back to when was
that again? Last Thursday, the weekend's other news, the Washington
(04:37):
Post report that Trump's Save America pack was to disclose
to the authorities today that it has spent forty million,
two hundred thousand dollars not on its purpose campaigning, but
on legal bills incurred by Trump and Nauda and di
Olivieria for the moment anyway, and everybody else in the
legal crosshairs. That suggests that there is an ad hoc, organic,
(05:01):
unintentional alternative to actually prosecuting Trump, just drown him in
bills from attorneys. It is so bad that the New
York Time says that this one pack had transferred sixty
million dollars to another Trump pack, and now it wants
it back because it doesn't have any money at all.
(05:22):
If you can't really drive Trump to a plea deal
by burning him to the ground with legal bills, at
least this serves to explain his campaign's newest catechism, wherein
Trump gets up and says, I am being indicted for you.
I am being indicted for you has a second, unspoken sentence,
I am being indicted for you, so you better help
(05:46):
me pay for it. This also explains the targets of
Trump's latest rages Republicans in the House and Senate. At
his rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, he raised the stakes of
this part of the campaign, which is a campaign entirely
about avenging himself, or preferably having others avenge him for him.
(06:08):
Any Republican, he said, that does not act on democratic fraud,
should be immediately primaried. Well, that dovetails with the previously
inexplicable Trump demand last week. I think it was to
know why Senate Republicans weren't doing anything to stop Jack Smith. This,
of course, is known colloquially as blackmail, and central to
(06:32):
the Trump mob family is internal blackmail. You either do
the bidding of the Godfather, or you are an enemy,
and the omerta will be directed at you. Every authoritarian
politician in every country and every century has utilized this,
and it always ends the same way. From at least
(06:53):
the French Revolution on forward. One day one of the
previously loyal minions will decide they have had too much
of this and they go rogue and they either take
the Godfather out or they rat him out. If it
isn't clear, what Trump wants House and Senate Republicans to
do is to fabricate more investigations against Joe Biden and
(07:15):
his family and anybody else they can think of. The
rest of his rally quote was the Republicans are very
high class. You've got to get a little bit lower class.
Well he's wrong about that, obviously, but moving on for now,
Trump is still Anthony Fremont from that make your Skin
(07:36):
Crawl episode of The Twilight Zone It's a Good Life.
He is the kid played by the actor Billy Moomey
who has godlike powers and has either isolated his hometown Peaksville, Ohio,
from the rest of the world or he's just simply
destroyed the rest of the world. And he can read
minds and he can kill people by just thinking about it.
(07:57):
And you have to keep happy thoughts because otherwise Anthony
will get paranoid and he will wish you into the cornfield.
And one of the few remaining adults in this TV play,
Dan Hollis has a birthday party, and he gets drunk
at it, and he blurts out that if they were
all to rush Anthony at the same time, they could
kill him. And of course the rest of them are
(08:18):
too gutless to do it, and Anthony has time to
turn Dan into a jack in the box. I'm not
sure which one of the Republicans who has tried to
stand up to Trump over the last eight years might
be Dan Hollis, although if Trump has turned anybody into
a jack in the box, that has got to be
Lindsey Graham. But the one theory among the still see
(08:41):
Republicans has always been if they all told the truth
about Trump simultaneously, all of them, they could rush him
and kill his political career before he could destroy them first.
Of course, have never done this because nearly all of
Trump's would be opponents are too busy walking this imaginary
tightrope which exists only in their own minds, in which
(09:04):
they can run against Trump while somehow not letting his
base realize they are running against Trump, so that his
base will still support them after they defeat Trump. This
may make sense to Nicky Haley and Vivek Ramaswami, but
it doesn't make sense to anybody who isn't an idiot.
And every once in a while there is a moment
(09:26):
where it looks like all the Dan Hollises might just
simultaneously rush at Anthony Fremont Trump. After all, we're approaching
another such moment. I think Chris Christy has been beating
him up for weeks. Yeah, it may be feudle, it
may be hypocritical, it may be eight years too late.
(09:46):
None of these truths means it can't still be enjoyable.
Asa Hutchinson again said yesterday. Trump must stop attacking the
justice system, and the Republicans have to do something to
make him stop. And then there is Will Heard, the
ex Texas congressman who got up at the Des Moines
Republican Mega Mega event over the weekend and finished his
(10:07):
speech by telling uh the well truth.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
One of the things when you are elected leaders for
them to tell the truth, even if it's unpopular. Donald
Trump is not running for president and make America great again.
