December 19, 2022 • 56 mins
EPISODE 98: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: As Elon Musk votes himself off Twitter Island, the shocking news from The Washington Post: though the two things were unconnected and Musk irresponsibly blamed reporters and the Elon-Jet kid for something that none of us caused or even influenced and had happened two days EARLIER, the mother of two of his children, the singer Grimes HAS an alleged stalker and there was a confrontation last Tuesday. It wasn't our fault and incredibly Musk tried to argue the Elon-Jet kid down from $50,000 to $5,000 for his help. But as somebody who was himself stalked - for FIVE years - IN Los Angeles - by a woman who had the same kind of delusion about 'secret coded messages' from me that Grimes' alleged stalker claims about her, I feel nothing but empathy for Grimes and the kids and - even though Musk tried to humiliate me, mocked my efforts to save death row dogs, and literally told 120 million followers that I had committed a crime, I have empathy for him and would've helped if asked. WHY DIDN'T HE TELL US FIRST, OR EVEN EXPLAIN, INSTEAD OF SUSPEND, THREATEN, AND BULLY?
B-Block (22:51) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Violet in New York POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Criminal Referrals are coming; why Kari Lake must be arrested; Kyrsten Sinema to finance Independent Senate run by selling her old shoes IN SPORTS: Oh great, you decide the soccer championship of the world by a shooting competition. What a pathetic conclusion to a great tournament. The guy who caught Aaron Judge's homer auctions it for half what he would've gotten a month ago. THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Larry Elder invokes Mao, Musk, and Hitler, Marjorie Taylor Greene is back with a second reference to the sex toys for sale, and Chris Licht strikes back at me - and misses.
C-Block (37:11) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You have to admit, if you want to listen to somebody who's an expert on getting suspended - from Twitter or anybody else - I'M YOUR GUY. Where my top three suspensions rank (and the Twitter one doesn't make the cut). The sagas of MSNBC 2010, ESPN 1997, and UPI 1980.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The worst part of this week of Elon musk madness
(00:27):
is this, the mother of his children does have an
alleged stalker. There is a risk to her and the kids.
Musk could have gotten help from the media rather than
attack it and blame it. And he could have added
a level of privacy for her by giving the Elon
jet account kid an internship or a little more money.
(00:49):
But Musk apparently decided he was going to argue with
the kid over the price. And even though Elon Musk
suspended my Twitter account, subjected me to ridicule, mocked my
efforts to rescue dogs on youth and asial lists at
city pounds, and in front of an online audience of
as much as one and twenty million, literally accused me
(01:10):
of a crime. I am going to in large part
defend him or at least empathize with him. A stalker
can unhinge you. I know this, I had one for
five years. I was stalked in l a war on
(01:32):
that in a moment first on his status at Twitter,
Elon Musk has apparently voted himself off Twitter Island. They
say lawyers are often told to never ask a question
to which they do not know the answer. Well, Elon
Muski is not a lawyer, and unless he's lying, he's
not going to be the head of Twitter anymore either.
At six twenty p m. Eastern Time last night, hours
after he stood in a private box at the World
(01:54):
Cup in Doha next to Jared Kushner surrounded by unidentified
men in Middle Eastern Garb, hours after he posted new
rules essentially forcing users to choose between Twitter and Facebook
or most other social media sites, and then retracted those rules.
Hours after he lied about reinstating the accounts of at
least a dozen reporters and commentators myself included, Musk posted
(02:18):
yet another Twitter poll, Should I step down as head
of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
Within an hour and three million votes, Yes step Down
was cleaning the clock of No. Fifty eight percent to
forty two when voting crossed the eleven and a half
million level. A little after midnight Eastern Yes get Out
(02:42):
was still up fifty six to forty four. But of course,
if Mike pent stands up for the good of our
constitution and does the right thing, Musk can still win
the election. This all, of course, mainlines back to the
middle of last week, when Elon Musk lost his very
loose grip on both reality and himself, and went from
insisting he was such a free speech absolutist that he
(03:03):
would never even banned the account that tracked the whereabouts
of his plane, he went from that to actually banning it,
to promising to sue the kid who ran it, to
suspending half a dozen reporters who linked to the account
or merely referenced it, to suspending me for standing up
in solidarity with those reporters, to defaming all of us
by accusing us of doxing and then tweeting quote turns
(03:24):
out that's a criminal offense, and then suspending another phalanx
of anti Nazi and anti racism accounts, and finally suspending
the account of reporter Taylor Lawrence of The Washington Post
actor she tweeted asking him for comment on a story
that her paper was working on, and it turns out
that story seems to explain Lawrence's suspension and that of
(03:47):
her colleague Drew Harwell, and the entire crazy, panicky, disturbed
and disturbing insistence that merely reporting on the existence of
publicly available flight information was doxing, and maybe it explains
even the should I step down Twitter vote. Lauren and
Harwell wrote last night in The Washington Post that there
(04:08):
was quote a confrontation between a member of Elon Musk's
security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on
a Twitter account that tracted jet, but that it quote
took place at a gas station twenty six miles from
Los Angeles International Airport and twenty three hours after the
(04:29):
Elon Jet account had last located the jets whereabouts. Unquote.
The Post even got confirmation from the alleged stalker himself
that he believes the singer Grimes, the mother of two
of Musk's children, has been sending him coded messages in
her Instagram posts, and that he was indeed the person
(04:53):
who had encountered the Musk car last Tuesday, of whom
video was taken and promulgated on Twitter. The alleged stalker
is very real, and as somebody who not only had
a stalker over a span of five years, but lived
in southern California during most of that stalking, and who
got voicemails and letters from the woman constantly insisting that
(05:15):
I was sending her coded messages in my sportscasts. I
have nothing but empathy for Grimes, for Musk, and for
the kids. When you are being stalked, the seeming languid,
nous and indifference of the authorities, the hoops through which
they make you jump before they act, can be maddening,
(05:37):
and we need to support people who are being stalked
and those close to them in any way reasonably possible.
The power structure in Los Angeles often seems to the
stalking victim to be colluding with the stalker. The Los
Angeles Times itself once published details of a condo I
(05:59):
had bought. They gave everything but the street address itself.
They listed how many story worries tall, the building was,
its relative distance to area landmarks, enough clues that a
stalker could cut down the number of buildings I might
have bought in too, literally three or four in all
of southern California. But supporting the victims does not include
(06:23):
having to guess that there are victims, and it does
not require indulging the world's second most rich man and
owner of one of its most influential social media platforms,
as he condemns reporters and commentators and Twitter users and
innocent bystanders and god knows who else for providing quote
assassination coordinates when they when we did no such thing.
(06:49):
Scapegoating people who could have helped is nearly as indefensible
as stalking. What Musk was enraged about was not caused
by the account tracking his plane. It wasn't enabled by
any of the reporters writing about it. It happened two
days before anybody did write about it, And bluntly, if
Musk was willing to pay the kid who ran the
(07:10):
account five thousand dollars to stop it, but the kid
half seriously said how about fifty thousand or an internship
at SpaceX, and Musk said no. Then the outsider who
provided the most logistical help to the creature allegedly stalking
Grimes was not Jack Sweeney, and it wasn't Ryan McK
of The Times, and it wasn't Steve Herman of Voice
(07:31):
of America, and it wasn't Donnie O'Sullivan of CNN, and
it wasn't me, and it wasn't anybody else who was suspended.
The person who most helped the stalker was Elon Musk
if you are worth the hundred and sixty three billion
dollars and fifty thousand bucks can buy you more safety,
you do not turn it down because you think it
is only worth five thousand bucks. Are you crazy? And
(07:56):
still I have empathy for him, and especially for Grimes,
and especially for the children I have been there. And
of course maybe Musk is not actually worth a hundred
and sixty three billion dollars. After posting his poll, Musk
had an exchange with a sock puppet friend named Lex Friedman.