Donald Trump is not running for president to represent the
people that voted for him in twenty sixteen. In twenty twenty,
Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And if we elect.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
I know I know, I know, I know, I know. Listen,
I know the truth. The truth is hard. But if
we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden
four more years in the White House, and America can't
handle that. God bless you, and God bless America.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Mister Hurd has not been turned into a jack in
the box yet. Mister Hurd has received a donation one
American dollar to get him to that forty thousand donor
threshold in order to win a place on the GOP
debate stage. He got that one dollar from me. This
is a first for me donating to a Republican and
(11:27):
presumably a last. Also, the last time I donated to anybody,
it was apparently a surprise to my then employers that
oh gosh, he's a liberal. So I didn't want anybody
confused by my chipping in my dollar to give Will
Hurd a chance to join Christian Hutchinson and Rush Anthony
while they still have a chance. Sadly, as apt as
(11:52):
they are and in some respects as fun as they are,
the metaphors of rushing Trump before he can rush you are,
we know all too well, in Trump's case, not metaphors
at all. U developments on that front. The Chicago Project
on Security Threats has polled Americans on this statement, quote,
the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump
(12:17):
to the presidency. The use of force is justified to
restore Donald Trump to the presidency. On April sixth of
this year, four and a half percent of Americans said
they agreed with that the use of force. On June
twenty sixth, that number had grown to seven percent. In
real terms, that is six million more Americans now who
(12:41):
would at least approve the use of violence or the
threat of it to put Trump back in power than
just in April. The total is eighteen million, and they
are less and less afraid of asserting this in public.
Sometimes it comes out unintentionally. The Right Side Broadcasting Network,
(13:01):
the propaganda's stream that makesan and Newsma both look like
the McNeil Lair News Hour carried Trump's rally in Pennsylvania,
and in what is nauseating but disturbingly effective pregame programming,
Right Side Broadcasting basically interviewed everybody waiting to get into
the rally. Hearing others openly speak hatred and violence and
(13:25):
madness reassures the other crazies that they aren't crazy, but
RSBN exceeded even those parameters. The voice of the quote
interviewer you will hear is that of someone named Matthew Alvarez.
I know nothing else about him except that his excuse
on RSBN afterwards will be that it's very noisy outside
(13:49):
and he never heard what the interviewee says. Hi you
guys or good, good good. I'm here to guarantee Trump
get back in and get rid of the corruption. It's
in the White House right now. It's just a crache.
These are just goil Biden a straight to this.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Country to disgrace, and so are all the so the
left and the rhinos, the globalists. Hey, gill Mall, gill Mall,
I agree with you on that, ma'am. I love your
shirt there. I stand with Trump. What a great shirt
to wear. That's where we are. I never heard that said,
even though he said it twice and I agreed with it.
(14:29):
Later this man Alvarez said, quote, all I know is
I'm here for God, for this country, for truth, for
President Trump. That kind of thing. Definitely not a proponent
of that kind of thing happening unquote at any other
moment in American media history. Matthew Albarez's career would have ended,
(14:50):
and he would have to gain employment in any field. Ever, again,
he would have had to change his name. Now he'll
probably wind up dating Marjorie Taylor Green or maybe Nancy
may also of interest here as we conclude the first
(15:13):
season of this news podcast, that's right tomorrow is the
one year anniversary, and thus will begin season two.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Say what about that Supreme Court justice declaring Congress has
no constitutional right to establish any rules whatsoever for his behavior,
his corrupt behavior, his corrupt, fundamentalist, horror for sale behavior.
Who does Sam Alito think he is Anthony from the
Twilight Zone or worse yet, Trump? That's next, This discountdown,
(15:49):
This his countdown with Keith Oldwoodman. Postscripts to the news,
some headline, some updates, some snark, some predictions, dateline, Washington
Taylor Taranto is trying to get out of prison. It
has been long enough that you may recognize the name
(16:10):
without remembering exactly what this guy did. He is the
January sixth defendant who amplified the post in which Trump
docks President Obama, and then he went there to find
the secret tunnels into Obama's house, and he live streamed
himself doing so for a week. It seemed as if
the authorities were gonna have to let him go because
(16:30):
the only January sixth charges against him were misdemeanor trespassing.
Two weeks ago, US attorneys finally indicted Taranto on additional charges,
felony counts of carrying a pistol without a license and
possession of a large capacity ammunition feeding device. Now, Taranto's
attorney has filed a new motion asking for his release.
(16:50):
To quote it, he has no criminal record and is
likely facing a probationary sentence even if convicted at trial.
Nuts as that sounds, there is a real problem here.
The probation thing may be a pipe dream of the lawyer,
but the charges are not commensurate with what he was
trying to do at the Obama's home, nor just the charges.
(17:13):
Now do the charges seem to be grounds to detain
him until trial dateline the Supreme Court? Now we got
another problem here. Justice Samuel Alito turns out not only
to be corrupt, he seems to have actually gone crazy.
And I am presuming you saw the unbelievable kiss ass
op ed on Alito in The Wall Street Journal, in
(17:34):
which Alito railed against well against the fact that the
rest of us have caught on to how the conservatives
on the Supreme Court are theocratic prostitutes. Alito said, quote,
no provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to
regulate the Supreme Court. Period. So this suggests, mister Alito,
(17:57):
the justice with the Messiah complex has never read a
key original document from the founding of our nation. In
there is a sentence which reads as follows. In all
the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have
appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions,
and under such regulations as the Congress shall make unquote.
(18:23):
This little obscure document is called the Constitution of the
United States of America. It's Article three, Section two. The
only way Alito does not know this or can pretend
to ignore it is if his brain does not work right.
Can Congress please pass a justice crazy law. As for
the corrupt part the Wall Street Journal, here it can
(18:46):
rival the Supreme Court on it. One of the authors
of the piece is David Rivkin, who sat with Alito
for four hours for this piece. He is an attorney
who has all LOOKI here a tax case to be
heard next term by the Supreme Court. And Rivken wrote
to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week two insists that
it has no authority over the actions of his private client,
(19:09):
who you know may or may not own some of
the judges. His private client fell the name of Leonard Leo.
We have to change the Supreme Court or shut it down.
But fast. This is sports, Senate, wait, check that not anymore.
(19:43):
This is countdown with Keith Ulberman in sports? How quickly
things turn? In baseball a week ago, the Chicago Cubs
were trying to decide where to trade their revivified outfielder
Cody Bellinger, the twenty nineteen National League MVP, who had
been paid forty four and a half million dollars to
(20:04):
at two three over the next three seasons, but who
has been born again this year in Chicago and was
hitting three point fifteen And then the Cubs ran off
eight straight wins and vaulted back into the playoff race.
And now they are explaining, no, we will not be
trading Bellinger at the dealing deadline, but if you are
interested in trading this guy over here, that guy over there,
(20:25):
we'll make you an offer. The Cubs will not be
getting one oh five throwing relief pitcher Jordan Hicks going
from the Saint Louis Cardinals to the Toronto Blue Jays.
Saint Louis Is also dumped reliever Chris Stratton and started
Jordan Montgomery on Texas. The trading deadline in baseball is
six pm tomorrow, that is Tuesday afternoon, Thank you, Nancy Faust. Meanwhile,
(21:17):
the team that is buying the numbers having the most
underachieving season of all time. The twenty twenty three New
York Mets not only traded three times Cy Young Award
winner Max Schurzer to Texas for Atlanta outfielder Ronald Acunya's
kid brother, but they threw in about thirty five million
(21:38):
dollars to help cover his forty three million dollar annual
salary this year and next. And then the general manager
of the team, Billy Eppler, announced the Mets are not
doing a rebuild or a teardown and intend to contend
next year. The problem was Scherzer's slider doesn't slide all
the time anymore. He may still be good, sometimes may
(21:59):
be great, but he is no longer dependably anything special,
and with that the statement anyway, Eppler, who was the
general manager of the Los Angeles Angels when they signed
a certain player from Japan, and the Mets franchise owner
Steve Cohen, who is personally worth an estimated one billion dollars,
the two of them kind of painted themselves into a
(22:20):
corner that certain player from Japan. Eppler was present when
the Angels signed Shohei Otani, the American league's best hitter
and either its best or second best pitcher, who by
definition is the most valuable player every year because he
is essentially better than any other two players combined. Otani
is still unsigned for next season. He is expected to
(22:42):
remain such and to become a free agent this winter.
Cohen not only has money, but his team desperately needs
one a great youngish pitcher and two a great youngish slugger,
and Otani, who just turned twenty nine, is both of those.