Friedman wrote, fun suggestion, Elon Musk, let me run Twitter
(08:20):
for a bit, no salary, all in focus on great
engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world.
Just offering my help in the unlikely case it's useful.
Musk replied, you must like pain a lot. One catch.
You have to invest your life savings in Twitter and
it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since.
(08:41):
May still want the job end quote, and the newspaper
of The Financial Times also had reported that quote. The
head of Elon Musk's family office approached Twitter's shareholders on
Thursday afternoon. According to two people familiar with the matter,
He offered new shares in the company at fifty four
hours and twenty cents each, the same price Musk paid
(09:03):
to take the company private to try and raise new
funds as the social media company continues to bleed cash
and faces heavy interest payments on its debts. This while
significant stakeholders in Musk's Tesla company argued with him on Twitter,
claiming he had erased six hundred billion dollars worth of
Tesla wealth as the stock fell another four point seven
(09:26):
percent to a hundred and fifty dollars to share Friday,
and the third largest investor, Leo Cogwan, wrote, quote, Elon
abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO. Tesla needs
and deserves to have working full time CEO. What Tesla
B O D should do Nothing. Elon is a mere
hired hand. He is our employee. Unquote Elon Musk's behavior
(09:51):
since he bought Twitter, and especially since last week contemporaneous
with the confrontation with the alleged stalker of Grimes, has
created remarkable upheaval. Musk thought he could shut down all
discussion of where his jet was and why. Instead, his
efforts created the so called streisand effect, a spilled out
(10:12):
version of the link to the elon jet at the
website Mastodon got me suspended, but screenshots of that spelled
out version and of actual links got more engagement across
Twitter than a tweet, or a dozen tweets, or a
hundred tweets, or a news story ever could. Musk thought
the right wing crowd he has been courting would rally
(10:33):
to his side and crushed the news media he irrationally
blamed for this. In fact, Barry Weiss, one of his
Twitter files Flunkey's, attacked him. The old regime at Twitter,
She wrote, governed by its own whims and biases, and
it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem.
I opposed it in both cases. Musk promptly unfollowed her.
(10:55):
Musk thought he could squelch coverage. Then the digital director
of the European Union threatened sanctions, including revoking Twitter's right
to operate there. A bright Bart news editor protested my
suspension on principle. He wrote back, seven days suspension for
doxing sometime away from Twitter is good for the soul
and looked like a lunatic. He mocked my use of
(11:18):
my shelter dog saving account to distribute the video promos
for this podcast. His tweet and others by right wing
trolls gave those videos roughly two hundred times their normal
daily reach. Outside of the fringes. Only one organization gave
him any support when we all might have. NBC News did,
(11:39):
of course, it suspended its tech reporter Ben Collins for
being too editorial in a commentary when he said that
it seemed like Musk was trying to destroy Twitter. Musk
also insisted the media was giving away assassination coordinates and
Seth Meyers show writer sal Genteel mocked him by writing,
(12:00):
hard to believe there was once a time when they'd
send a big yellow book to everyone's house listing yours
and everyone else's assassination coordinates. Ultimately, this is about Elon
Musk and his inability to effectively interact with other human
beings in retrospect. From the beginning of this, I think
(12:22):
he truly believed that because the mother of his children
was being stalked, that the Elon jet account had caused that,
and that everybody would agree with him, and that the
account was the definition of doxing, and that everybody would
agree with him, and that anybody who reported on it
or included the disconnected link to the Elon jet account
(12:42):
was doxing, and that everybody would agree with him, and
that he was right and everybody else was wrong, and
that everybody would agree with him. And ultimately that led
to this Twitter poll about stepping down his head of
Twitter because he has to be right and that everybody
would agree with him. And we know this because in
the hours after he suspended all of us Thursday night,
Elon Musk could not resist the temptation to join one
(13:05):
of these Twitter spaces audio conversations, along with a bunch
of actual reporters, including at least one of the suspended ones,
Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, who just co authored
the heart stopping story of Grimes as Stalker. The audio
of these things usually remain available forever, but this one
disappeared within minutes. In fact, all Twitter spaces were disabled
(13:28):
until the next day. Happily others recorded it. It is
apparent from the beginning that Elon Musk was astonished that
everybody did not agree with him, and was astonished that
he was expected to say anything other than dosing is doxing?
No special treatment, ban evasion is evading bands and the word. Obviously,
again and again, Musk could produce only tautologies. You know,
(13:54):
this is the definition of doxing, because doxing is defined
as doxing. The host was named Katie Monopolis from BuzzFeed.
In the last few hours with a handful of journalists
being banned, yeah, well, as I'm sure everyone who's been
(14:16):
docks and I would agree, you know, uh, showing real
time information about somebody's location is inappropriate, and I think
everyone on this call would not like that to be
done put to them. And and there's not going to
be any distinction in the theater between journalists, So both
journalists and and regular people, everyone's going to be treated
the same. They're not special because you're a journalist, You're
(14:39):
you're just your Twitter you're inser citizen. Um, So no
special freeman. Um, docks your dogs, you get suspended in
a story. Um. Remember, Musk had tweeted that his commitment
to free speech was such that he would never even
try to ban the original elon Jet account that showed
(14:59):
where his plane had just flown. Yet suddenly elon Jet
was dosing him. People who tweeted the dead link, we're
doxing him. Anybody who reported on others tweeting the dead link.
We're dosing him and anybody evading his ban was doxing
him so and and and gnovasion banovasion, or like or
(15:20):
trying to be clever about it, like, oh, I posted
a link to the real side information is obviously uh,
that is obviously simply trying to evade the meaning that is,
there's no different from heaven paste than actually showing real
time information. But what Musk just said there was he
In essence, there's no difference between posting real time information
(15:41):
about his whereabouts or his kids where Grimes is whereabouts,
and not posting real time information about his whereabouts or
his kids where Grimes is whereabouts, instead of saying something
like this is not literally true. But to my mind,
there is no difference. Or Heaven forbid telling us why
he was so out of control about the incident with
the car two days before any of the articles or
(16:03):
links appeared. Why not share it with us. Musk's problem,
I believe, is it cannot just be his opinion. He
cannot ask for help, he cannot possibly not know everything.
What he says must be accepted as fact. Philip Bump
of a Washington Post wrote, the whereabouts of somebody's playing constitutes,
(16:26):
as must describe it, assassination coordinates only if you operate
a Patriot missile battery. But back to the Twitter space
and the word obviously, you consider that like a tricky
attempt at ban evasion, you show the links to the
real time information ban evasion. Obviously. Of course it wasn't
(16:46):
obviously if he had told us, it might have been. Obviously.
The breaking point on Thursday night for Musk was when
one of the members of our suspension Club, Harwell of
The Washington Post, pointed out that to suppress publicly available
information legal publicly available information about flights and airplane locations.
(17:08):
To do that, Elon Musk had used the same process
editorially and technically that he had just criticized in the
so called Twitter files coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
What is different here, and it's no more acceptable for
me for you, that is for me the same thing.
(17:29):
So anyway, so it's unacceptable what you're doing. No what
your ducks. You get suspended and the story. That's it.
And nobody there realized Musk meant that's it. Literally. Back
to Katie Monopolis of BuzzFeed, who within minutes would find
herself banned from Twitter spaces. It's highly unusual for journalists
(17:52):
at the Washington Post in the New York Times to
be how their Twitter counts suspended, And it just so
happens that it's you know, the boss in charge. You know,
uh so, you know, what's a deal there? I think
I think Ellen has has left. You bet your asses left.