Cohen and Eppler and the Mets can probably survive the
wrath of their fan base if they do not sign
(23:04):
Otani because he just doesn't want to play for the
Mets or in New York. But not if it turns
out to be a question of money. How much will
Otani get? The Orange County Register recently carefully extrapolated from
basically all previous free agent deals and calculated that, working
from them and adding inflation, show Heyotani is worth or
(23:24):
at least could get a salary of seventy million dollars
a season. But two winners ago, Steve Cohen signed the
just traded Max Scherzer for forty three million, and last
winter he signed fellow anti diluvian pitcher Justin Verlander for
forty three million more. And if you stop and think
about it, a player like Otani is actually worth more
(23:45):
than the sum of his parts because he only takes
up one spot on your roster, but basically phills two,
leaving you an open spot to go get somebody else
that's been doing even more damage for you. So will
the Mets offer show Heotani ninety million a year one
hundred million more? Of course, that raises one unfortunate point
(24:09):
that no math and no metric can address. The Mets have,
throughout their history now sixty one seasons, a really unfortunate
history when it comes to bringing in star players from
other teams, either by free agency or by trade and
not only not getting World championships out of them, but
seeing them basically bottom out and turn into mediocrits. Some
(24:33):
have worked out, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Mike Piazza, Pedro Martinez,
the others Hall of Fame outfielders Willie Mays, Duke Snyder,
and Richie Ashburn now Hall of Fame pitchers Tom Glavin
and Warren Spawn when they got rid of Spawn in
July of the first year. Hall of Fame infielders Eddie
Murray and Roberto Alomar and Roberto Alamar Is still hated
(24:56):
in New York and other players who had strong success elsewhere,
like catcher James McCann, first baseman Mo Vaughn, second baseman
Carlos Bjerga and Robinson Cano, shortstop Mike Bordick, third baseman
Joe Foy and Jim Fergosi, outfielders Jason Bay and Bobby
Bonilla and Juan Samuel and Vince Coleman and Vince Coleman
(25:17):
one night through lit firecrackers at Mets fans just as
if it needed to be worse, And pitchers like Brett
Saberhagen and Mickey Lolich and Victorsambrono and Frank Francisco and
and Max Schurzer when they really needed him, he came
up really small and even a manager, Arent Howe, who
(25:37):
the Mets basically traded for from Oakland. So there is
the horrifying thought that there is some sort of curse
on players the Mets spend the money on, or the
player talent on to import from other teams, and that
maybe on behalf of baseball, perhaps on behalf of all
(25:58):
of mankind, the Mets should not try to sign. Show
hey Otani still ahead on the all new pre anniversary
(26:22):
edition of Countdown, the last episode of the first season,
when the president of a news network is heartbroken because
there is breaking news. I saw it and I still
don't believe it. Things I promised not to tell next
first time for the daily roundup of the mis grants,
morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. The Bronze Ron DeSantis. It's a
(26:45):
good thing is commitment to woke is working so well
for his presidential campaign because it's killing his state. The
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest historically black college fraternity
in the US, was scheduled to hold its twenty twenty
five convention in Orlando, which is still in Florida last
time I look. It has now been canceled there thanks
(27:07):
to the DeSantis mindless, racist, self defenestrating insistence that American
slavery really existed just to you know, train blacksmiths using
whips and branding irons on them when they messed up.
But still is just a vocational program with whips and
branding irons. The Alpha Phi Alpha Convention, which will go
somewhere other than Florida, brings four thousand to six thousand
(27:29):
people to its host city and four million, six hundred
thousand dollars in estimated revenue for the host city. By
the way, a Fox News poll shows that that portion
of Americans who view wokeness as the top issue of
today is one percent. Well done, Ron DeSantis, ha, this
(27:51):
is me laughing the runner up, New Jersey Congressman Christopher Smith,
who will condemn untold numbers of people in Africa and
around the world to contracting and perhaps dying from HIV
and AIDS. For twenty years, pepfar President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS relief has saved and estimated twenty five million lives worldwide.
(28:15):
But our Congress may not renew our support of pep
FAR because this idiot Smith from Jersey believes a conspiracy
theory promulgated by the scumbags at the Heritage Foundation. Some
recent PEPFAR documents include the phrase sexual and reproductive health,
and the fascists believe that is code for paying for abortions.
(28:39):
It isn't, but don't tell Congressman Christopher Smith that because
he believes his conspiracy theories and his fascist society rumors
and instructions instead of you know reality. As chairman of
the Congressional Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organization's Subcommittee, Smith,
whose only real taste of the real world was forty
(29:01):
five years ago when he worked in the family sporting
goods store in raw Wi, is holding up the reauthorization
so this sloth gets to decide who lives and who dies.
But our winner, Musk, the asshole. Not only did Elon
Musk install a new illuminated sign atop Twitter headquarters in
(29:22):
San Francisco without a permit, apparently, without sufficient support to
keep it from blowing over, apparently and in specific violation
of his lease on the building, but his people refuse
to let San Francisco building inspectors even see it over
the weekend. Not only did he do all that, but
he unsuspended the Twitter account of the anti semite and
(29:43):
lunatic Kanye West and gave Kanye West a verification badge,
claiming that his handle Yee yay Yee, is West's brand logo.
Now I'm genuinely confused. I thought the Nazi swastika was
Kanye West's brand logo. Elon Musk gotta be brain damaged.
(30:05):
Two days wist pleason. Ain't the world just ahead? I
need to correct a mistake I made here, and that,
in turn reminded me of yet another story from the
(30:26):
annals of MSNBC. Talk about mistakes. This one is from
nineteen years ago, and it seems way less believable today
than it did then. And by the way, it didn't
seem all that believable then. First time to feature another
dog in need you can help. Every dog has its
day to the high kill Shelter at DeVore, California, and Petros.
(30:48):
And Petros got there three weeks ago with a suspicious
neck injury. The injury is healed. He's great, so now
they may kill him because of overcrowding. Petros is an
absolutely one adorable lab Golden Retriever mix with a gigantic
tail wag, a huge but wiggle, and a big smile.
And he needs either a foster or adopter in southern
(31:09):
California or our pledges to help her rescue defray the
costs of getting him out of there in time. You
can find video of Petros on my Twitter feeds. Warning
he is unbelievably cute. Your pledges and your retweets are
gratefully accepted. Let's save him. Petros. Thanks you, and I
(31:30):
thank you finally to the number one story on the
Countdown and a correction. First Friday here, in bashing Senator
Tommy Tubberville about his claim that his father participated in
(31:51):
D Day, I said the Washington Post had found a
contemporary newspaper account that said Tubberville's father had been in
Europe since June seventh, nineteen forty four, when D Day
was June fifth, nineteen forty four. Of course D Day
was June sixth, nineteen forty four. So I was wrong,
and apparently so was Senator Tubberville about whether or not
(32:12):
his father was at D Day, and that in turn
reminded me of a story about covering D Day, so
to my favorite topic, me and things I promised not
to tell and D Day plus sixty. It was June sixth,
two thousand and four, and MSNBC's new president, Rick Kaplan
(32:35):
needed to make a mark on the network for his
new bosses, and he decided this was going to be
it on June sixth, two thousand and four, maybe the
last even numbered anniversary of D Day, where we'd have
a lot of people left who were there. We'd turned
the network all D Day. June sixth, two thousand and
four basically was going to be June sixth, nineteen forty four,
(32:57):
relived Tom Brokaw live on the visius of Normandy and
somebody there and Somebody here and his ma Ai too,
MSNBC news anchors, me and Lester Holt anchoring two hour
blocks devoted to the anniversary and then switching off and
he came back, and I would go away, and then
I'd come back and he would go just wal to Wall.
I'm Rick Kaplan, and I used to produce for Walter
(33:19):
Cronkite to not only lock in his new gig at MSNBC,
but set himself up for his next goal executive in
charge of the Today Show or NBC Nightly News, or
something bigger than that little crapshack we ran at MSNBC.
For my part, I was dispatched first to interview one
of the surprisingly large number of soldiers and sailors and
airmen who survived D Day and went on to fame.
(33:43):
There were actors Charles Derning and James Dewhan Scotty on
Star Trek, and the author J. D. Salinger and Seaman's
second Class Yogi Bearra. I met Yogi at his museum
in New Jersey, and I swear to God he and
his son demanded a friendly bribe to do the interview.
And what they wanted was my copy of the nineteen
(34:03):
sixty three Top's Yogi Bearra baseball card. Seriously, that's the
toughest one to find, Yogi said, we never have enough
of them here. I always enjoyed Yogi, but he had
more to say about his nineteen sixty three baseball card
and its relative scarcity than he did about the D
Day invasion, and his chief on his rocket launcher boat
(34:25):
telling him to keep his head down or he might
get to watch it fly off his neck. Anyway, the
Barre interview was fine, and it was done, and we
edited like fifteen very very short answers into about two
minutes of not bad narrative. And I had written a
couple of other D Day features and I'd written some
other scripts on Friday, and by Sunday we were all
crammed into the main MSNBC conference room in Secaucus, New Jersey,
(34:49):
everybody working a sixth day. And you would have thought
this guy, Rick Kaplan, president of the network, was leading
the actual invasion of Normandy, not merely a cable TV
network coverage of the sixtieth anniversary. Thereof Aaplin was waxing
poetic about how important this was for us and how
it would put us on the map against CNN and Fox,
(35:11):
and how he had covered all the contingencies. And that's
when people's phones started vibrating and ringing. Kaplan was still
enjoying the sound of his own voice as these phones
gradually drowned him out. When one of the producers finished
whispering into his BlackBerry and then said, excuse me, Rick,
we have a problem. Ronald Reagan has just died without
(35:32):
a word. Twenty people at that conference table rose and
then froze, realizing that before they abandoned this meeting to
go get on the air as quickly as possible, and
then to lay out what would be rolling coverage till
at least midnight of Reagan's death and life and reaction
to it till further notice. We couldn't just start. We
(35:53):
basically had to wait for the president of the network,
who was sitting there, Rick Kaplan, to say, Okay, we'll
figure out the D Day stuff later. It's Reagan day.