And instead of getting help or at minimum support and
(18:15):
empathy from reporters and commentators and other people like me
and other stalking victims like me, he made enemies and
damaged reputations and threatened us with prosecutions. And he left
me talking to my lawyer as late as last night
about whether or not it was a good idea to
sue him for defamation, and through all that, because I
(18:38):
have been there and have been unhinged, not nearly as
unhinged as he has been through all that, I would
still help him if he asked. God damn, it still
(19:05):
ahead and we will find out today if the January
six Committee will recommend criminal charges for Trump. It looks
like yes, it looks like three of them. It looks
like insurrection is included. A catch Aaron Judge Record Baseball
be turned down. Three million dollar offer four Aaron Judge
Record Baseball. See auction off Aaron Judge Record Baseball d
(19:26):
get winning bit of half what you were offered for
Aaron Judge Record Baseball e change name to wild Coyote
super genius. And how many media people do you know
who can say I have been suspended by Twitter and
that suspension does not even make it into my list
(19:47):
of the top three times I have been suspended. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman still ahead,
(20:08):
Chris licked Kirsten Cinema and my favorite three times I
was suspended. Now that's what I call a theme show.
All of it about knee first. In each edition of Countdown,
we feature a dog in need you can help. Every
dog has its day back to New York and the
pound and the generous offer from Elaine Boosler to cover
standard adoption expenses for a year if you save a
(20:31):
dog off the kill list. Here, Violet was abandoned in
the hallway of a building in New York. Has only
been at the pound for a week, yet she is
already on tomorrow's euthanasia list. Thirty nine pounds and terrified,
but okay with older kids. Some training should save her,
So pledges to defray a rescues expenses would probably be
(20:52):
the best idea. You can find Violet on my Twitter feeds.
While the one that Musk didn't suspend, the other one
is at Tom Jumbo Grumbo, the one Musk mocked because
he doesn't have a thought in his head that isn't
about himself. You do, please help us save Violet at
Heathlverman's Dogs on Twitter, I thank you and Violet thanks you.
(21:27):
Postscripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Date Line, Washington. The January six Committee meets
Monday afternoon to vote to recommend that the Department of
Justice pursue at least three criminal charges against Trump for insurrection,
for conspiracy to defraud the government, and for obstruction of
an official proceeding. No, it does not matter legally. Yes,
(21:50):
it is hugely important symbolically, and it will crystallize in
the minds of a lot of unengaged citizens just how
serious this really is. But most importantly, it is a
giant post it note stuck on the foreheads of Attorney
General Garland and Special counsel Smith. Ignore these crimes at
your risk and at the risk of the democracy. Dateline Marilago.
(22:14):
Trump's worst enemy continues to undermine him. That would be Trump.
He has now posted about the FBI and the Department
of Justice that quote, these weaponized thugs and tyrants must
be dealt with, dealt with. On a lighter note, it
turns out those Trump n f T trading cards with
the images of him in a cowboy outfit with horses
(22:36):
and the distance behind him having sex. The images were
lifted from stock image catalogs. Several still have the water
marks on them. Cheap is as cheap does. Speaking of which,
dateline Phoenix. Also speaking of insurrection, it is getting out
of hand in Arizona. The losing candidate for governor, the
(22:56):
washed up newscaster Carrie Lake, is now openly threatening insurrection
and the government, state or federal needs to indict and
arrest her immediately. This was carry Lake approaching Elon Musk
levels of disconnection from reality at the fascist turning point.
Us a rally in Phoenix yesterday. They are daring us
(23:18):
to do something about it. Let me tell you what
I'm gonna do. They have built a House of Cards
here in Maricopa County. I think they're all wondering what
I'm gonna do. I'll tell you what. I'm not just
(23:38):
gonna knock that house of cards over. We're gonna burn
it to the ground. She kept talking, but by that
point she'd move the mic away from her mouth and
nobody could hear her. So knocking over Maricopa County and
then burning Maricopa County to the ground. Arrest Carry Lake?
(23:58):
Now are we wondering what Carry Lake is gonna do? Now? Well,
I'm not about sure about that, Kerry. I'd say, we
know what you're going to do. Now, I'd say you're
gonna do twenty to life dateline. Phoenix Senator Kyrston Cinema
has filed paperwork to run for re election in as
an independent. Remember, her plan is to blackmail the Democrats
(24:19):
into not putting anybody up against her, or she will
proceed and split the vote. But at least we know
how she's going to finance her campaign. It has now
been confirmed the Kirston Cinema on Facebook marketplace selling used
bike gear and her old clothes and shoes. Is the senator?
(24:40):
Before you ask, good news, you can relax. You don't
have to worry about her selling those sort of things.
What do I mean, Well, when we went out, she
told me she was a newist. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(25:10):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
Soccer's World Cup goes to Argentina. Even though Buffet of
France scored a hat trick and won the Golden boot
as tournament m v P while Leonel Messi of Argentina
produced two goals, the awards decisions yes, this is a
(25:32):
messy production the game, and thus the world title was
decided on a shootout, which Argentina won four to two
shootout rather than say overtime like every other sport in
the world would play for its championship. Because soccer is
not a real sport, A shootout a bunch of guys
taking the shot one at a time, like at the
(25:53):
end of a regular season National Hockey League game while
most of the fans are filing out as if you
were to decide the seventh game of the World Series
tied three three after nine by stopping the game and
then seeing which of two pitchers could pick off the
most base runners, or if a Super Bowl was tied
thirty nine thirty nine after regulation, and it went not
(26:14):
to overtime, but instead to a competition for the longest
punts a shootout. Soccer the sport of the future here
in America, always has been, always will be on. Everybody
Rest up now, because it's now the soccer off season,
which lasts until next Monday, when Brentford hosts taught New Matsburgh.
(26:38):
But to be fair, there is not another championship, at
least until the English Football League plays for the Papa
John's Trophy exactly three months from today. If they're tied,
that game will be decided by a round of rock
paper scissors. It's the World's game. NFL. After Minnesota's record
breaking comeback Saturday, down thirty three nothing at halftime, win
(26:59):
thirty ninety six in overtime against Indianapolis, the Las Vegas
Raiders led the New England Patriots seventeen to three at
the half. Yesterday, the Pats scored twenty one unanswered points.
It was tied at twenty four. New England ran a
wacky package of laterals in hopes of avoiding overtime, but
the Patriots Jacoby Myers through it directly to the Raiders
(27:20):
Chandler Jones for the game losing touchdown. That is what
you're good for being named after an injury law firm baseball,
the Aaron Judge Baseball. His sixty second home run was
auctioned Saturday night for one and one half million dollars.
The fan who caught it, Corey Yeoman's, had turned down
a private offer of three million dollars for it. Corey
(27:43):
is an investment broker, or at least he was. Thank you,
Nancy Faust and a baseball free agent signing. ESPN reporting
the Boston Red Sox signed thirty eight year old x
l A Dodger infielder Justin Earner for eleven million a
(28:06):
year for two years. It's not for me to question
the wisdom of the last place team in the American
League East, but the Dodgers did pay Turner two million
dollars last month just so they did not have to
keep him and pay him sixteen million next year. My
(28:29):
top three suspensions of all time. The Twitter thing does
not make the cut. Coming up in Things I Promised
not to tell. First, the daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. Lebronze Larry Elder, they laugh out loud,
funny without knowing it, right winger and former candidate for
(28:52):
governor of California. No, seriously, he spied the drama fire
on Twitter and hurried down to the Chevron for extra
gas courting Larry Elder. If Adolph Hitler mout say tongue
and Emil and Musk were walking down the street and
you gave an American lefty a gun with two bullets,
he'd put both in elon Musk gross enough by itself,
(29:14):
but then Musk replied and miss both times. Funny dog.
One thing. Musk never objected to the image of him
walking down the street with Hitler and Mao. The runner
up Marjorie Trailer Park Green again. Do you remember this
from her? I would have won January sixth speech. Yes,
(29:43):
we moved from Target and CBS to Walmarch Marjorie Trailer
Park Green riding on Trump's website. Walmart, many of your
customers in my district are reaching out to me about
sex toys being sold in your Dalton store. Yes, it
was customers who reached out to Marge. It's not her
(30:04):
just because she knows that all the sex toys are
being sold at these three stores and where in the stores.
To resume the quote, They're extremely upset and absolutely hard
find that sex toys are being sold openly right next
to children's toothbrushes. This is grooming. Well it's not grooming,
(30:24):
but that's not the point. See what Marge is actually
upset about is she's offended by the presence of toothbrushes
in her sex toy aisle clean up on Aisle seven.
But our winner Chris Licked, chairman and chief executive officer
of CNN Worldwide, who when we were at MSNBC together,
(30:45):
I thought used to eat paste. Big New York Times
profile yesterday, in which Licked spent about twenty paragraphs emphasizing
that he's the real victim here and insisting that when
Stephen Colbert tried to talk him out of taking the
CNN job, he told Colbert, no, this is a calling.
Let me read your paragraph ten of the article by
(31:06):
James B. Steward at The Times quote. A chorus of
media pundits has pounced on every tidbit of bad news.
Mr Licht's early programming efforts aimed at repositioning the network
as broader and less partisan, have prompted howls of criticism,
Oh of criticism, with former MSNBC host and former colleague
(31:31):
Keith Olberman publicly calling Mr Licht a quote TV fascist
after he moved Don Lemon, a liberal host, from a
primetime slot to a revamped morning show. How of criticism,
to which Licked answered, quote the uninformed vitriol, especially from
the left has been stunning. Dude, we worked in adjoining
(31:56):
offices for like four years. Mine is thoroughly informed vitriol.
But seriously, and let me just turn the music down
just for a second here. Seriously, Chris, for the sake
of the fact that I used to work at CNN,
and someday, very soon, you too will also be able
to say that you used to work at CNN. May
(32:18):
I offer helpful vitriol, Chris Licked? Maybe just hear me out.
Maybe you should post a Twitter poll that reads, should
I step down his head of CNN? I will abide
by the results of this pole, Chris, What do you
mean nobody voted no Licked Today's worst person? How the
(32:42):
betrill in the world to the number one story on
the Countdown? And my favorite topic, me and things I
promised not to tell, and I knew that someday this
(33:04):
would come in handy. I mean, how many people do
you know who are involved in the apartheid Clyde drama
at Twitter? Who can say to you, ah, I know,
this doesn't even make my list of my top three suspensions.
I mean, the thing with Muscus just stupid. It is
defamatory and it's CD, but it's not dramatic because each
(33:29):
time he tweets something else, it gets more and more
stupid and less and less connected to reality. And trust me,
the main storyline with my suspension by Twitter is not
my suspension with Twitter. It's the psycho drama going on,
the arguments among the many voices inside Elon Musk's head
(33:50):
for real drama and thus real fun. I give you
up I, ESPN and MSNBC two thousand and ten. Which
of these suspensions will you be talking about? Sorrow? So
my third favorite suspension in the countdown up I United
pres International, whose radio network was called up I Audio,
(34:13):
where I broke in as a full time broadcaster summer nine.
The sports director Sam Rosen still the voice of the
New York Rangers on television. Was half listening to an
audition tape of my college broadcasts with me in the
room with him in March of that year, and then
Sam suddenly was completely listening to it. He stopped the
tape and he said to me, you do this every day.
(34:35):
I nodded, and he said, six months ago, first opening here.
In seven years. We listened to two hundred tapes. The
guy we hired, his tape wasn't half as good as yours.
Great feeling and a terrible one at the same time.
But four months later, on the second of July, their
senior sportscaster quit effective in two weeks. Because the holiday
(34:57):
was a Wednesday, July four, they had no chance to
hire somebody who already had a job, or anybody who
didn't already live in New York. An entire week of
interviewing and choosing was lost to the calendar. I had
graduated a month before, and the phone rang at my
folks house in the suburbs, and stand Sabik, who ran
the radio network, asked, tired of sitting around the town
(35:19):
pool yet? I said, yes, be here Thursday at noon.
You're hired. And I'm mentioning him for a reason which
we will find out in just a moment. Now. It
did not hurt that up I was a union shop
and the union paid based on experience, and because I
had been a stringer four u p I, I was
granted sixteen days of experience. Thus they could pay me
(35:41):
sixteen thousand, five hundred and twenty eight dollars for my
first year rather than just sixteen thousand, five hundred. By
the following September, when I was twenty one years old,
up I had already had me joined Rosen and Sabik
covering the nineteen eighty Lake Plastic Winter Olympics, and had
America not boycotted the Summer Games that year, I would
have gone to Russia to cover the Summer Games nineteen
(36:03):
eighty alone. I still remember filling out the Soviet questionnaire,
and in particular one question what size boat deck shoe
is applicant wearing? Expected as it was, they were sending
me to cover in the World Series by myself in
a few weeks. As this story unfolds, which was pretty cool,
(36:25):
I had also been written up already in Sports Illustrated
because I had begun to collect recordings of athletes who
continually said, you know, during their answers. I made it
into a contest most you knows by an athlete per second.
This is also relevant to the story. The Canadian broadcasting
companies Radio Network read this thing in Sports Illustrated, and
they called me if I could do a long interview
(36:46):
with them and play a couple of the clips. Stand Sabic,
my boss's boss, said yes to the interview, but note
of the clips. We paid five dollars each for those,
he said, in complete seriousness. I said that was silly,
and Stan laughed, and I laughed, and he said that's silly.
And the answer still know that was Stan. One afternoon,
(37:08):
the Canadian producer called again to see if I could
persuade them to run the clips or otherwise they might
have to cancel the interview. As I was talking to him,
Stan Sabik walked past the desk I was sitting at.
He was in a bad mood about something else, and
he also heard things wrong and jumped to the wrong conclusion.
He decided that I was promising the Canadians the clips
(37:29):
when I was only promising them, and I would ask
him again. So now Stan yelled at me for real.
Now I had had three interviews with other potential employers
in Boston and New York in the preceding three months.
And while I was grateful to Stan and Sam and
U p I, I was making exactly five dollars a
month more than I was spending, even while on a
(37:50):
strict budget, and they were treating me pretty rough. So
I was ready to leave you, p I, and so
I yelled back at Stan. Finally I realized in the
midst of this yelling that Stan had misunderstood what had happened.
Why are you yelling at me? Yelled? I didn't promise
them the tape. I promised them I'd ask you again
about the tape. Stand calmed down just enough, but he
(38:11):
was still very loud when he said, okay, Christ Sorry,
why didn't you say that earlier? Last thing I ate
is a screaming match with you. You're louder than I am.
And he walked away, laughing. I did not know where
he went. Turned out he was going down to take
a walk on Fort Street to cool off, but before
he could get to the elevator, his boss yelled out
(38:34):
from his office at Stand. His boss was the general
manager of the network, Frank Shortino, and Frank had just
gotten back from lunch, and at lunch Frank never had
anything to eat, if you get my drift, but that
he was all that yelling about sabic stand started to explain,
but once he mentioned my name, Frank Shortino shot past
(38:54):
him and went to find me. Frank was about twice
my age, and bluntly that fact piste him off. He
found me in the splain small editing room where Sam
rose and had listened to my tape in March the
previous year, and Frank actually grabbed me by the shoulder.
You you don't give no lip to no managers. You
pack your stuff up and get the hell out of you.
(39:15):
You're fighted. After I recovered from the contact, high off
the alcohol on his breadth, I found myself starting to
lunge towards him. Frank was doubt was a better fighter
than I would be, but I was half a foot
taller and I was ready to go. I stopped myself
in lest time than it took to read this sentence,
and I walked past him, got my stuff and went home.