Let's go. Except he didn't say that, looking crestfallen, looking
like a kid who's had his toys stolen and then broken.
As he watched Rick Kaplan swept the room with his gaze,
(36:16):
he stopped on me, Thanks, couldn't we just uh, couldn't
we just do uh, half an hour of Reagan and
then half an hour of my D Day and then
half an hour And he trailed off and I said, Rick,
(36:37):
it's a two term president. I mean, I think he
was full of crap, But apparently a lot of American
thinks he's some sort of icon. And by the way,
it just it just happened like eleven minutes ago. It
didn't happen sixty years ago. I'm sorry. He was almost
literally pouting, but what about all my D day coverage
(37:01):
president of the network, And I said, well, we can
those pieces throughout the day tomorrow. They won't just disappear.
We don't have to go degous the tapes. Okay. We
realized that the president of the news network was not
going to be any use helping us cover the first
big breaking news story of his presidency because it couldn't
(37:22):
bear to change his plans to accommodate breaking presidential news.
This was at the end of month three of the
Rick Kaplan MSNBC presidency. He was already on the ropes
with us. He would later be the guy who chased
me around the studios because he was squeamish and I'd
mentioned blood on the air and he thought I was
(37:43):
trying to sabotage his great show with Rita Cosby. He
would soon be the network president who did not know
what was live on TV and what was on delay.
I'll tell you that story in a minute too. However,
the Rick Kaplan story starts in the men's room at MSNBC.
It is February seventeenth to thousand and four at one
(38:06):
of those moronic corporate speak town halls. The bosses have
just introduced Rick Kaplan as the new president of the network.
Kaplan speaks for an hour without interruption. He does not
mention that he was the president of CNN when it's
nineteen year streak at number one in the cable news
ratings came to an abrupt end. He does, however, mention
(38:26):
that he is six feet seven inches tall, but he
does not seem to be six feet seven inches tall.
As this nonsense ends, I rush into the men's room
and find, to my amusement, Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Jesse Ventura,
(38:48):
Lester Holt, and one unoccupied urinoll. As I moved to
occupy it, it dawns on me that Ventura, the former
professional wrestler, is the shortest man in the bathroom, at
six feet two. All five of us are silent. Finally,
Matthews says it, Helen Hell, can he say he's six
(39:08):
foot seven? He's barely taller than I am and I'm
six four? Oh man, are you slightly taller than me?
You're slightly shorter than me? How is he six seven?
Everybody keeps looking forward of course, into the wall in
front of us. I'm six three and a half laster.
He's your height. I saw you standing with him, you
tour even what are you six ' five? Lester says,
(39:30):
uh huh and flushes. Scarborough chimes in, I'm just olver
sixty four. We're almost dyed. Aye, he's not six seven. Finally,
Ventura speaks, I've been thrown around a ring by guys
who were six seven. This guy's not six seven. From
the sink, Lester Holt now says, have any of you
(39:50):
known anybody our height who lies and says they're taller?
Matthews again, who lies about their height? I flush? This
guy does. Gentlemen, we are in trouble here for the
presidency of Rick Kaplan at MSNBC. That might have been sorry,
I can't resist it the high water mark. Later, on Friday,
(40:14):
March fifth, two thousand and four, Kaplan, who had been
there three weeks, assembled the hosts and producers of the
primetime shows on the network that would have been me. Scarborough,
Dan abrams our staffs, the new Jersey staff of Chris
Matthews Show, and he told us that the next day
was going to be Monday. Somebody from Scarborough's staff helpfully
corrected him, mister Kaplan, I'm sorry, tomorrow is Saturday. Kaplan
(40:38):
sternly explained he was now president of this network and
we all sucked. And if he said today was Friday
and tomorrow was Monday, then today was Friday and tomorrow
was Monday. He wanted to see us react to sudden
changes in our plans. We were being told we were
being called into work a sixth day tomorrow for no reason.
(40:59):
Kaplan then started yelling at us, You guys don't get it.
You're all working tomorrow, but who doesn't come in is fired.
We are going to do the whole pro primetime lineup.
Your breaking news is today's breaking news, the guilty verdict
in the Martha Stewart case. Start booking your guests because
tomorrow is Monday, not Saturday. Just on my staff, Saturday
(41:21):
was supposed to be my reporter's engagement party, a surprise
party thrown by one of my producers for his wife's birthday,
and the day another producer was closing on buying a house.