(39:39):
And as I wondered where I would get the October
rent from the phone rang it was Sam Rosen. Don't
do anything, just be cool, the union will never let
this happen. I was astonished. Really, yeah, the the wire
Guild is useless about money, but job insecurity. Please, he
can't fire you because he doesn't like you, because you're
one and I don't know if you're noticed. But he
(40:00):
was drunk, Sam paused, I mean even for him, he
was drunk. Just stay cool. I had the next two
days off anyway, so there wasn't much else for me
to do but stay cool. The phone rang early on Tuesday,
and it was the union shop steward. They had just
had their third hearing about me, and he wanted to
report that I had not been fired, that I had
(40:22):
been suspended, but then I should report to work as
scheduled on Thursday, and that while u p i S
personnel director was going to write a warning letter to
put in my file about the argument with Stan Sabic,
and write another letter that would go into Shortino's file too.
They had managed to compromise about something crucial. They insisted
you had to be punished in some way. The shop
(40:44):
steward said, so Monday, when you got fired, you will
be considered suspended but paid for that day, but it
will be counted against you. As a day off. Best
I could do, I laughed. I was grateful. Wait there's more,
he said. You should know that the human resource guy
sent Shortino home Monday afternoon for being drunk at work,
(41:04):
for firing you without cause. He's also being charged with
the day off. Now that was a great suspension. The
second best suspension I've ever had was one I've already
mentioned here previously. In two thousand and ten, for the
third consecutive time I anchored the elections for MSNBC. We
were focused that year entirely on the Senate and the
(41:26):
governor's races. That made no sense to me, but I
didn't make that call, but it had been the plan
also since our first meeting about election night, which had
happened in August or September. Don't discuss the House, or
for that matter, the Rand Paul blowout win for the
Senate in Kentucky. So I was at the anchor desk
for the mid terms, and in seven or eight hours
on the year, I did not mention one House race
(41:49):
or candidate. Everything was fine. MSNBC had its best election
night ratings ever. And then somebody called one of the
political websites to say, who Alverman made campaign donations to
some Democrats in the House races and did that Democratic
senator race in Kentucky. And they called NBC public Relations,
and NBC public Relations called the president of MSNBC, and
(42:10):
he called me in my car on the way home
from the show, and I said, yeah, that's true. A
friend of mine asked me to donate to those three
campaigns because their candidates had received death threats a lot
of them, and each of them had gone into debt
buying extra security. One of them was the campaign of
Congresswoman Gabby Gifford's and the friend who convinced me to
(42:30):
donate to her campaign and to try to buy off
some of her security debts was Arizona State Representative Kirsten Cinema.
So the MSNBC president, who didn't know those details, said,
this looks bad. I know it's your right to do it.
It's not like we're gonna suspend you or anything stupid
like that, and and this is sort of our fault too,
(42:50):
but it just looks bad. Can can you say something,
anything you can do? And I said, yeah, it does
look bad. You're right, I'll apologize on the show tomorrow.
And I know I don't have to. I'll voluntarily stop
any campaign contributions as long as I'm doing the newscast
or the show or the anchoring of the elections or whatever.
(43:11):
Let me think about it. And he said great, and
I said great. And he asked me about the Mets.
And I went home and wrote the apology that night
and I sent it to him and he said that's great,
and I said great. And I said, also, it's great.
I already have part of tomorrow show written. And that
was it. The next morning, without a hearing, without a
phone call, without an email, without any warning, his boss,
(43:34):
the president of NBC News, this hysterical teenager disguised as
an adult named Steve Cappus. Steve Cappus puts out a
press release in which he angrily suspends me indefinitely without
pay and specifies it is for violations of the NBC
News Employee rule Book. The NBC News employee rule book
(43:58):
says NBC News employees cannot make donations to political campaigns.
NBC had a huge problem that Steve Kappus did not
know or intentionally had forgotten Number one. Within hours, there
was a petition on social media demanding my reinstatement two
hundred and fifty thousand signatures. Then NBC tried to get
(44:21):
Chris Hayes to fill in for me that night. I
have a lot of problems with Chris's work since then,
but to his eternal credit in my book, he refused
to sit in for me. He was not under contract then,
and he told the MSNBC management that suspending me was
stupid and unjustified. Even people at Fox News went on
the air that night and said this is absurd. I
(44:43):
believe one of the quotes was, are we supposed to
be surprised Keith Alderman is a Democrat? And is he
not allowed to donate because he does a liberal commentary
show on a liberal network. Well what they didn't know, though,
was at NBC there was a lot of shushing and
worrying because everybody at NBC News made political donations. They
(45:05):
just hid them by donating in their wife's name or
the kid's name or whoever. I was the only one
who had ever been honest about it. But this guy
Cappus dug in and demanded that I'd be suspended for
a month without pay at least. And all this was
public and well documented and the next thing I knew,
that petition was disseminated on of all places, Twitter, two
(45:29):
signatures before nightfall. What everybody did not know was the
part that occurred inside thirty Rock. That afternoon, NBC lawyers
called up this kid, Steve Campus, and said, as I
was told, you, idiot, have you ever read his contract?
You suspended him for violating the NBC News employee rule book. Listen,
(45:52):
Moron Alderman is not an NBC News employee. We wrote
the contract, so it specifically declares several different times, on
several different pages, that he is not an employee, that
he's an independent contractor. Remember, and now Cappus screams at
the lawyers and he says, why did you do that?
(46:14):
And the lawyers say, we did that us, And you
remember you told us that we should do that so
you could save money from your news budget, because if
Keith wasn't an NBC News employee, you would not have
to pay him health insurance and dental. Apparently. There was
(46:36):
then a very long silence, followed by the repeated use
of the phrase breached the contract, and the lawyers saying
there were now four options for Cappus, one reinstate the
non employee immediately and hope we don't get sued by
him to reinstate the non employee, immediately, apologize and write
(46:56):
a new contract. Three end the show, pay the non
employee the fifteen or sixteen million dollars you owe him
for the remainder of the contract, and hope we don't
get sued for damages beyond that. Or four, throw a
lot of money in the air at him and negotiate
a settlement and end the show in the short term.
(47:18):
What happened was they told me on a Friday I
was suspended. On Tuesday, I was back on the air,
and just like at U P I, they couldn't even
dock my pay or charge me days off for Friday
or Monday. I got a four day weekend morons, making
this even wilder. Hours after I was non suspended, Al
(47:42):
Gore called me. Al owned a struggling TV network called Current,
and he said, what NBC doing is illegal, and if
you suthe them, you could own the place. But I
think I have a better idea that can be the
start of something big. Bring countdown to Current TV. We'll
give you fifty million dollars plus bonuses, plus a piece
of the network, you'll be an owner. Well, that didn't
(48:07):
work out from a programming sense, kind of worked out
from a money sense. Anyway, years later, I was talking
to the new owners of NBC Comcast about going back there,
and their head of All News division said, yeah, Cappus.
I had to fire him, she said, after he told
me to my face he would never take orders from
a woman. So that's two of them. That still is
(48:30):
not my favorite suspension. This one is in the spring
of nine, a book about Sports Center that Dan Patrick
and I had written came out, and the publicists asked
us to get written approval and permission from ESPN that
we could promote the booking almost any fashion other than
like appearing on other TV sports shows. The executive vice
(48:51):
president of the ESPN, Howard Kats, was great about it.
He wrote a memo, he signed it, he had the
head of human resources sign it, and off we went
with permission to promote the show anyway we needed to.
And Cray Kilborn, who used to share the desk with
me and the computer because it was two sportscasters per
(49:12):
computer in those days. Kilborn had just recently left ESPN
to become the first host of the Daily Show on
Comedy Central. He asked me to come on with him
to promote the book. He told me we would pre
tape the interview then they'd run it in a week
or so, so I had some time before then. I
had to warn ESPN that the interview was coming. We
(49:33):
went out to dinner afterwards, and that same night, to
my shock, the interview ran on the show and I
called Kilborn back up, and he said the guest for
tonight show bailed out Saren Kal In the interview Kilborn
and remember this is a comedy show. He gave me
his standard stick, this five question quiz, and one of
(49:54):
the questions was and he said, this one is the
most gun Fransinkan town on the East coast. Craig had
not left ESPN happily, and hey did every minute of
it to such a degree that he made me look
like a big, big loyal fan. So, of course, to
him being on his comedy show, I answered the question
(50:14):
when is the mouse gone? For Sankin town on the
East coast with Bristol, Connecticut, I didn't really feel that way.
Of course, Bristol was remote and a little grim, and
boy didn't get out of snow. But it was a
pleasant enough place, and I always been treated well there
by the natives, and even I recognized that if I
had had a family, it would have been a great
(50:36):
place to live, and still is. What I had said
was obviously a joke. This is not, however, how the
local newspaper viewed it. They put it on page one
with a color picture of me and a five column
headline like ESPNS Alderman Semicolon Bristol, most godforsaken town on
(50:57):
East Coast. When I got back from my time off
there a day or two later, boss has called me
into the office of the vice president in charge of
Sports Center, man named John Walsh. And John Walsh accused
me of going on Killborn show without permission, and I
handed him the note his boss had written for me
about promoting the Sports Center book. John Walsh was very
(51:18):
surprised by that note. Well, he finally said, there's also
this other matter of these recordings you made for Major
League Baseball without our authorization. Now that stumped me for
a second. I didn't know what he meant. Then I remembered,
and I said, the public service announcements, the ones they're
running on the stadium scoreboards in like four or five
(51:39):
of the ballparks, the ones that are against chewing tobacco.
The public service messages that I voiced against cancer, and
Walt said, yes, that's what I mean. They were going
to suspend me for doing them without permission. The next
forty eight hours was basically just me pleading with everybody
(52:00):
I knew in management to not reveal that they were
suspending me for doing anti cancer public service announcements. I said,
either don't mention the cancer part, or don't say it's
a suspension. Say it's a vacation. You and I can
talk about it as a suspension, but don't tell anybody
about it being suspension, because otherwise you're gonna look kind
(52:23):
of stupid and far worse than that. You were going
to look. How can I phrase this? You're going to
look like you are pro cancer. Sure enough, they suspended
me and announced it with pay, but they charged me
the two weeks vacation time, which was fine because I
was leaving anyway. And every newspaper in America fried them
(52:45):
for it. Some fried them for not being able to
take a joke like the one I did on Killborn Shell.
Others fried them for being you know, like I said,
pro cancer. I was in New York City during the
suspension and a cab driver approached me. The cabs slowed down,
the guy backed up a little, and the driver leaned out,
leaned out the passenger window, and he shouted, what the
(53:07):
hell is wrong with those eddiots? You work for an ESPN?
Why in favor of cancer? The ESPN folks asked my
agent to ask me to come back to work earlier
than planned so they could somehow wriggle out of this.
And I said, I will need an apology, and I
will need the two weeks vacation back, and I will
need ESPN to make a donation to the group I made,
(53:28):
the anti chewing tobacco, anti cancer p s A S four,
and I will need one of you to say, yeah,
you told us so. So this thing with Musk and
Twitter where they wouldn't let me back on the website
until I deleted the tweet that they had made invisible
(53:48):
and then declared that kind of tweet would be automatically erased.
But now everybody was sharing the screenshots of that tweet.
The streisand effect as moronic as this one is. I'm
afraid sorry, Imo, I'm afraid it just does not measure
up to getting fired and finding out that they suspended
the guy who tried to fire me. At u p I,
(54:10):
we're getting something like sixty million dollars because the NBC
guy didn't realize suspending me would breach the contract, or
the one at ESPN where the company made itself look
pro cancer. This with Musk is literally only fourth rate,
you know, just like him, I've done all the damage
(54:39):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. If you're
not following or subscribing to the podcast, please do so.
And a special thanks on that front to Elon Musk
and right wing Twitter, especially this one guy, cat turned
who kept our teeing the promo video for it Friday's
audience up, cat tured. Can you can you promote this one?
(55:02):
How about every day? I'll give a dollar? Here are
the credits signs, the ones for Ellen and cat Turd.
Most of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth,
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Philip Chanelle. There the countdown musical directors, all orchestration and
keyboards by John Philip Shanelle. Guitars, bass, and drums by
(55:24):
Brian Ray produced by t Ko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections
have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Overman theme from ESPN two, and
it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. Everything else is pretty
(55:45):
much my fault. So let's countdown for this the seven
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while
we still can more countdown tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(56:11):
with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
The worst part of this week of Elon musk madness
(00:27):
is this, the mother of his children does have an
alleged stalker. There is a risk to her and the kids.
Musk could have gotten help from the media rather than
attack it and blame it. And he could have added
a level of privacy for her by giving the Elon
jet account kid an internship or a little more money.
(00:49):
But Musk apparently decided he was going to argue with
the kid over the price. And even though Elon Musk
suspended my Twitter account, subjected me to ridicule, mocked my
efforts to rescue dogs on youth and asial lists at
city pounds, and in front of an online audience of
as much as one and twenty million, literally accused me
(01:10):
of a crime. I am going to in large part
defend him or at least empathize with him. A stalker
can unhinge you. I know this, I had one for
five years. I was stalked in l a war on
(01:32):
that in a moment first on his status at Twitter,
Elon Musk has apparently voted himself off Twitter Island. They
say lawyers are often told to never ask a question
to which they do not know the answer. Well, Elon
Muski is not a lawyer, and unless he's lying, he's
not going to be the head of Twitter anymore either.
At six twenty p m. Eastern Time last night, hours
after he stood in a private box at the World
(01:54):
Cup in Doha next to Jared Kushner surrounded by unidentified
men in Middle Eastern Garb, hours after he posted new
rules essentially forcing users to choose between Twitter and Facebook
or most other social media sites, and then retracted those rules.
Hours after he lied about reinstating the accounts of at
least a dozen reporters and commentators myself included, Musk posted
(02:18):
yet another Twitter poll, Should I step down as head
of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.
Within an hour and three million votes, Yes step Down
was cleaning the clock of No. Fifty eight percent to
forty two when voting crossed the eleven and a half
million level. A little after midnight Eastern Yes get Out
(02:42):
was still up fifty six to forty four. But of course,
if Mike pent stands up for the good of our
constitution and does the right thing, Musk can still win
the election. This all, of course, mainlines back to the
middle of last week, when Elon Musk lost his very
loose grip on both reality and himself, and went from
insisting he was such a free speech absolutist that he
(03:03):
would never even banned the account that tracked the whereabouts
of his plane, he went from that to actually banning it,
to promising to sue the kid who ran it, to
suspending half a dozen reporters who linked to the account
or merely referenced it, to suspending me for standing up
in solidarity with those reporters, to defaming all of us
by accusing us of doxing and then tweeting quote turns
(03:24):
out that's a criminal offense, and then suspending another phalanx
of anti Nazi and anti racism accounts, and finally suspending
the account of reporter Taylor Lawrence of The Washington Post
actor she tweeted asking him for comment on a story
that her paper was working on, and it turns out
that story seems to explain Lawrence's suspension and that of
(03:47):
her colleague Drew Harwell, and the entire crazy, panicky, disturbed
and disturbing insistence that merely reporting on the existence of
publicly available flight information was doxing, and maybe it explains
even the should I step down Twitter vote. Lauren and
Harwell wrote last night in The Washington Post that there
(04:08):
was quote a confrontation between a member of Elon Musk's
security team and an alleged stalker that Musk blamed on
a Twitter account that tracted jet, but that it quote
took place at a gas station twenty six miles from
Los Angeles International Airport and twenty three hours after the
(04:29):
Elon Jet account had last located the jets whereabouts. Unquote.