I have a vague memory of what we put on
the air. I have a stronger memory of the new
president of MSNBC, losing the staffs of all four of
(41:42):
his primetime shows on his fifth day on the job
and never ever getting them back. Kaplan then went to
a corkboard on our office wall on which our show
Rundown was displayed. He ordered producers to move segments around,
and he berated me for not having anticipated his whims
and at one point he screamed, stop, what the hell
(42:02):
are you doing? And he got up and he grabbed
the pushpin, which held up an index card bearing the
name of a guest. You don't use green pins with
yellow index cards. You use yellow pins with yellow index cards.
What kind of a newsman are You can't imagine how
(42:22):
this guy choked away CNN's monopoly on cable news ratings.
I was reminded recently that later on December eighth, two
thousand and five, seventeen years ago tomorrow, he did one
of the most unintentionally funniest things I have ever witnessed.
A plane slid off the runway at Midway Airport in Chicago.
Nothing funny about that, obviously, but Kaplan called into our
(42:46):
control room demanding we changed something about our live coverage
that he didn't like. We promptly made the change. He
was right. Five minutes later he called in and started
swearing at one of our producers. I told you to
change that. F you, you're fired. And the producer said,
we changed it five minutes ago when you called in, silence, Rick,
(43:07):
are you watching the network on some sort of delay?
Are you watching on TVO or something? Silence again. Finally
he said, okay, good work, see you tomorrow and hung up.
He didn't know he was watching it on a delay.
Kaplan was also one of these forget the mean thing
I said yesterday. God knows I have kind of guys.
(43:29):
By Monday, he had heard people laughing at some of
my on air jokes and his front runner instincts took over.
He called me and the producer in for a meeting.
I have only one criticism of your show. Which of
these stories will you be talking about? Thing is genius?
The fifth story, the fourth story, then the third story.
It's original and fresh. I hesitated. I almost said to him, yeah,
(43:53):
this old counting thing. We just invented that. The music
is genius, the graphics are genius. You're a genius, but
you're missing something off meus, something genius. After each one
of these stories after you thank your guests, you should
do a list of the things you didn't tell us
about those stories. So like, after the fifth story, you
should say, now here are the other five things we
didn't tell you about the fifth story. Get it a
(44:14):
full screen graphic, and you telling people, And then four
things for the fourth story, and three for the third.
I thought for a moment, and I said, okay, but
what happens if we make those graphics up and then
a minute beforehand the guest brings up one of those
things we claim we didn't tell you. When he just
told you, we had lost Rick Caplan's attention by that point. Hmmm,
(44:37):
he grunted. For a second. I thought his eyes were
pointing outwards in different directions, but he snapped himself back
into this reality. Huh could happen? You'll figure it out anyway.
Too late to do it today, figure it out and
do it tomorrow. Thanks the producer. And I had to
then explain to the staff of Countdown that from now on,
for every story they had to deliberately leave out one
(45:00):
or two or three or four or five facts or details,
something interesting enough to be made into a full screen graphic,
but not interesting enough to be included in their scripts
or the interviews with the guests. Suddenly I thought a
lot of people's eyes were pointing outwards in different directions.
The line producer, Greg Kordick, who was in charge not
(45:21):
of content but of timing things and making sure things
like graphics got made, said, matter of factly, this will
add five hours to everybody's workday. And so it did.
After the next day's show and we listed the top
five things we didn't tell you about today's fifth story,
and the top four things we didn't tell you about
today's fourth story, etc. And we had to shorten all
(45:41):
the scripts and shorten each interview just to make room
for all of this extraneous crap. Greg, the producer, said,
people here will be quitting by Thursday and dying by Monday.
And I said, you're right. Plus it ruins the interviews
and it weakens the show. Don't do it tomorrow with Kaplan, yells,
I'll take the eight. So now it's Wednesday. And not
only don't I hear anything from Kaplan about the Tuesday
(46:03):
show and his the top five things we didn't tell
you about today's fifth story, Jazz, but after the Wednesday show,
when we don't do it. I'm sitting there waiting for
an enraged phone call because we didn't. Thursday morning at home,
I'm waiting for an enraged email. Thursday afternoon, I'm waiting
for an enraged Kaplin in person. Nothing. He never said
(46:24):
a word. The week passes nothing, a month, two months,
it's summer. Nothing. The rest of two thousand and four
flies by nothing. We did it once, we never did
it again, and then he never said anything. It is
now January two thousand and five, and he still hasn't
(46:46):
said anything. And I'm told by Phil Griffin, my first
producer in television sports and sixteen years later, my first
producer in television news, who has since become the vice
president of MSNBC, that Kaplain wants to see us in
his office. It's not a big deal, Phil says, he's
in a good mood. He just wants to make us
feel like we have input in to his decisions. This
is a what do you think meeting? Now, I have
(47:09):
to ask you to carefully picture the layout of Rick
Kaplan's office at MSNBC in the year two thousand and five.
Envision a long, narrow room. Baseball's MLB network now operates there,
and they have cleverly turned Kaplan's office into a wardrobe room,
perfect since it was really just a long closet. Anyways,
(47:30):
Rick Kaplan, who was six foot five but lied and
said he was six foot seven, sat at the very
back of this room. So you come in the front door,
you turn to your right, and maybe thirty thirty five
forty feet away from you, in the farthest corner, facing
his computer on his desk, flush against the left hand wall,
is the president of MSNBC. A few feet into the
(47:52):
room is where you sit. Halfway between these two points.
Against the right hand wall is where another executive can sit.
So Phil Griffin sits there. I'm just inside the door.
He is fifteen feet ahead of me to the right.
Rick Kaplan is thirty feet or forty feet ahead of
me to the left. Picture this carefully, the way these
(48:13):
chairs and desks are arranged. If you're me and Phil
Griffin is looking at you, Rick Kaplan can only see
the back of Phil Griffin's head and not his face.
If they are both looking at you, they cannot see
each other. Weird, seemingly trivial turned out to be essential.
(48:34):
We begin this meaningless meeting and talk about guests and graphics, fonts,
and Kaplan talks about how much the ratings have gone
up in his year as president. And finally, I say,
I do have one suggestion. I think the show is
going to be very successful, and I think if we
want to make any changes, we should make them now
before it becomes successful. And I say, I have never
(48:54):
heard anybody say they like the fifth story, fourth story,
third story stuff. If you want to continue the name
countdown because people know it by now, that's great, I guess.
But the five four three two one numbering is a
conceit and it's a lot of extra work for everybody,
and I think we should kill it now. Kaplan is aghast.
(49:17):
He is pale. He is not angry, he is just stunned.
But you can't do that. Five four three two one
is part of the reasons the ratings went up. The
ratings went up when I came up with the idea
of the top five things we didn't tell you about
today's top five stories, and the top four things we
(49:37):
didn't tell you about today's number four story, et cetera.
We can't stop that. That's why people watch. My idea
took me a split second to even remember what the
hell it was he was talking about. I had forgotten
the whole five things we didn't tell you Albatross weeks
after the one show we did it, and then the
(49:59):
staff rebelled and I said, screw it, and I'll take
the heat. And I was about to say this out
loud when I suddenly realized that Phil Griffin, fifteen feet
away on the right, his face turned to me and
thus invisible to Kaplan thirty feet away on the left,
was making his eyes as wide as possible, and Phil
was looking right at me and silently mouthing the word no, no, no, no, no,
(50:20):
all the while keeping his head completely still, so Kaplan
didn't know he was talking to me. Silently. I got
Phil's message. I dropped the subject. I didn't say it.
The meeting ended maybe two minutes later with Kaplan saying
keep up the good work, and ushering us out by saying,
and keep up with the top five things we didn't
(50:41):
tell you about today's five fifth story. Oh that's what's
making it really cook. When we were out of earshot
of Rick Kaplan, Griffin thanked me for being able to
read his panicked lips. I used an oath to liven
up my question? What the blank was that all about?
And Griffin said, now you know what every day of
(51:02):
my life has become. It's not worth the time to
try to correct him. He believes what he believes, and
he won't be checked or contradicted. And I said, we
only did the five things. We didn't tell you a
thing once, only once. It's like a year later. How
in the hell could he possibly think we're still doing it?
(51:23):
Griffin laughed, like a soldier on a World War One
battlefield who has just run out of bullets. See that's
the problem, buddy. He only watches MSNBC here in the office,
the place he's renting it doesn't have cable. President of
MSNBC doesn't have cable at home. On June sixth, two
(51:46):
thousand and six, they fired Rick Caplan as the president
of MSNBC. They let him resign. They also let him
keep his secret, the darkest of secrets for him and
for MSNBC, that, for his two years on the throne,
the president of an all news cable channel did not
have cable. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(52:20):
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits most of
the music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle, who are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanel, Guitars, bass
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the group
No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olderman theme
(52:42):
from ESPN two. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis
courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the
best baseball stadium organist ever. Guess what all of the
music appeared in today's show. Our announcer today was my
friend Jonathan Banks from Breaking Bad. Everything else is pretty
much my fault. Remember not only in this format. Countdown
(53:02):
is now also available on YouTube for those of you
who like the animated version of me. That's countdown for
this the nine hundred and thirty six days since Donald
Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of
the United States. Arrest him again while we still can.
The next scheduled Countdown is tomorrow. It will be our
first anniversary episode. Thus ends the first series Boltins as
(53:27):
the news warrants till then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
(53:50):
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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