The Post even got confirmation from the alleged stalker himself
that he believes the singer Grimes, the mother of two
of Musk's children, has been sending him coded messages in
her Instagram posts, and that he was indeed the person
(04:53):
who had encountered the Musk car last Tuesday, of whom
video was taken and promulgated on Twitter. The alleged stalker
is very real, and as somebody who not only had
a stalker over a span of five years, but lived
in southern California during most of that stalking, and who
got voicemails and letters from the woman constantly insisting that
(05:15):
I was sending her coded messages in my sportscasts. I
have nothing but empathy for Grimes, for Musk, and for
the kids. When you are being stalked, the seeming languid,
nous and indifference of the authorities, the hoops through which
they make you jump before they act, can be maddening,
(05:37):
and we need to support people who are being stalked
and those close to them in any way reasonably possible.
The power structure in Los Angeles often seems to the
stalking victim to be colluding with the stalker. The Los
Angeles Times itself once published details of a condo I
(05:59):
had bought. They gave everything but the street address itself.
They listed how many story worries tall, the building was,
its relative distance to area landmarks, enough clues that a
stalker could cut down the number of buildings I might
have bought in too, literally three or four in all
of southern California. But supporting the victims does not include
(06:23):
having to guess that there are victims, and it does
not require indulging the world's second most rich man and
owner of one of its most influential social media platforms,
as he condemns reporters and commentators and Twitter users and
innocent bystanders and god knows who else for providing quote
assassination coordinates when they when we did no such thing.
(06:49):
Scapegoating people who could have helped is nearly as indefensible
as stalking. What Musk was enraged about was not caused
by the account tracking his plane. It wasn't enabled by
any of the reporters writing about it. It happened two
days before anybody did write about it, And bluntly, if
Musk was willing to pay the kid who ran the
(07:10):
account five thousand dollars to stop it, but the kid
half seriously said how about fifty thousand or an internship
at SpaceX, and Musk said no. Then the outsider who
provided the most logistical help to the creature allegedly stalking
Grimes was not Jack Sweeney, and it wasn't Ryan McK
of The Times, and it wasn't Steve Herman of Voice
(07:31):
of America, and it wasn't Donnie O'Sullivan of CNN, and
it wasn't me, and it wasn't anybody else who was suspended.
The person who most helped the stalker was Elon Musk
if you are worth the hundred and sixty three billion
dollars and fifty thousand bucks can buy you more safety,
you do not turn it down because you think it
is only worth five thousand bucks. Are you crazy? And
(07:56):
still I have empathy for him, and especially for Grimes,
and especially for the children I have been there. And
of course maybe Musk is not actually worth a hundred
and sixty three billion dollars. After posting his poll, Musk
had an exchange with a sock puppet friend named Lex Friedman.
Friedman wrote, fun suggestion, Elon Musk, let me run Twitter
(08:20):
for a bit, no salary, all in focus on great
engineering and increasing the amount of love in the world.
Just offering my help in the unlikely case it's useful.
Musk replied, you must like pain a lot. One catch.
You have to invest your life savings in Twitter and
it has been in the fast lane to bankruptcy since.
(08:41):
May still want the job end quote, and the newspaper
of The Financial Times also had reported that quote. The
head of Elon Musk's family office approached Twitter's shareholders on
Thursday afternoon. According to two people familiar with the matter,
He offered new shares in the company at fifty four
hours and twenty cents each, the same price Musk paid
(09:03):
to take the company private to try and raise new
funds as the social media company continues to bleed cash
and faces heavy interest payments on its debts. This while
significant stakeholders in Musk's Tesla company argued with him on Twitter,
claiming he had erased six hundred billion dollars worth of
Tesla wealth as the stock fell another four point seven
(09:26):
percent to a hundred and fifty dollars to share Friday,
and the third largest investor, Leo Cogwan, wrote, quote, Elon
abandoned Tesla and Tesla has no working CEO. Tesla needs
and deserves to have working full time CEO. What Tesla
B O D should do Nothing. Elon is a mere
hired hand. He is our employee. Unquote Elon Musk's behavior
(09:51):
since he bought Twitter, and especially since last week contemporaneous
with the confrontation with the alleged stalker of Grimes, has
created remarkable upheaval. Musk thought he could shut down all
discussion of where his jet was and why. Instead, his
efforts created the so called streisand effect, a spilled out
(10:12):
version of the link to the elon jet at the
website Mastodon got me suspended, but screenshots of that spelled
out version and of actual links got more engagement across
Twitter than a tweet, or a dozen tweets, or a
hundred tweets, or a news story ever could. Musk thought
the right wing crowd he has been courting would rally
(10:33):
to his side and crushed the news media he irrationally
blamed for this. In fact, Barry Weiss, one of his
Twitter files Flunkey's, attacked him. The old regime at Twitter,
She wrote, governed by its own whims and biases, and
it sure looks like the new regime has the same problem.
I opposed it in both cases. Musk promptly unfollowed her.
(10:55):
Musk thought he could squelch coverage. Then the digital director
of the European Union threatened sanctions, including revoking Twitter's right
to operate there. A bright Bart news editor protested my
suspension on principle. He wrote back, seven days suspension for
doxing sometime away from Twitter is good for the soul
and looked like a lunatic. He mocked my use of
(11:18):
my shelter dog saving account to distribute the video promos
for this podcast. His tweet and others by right wing
trolls gave those videos roughly two hundred times their normal
daily reach. Outside of the fringes. Only one organization gave
him any support when we all might have. NBC News did,
(11:39):
of course, it suspended its tech reporter Ben Collins for
being too editorial in a commentary when he said that
it seemed like Musk was trying to destroy Twitter. Musk
also insisted the media was giving away assassination coordinates and
Seth Meyers show writer sal Genteel mocked him by writing,
(12:00):
hard to believe there was once a time when they'd
send a big yellow book to everyone's house listing yours
and everyone else's assassination coordinates. Ultimately, this is about Elon
Musk and his inability to effectively interact with other human
beings in retrospect. From the beginning of this, I think
(12:22):
he truly believed that because the mother of his children
was being stalked, that the Elon jet account had caused that,
and that everybody would agree with him, and that the
account was the definition of doxing, and that everybody would
agree with him, and that anybody who reported on it
or included the disconnected link to the Elon jet account
(12:42):
was doxing, and that everybody would agree with him, and
that he was right and everybody else was wrong, and
that everybody would agree with him. And ultimately that led
to this Twitter poll about stepping down his head of
Twitter because he has to be right and that everybody
would agree with him. And we know this because in
the hours after he suspended all of us Thursday night,
Elon Musk could not resist the temptation to join one
(13:05):
of these Twitter spaces audio conversations, along with a bunch
of actual reporters, including at least one of the suspended ones,
Drew Harwell of the Washington Post, who just co authored
the heart stopping story of Grimes as Stalker. The audio
of these things usually remain available forever, but this one
disappeared within minutes. In fact, all Twitter spaces were disabled
(13:28):
until the next day. Happily others recorded it. It is
apparent from the beginning that Elon Musk was astonished that
everybody did not agree with him, and was astonished that
he was expected to say anything other than dosing is doxing?
No special treatment, ban evasion is evading bands and the word. Obviously,
again and again, Musk could produce only tautologies. You know,
(13:54):
this is the definition of doxing, because doxing is defined
as doxing. The host was named Katie Monopolis from BuzzFeed.
In the last few hours with a handful of journalists
being banned, yeah, well, as I'm sure everyone who's been
(14:16):
docks and I would agree, you know, uh, showing real
time information about somebody's location is inappropriate, and I think
everyone on this call would not like that to be
done put to them. And and there's not going to
be any distinction in the theater between journalists, So both
journalists and and regular people, everyone's going to be treated
the same. They're not special because you're a journalist, You're
(14:39):
you're just your Twitter you're inser citizen. Um, So no
special freeman. Um, docks your dogs, you get suspended in
a story. Um. Remember, Musk had tweeted that his commitment
to free speech was such that he would never even
try to ban the original elon Jet account that showed
(14:59):
where his plane had just flown. Yet suddenly elon Jet
was dosing him. People who tweeted the dead link, we're
doxing him. Anybody who reported on others tweeting the dead link.
We're dosing him and anybody evading his ban was doxing
him so and and and gnovasion banovasion, or like or
(15:20):
trying to be clever about it, like, oh, I posted
a link to the real side information is obviously uh,
that is obviously simply trying to evade the meaning that is,
there's no different from heaven paste than actually showing real
time information. But what Musk just said there was he
In essence, there's no difference between posting real time information
(15:41):
about his whereabouts or his kids where Grimes is whereabouts,
and not posting real time information about his whereabouts or
his kids where Grimes is whereabouts, instead of saying something
like this is not literally true. But to my mind,
there is no difference. Or Heaven forbid telling us why
he was so out of control about the incident with
the car two days before any of the articles or
(16:03):
links appeared. Why not share it with us. Musk's problem,
I believe, is it cannot just be his opinion. He
cannot ask for help, he cannot possibly not know everything.
What he says must be accepted as fact. Philip Bump
of a Washington Post wrote, the whereabouts of somebody's playing constitutes,
(16:26):
as must describe it, assassination coordinates only if you operate
a Patriot missile battery. But back to the Twitter space
and the word obviously, you consider that like a tricky
attempt at ban evasion, you show the links to the
real time information ban evasion. Obviously. Of course it wasn't
(16:46):
obviously if he had told us, it might have been. Obviously.
The breaking point on Thursday night for Musk was when
one of the members of our suspension Club, Harwell of
The Washington Post, pointed out that to suppress publicly available
information legal publicly available information about flights and airplane locations.
(17:08):
To do that, Elon Musk had used the same process
editorially and technically that he had just criticized in the
so called Twitter files coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
What is different here, and it's no more acceptable for
me for you, that is for me the same thing.
(17:29):
So anyway, so it's unacceptable what you're doing. No what
your ducks. You get suspended and the story. That's it.
And nobody there realized Musk meant that's it. Literally. Back
to Katie Monopolis of BuzzFeed, who within minutes would find
herself banned from Twitter spaces. It's highly unusual for journalists
(17:52):
at the Washington Post in the New York Times to
be how their Twitter counts suspended, And it just so
happens that it's you know, the boss in charge. You know,
uh so, you know, what's a deal there? I think
I think Ellen has has left. You bet your asses left.
And instead of getting help or at minimum support and
(18:15):
empathy from reporters and commentators and other people like me
and other stalking victims like me, he made enemies and
damaged reputations and threatened us with prosecutions. And he left
me talking to my lawyer as late as last night
about whether or not it was a good idea to
sue him for defamation, and through all that, because I
(18:38):
have been there and have been unhinged, not nearly as
unhinged as he has been through all that, I would
still help him if he asked. God damn, it still
(19:05):
ahead and we will find out today if the January
six Committee will recommend criminal charges for Trump. It looks
like yes, it looks like three of them. It looks
like insurrection is included. A catch Aaron Judge Record Baseball
be turned down. Three million dollar offer four Aaron Judge
Record Baseball. See auction off Aaron Judge Record Baseball d
(19:26):
get winning bit of half what you were offered for
Aaron Judge Record Baseball e change name to wild Coyote
super genius. And how many media people do you know
who can say I have been suspended by Twitter and
that suspension does not even make it into my list
(19:47):
of the top three times I have been suspended. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman still ahead,
(20:08):
Chris licked Kirsten Cinema and my favorite three times I
was suspended. Now that's what I call a theme show.
All of it about knee first. In each edition of Countdown,
we feature a dog in need you can help. Every
dog has its day back to New York and the
pound and the generous offer from Elaine Boosler to cover
standard adoption expenses for a year if you save a
(20:31):
dog off the kill list. Here, Violet was abandoned in
the hallway of a building in New York. Has only
been at the pound for a week, yet she is
already on tomorrow's euthanasia list. Thirty nine pounds and terrified,
but okay with older kids. Some training should save her,
So pledges to defray a rescues expenses would probably be
(20:52):
the best idea. You can find Violet on my Twitter feeds.
While the one that Musk didn't suspend, the other one
is at Tom Jumbo Grumbo, the one Musk mocked because
he doesn't have a thought in his head that isn't
about himself. You do, please help us save Violet at
Heathlverman's Dogs on Twitter, I thank you and Violet thanks you.
(21:27):
Postscripts to the news some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
some predictions. Date Line, Washington. The January six Committee meets
Monday afternoon to vote to recommend that the Department of
Justice pursue at least three criminal charges against Trump for insurrection,
for conspiracy to defraud the government, and for obstruction of
an official proceeding. No, it does not matter legally. Yes,
(21:50):
it is hugely important symbolically, and it will crystallize in
the minds of a lot of unengaged citizens just how
serious this really is. But most importantly, it is a
giant post it note stuck on the foreheads of Attorney
General Garland and Special counsel Smith. Ignore these crimes at
your risk and at the risk of the democracy. Dateline Marilago.
(22:14):
Trump's worst enemy continues to undermine him. That would be Trump.
He has now posted about the FBI and the Department
of Justice that quote, these weaponized thugs and tyrants must
be dealt with, dealt with. On a lighter note, it
turns out those Trump n f T trading cards with
the images of him in a cowboy outfit with horses
(22:36):
and the distance behind him having sex. The images were
lifted from stock image catalogs. Several still have the water
marks on them. Cheap is as cheap does. Speaking of which,
dateline Phoenix. Also speaking of insurrection, it is getting out
of hand in Arizona. The losing candidate for governor, the
(22:56):
washed up newscaster Carrie Lake, is now openly threatening insurrection
and the government, state or federal needs to indict and
arrest her immediately. This was carry Lake approaching Elon Musk
levels of disconnection from reality at the fascist turning point.
Us a rally in Phoenix yesterday. They are daring us
(23:18):
to do something about it. Let me tell you what
I'm gonna do. They have built a House of Cards
here in Maricopa County. I think they're all wondering what
I'm gonna do. I'll tell you what. I'm not just
(23:38):
gonna knock that house of cards over. We're gonna burn
it to the ground. She kept talking, but by that
point she'd move the mic away from her mouth and
nobody could hear her. So knocking over Maricopa County and
then burning Maricopa County to the ground. Arrest Carry Lake?
(23:58):
Now are we wondering what Carry Lake is gonna do? Now? Well,
I'm not about sure about that, Kerry. I'd say, we
know what you're going to do. Now, I'd say you're
gonna do twenty to life dateline. Phoenix Senator Kyrston Cinema
has filed paperwork to run for re election in as
an independent. Remember, her plan is to blackmail the Democrats
(24:19):
into not putting anybody up against her, or she will
proceed and split the vote. But at least we know
how she's going to finance her campaign. It has now
been confirmed the Kirston Cinema on Facebook marketplace selling used
bike gear and her old clothes and shoes. Is the senator?
(24:40):
Before you ask, good news, you can relax. You don't
have to worry about her selling those sort of things.
What do I mean, Well, when we went out, she
told me she was a newist. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(25:10):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith in sports.
Soccer's World Cup goes to Argentina. Even though Buffet of
France scored a hat trick and won the Golden boot
as tournament m v P while Leonel Messi of Argentina
produced two goals, the awards decisions yes, this is a
(25:32):
messy production the game, and thus the world title was
decided on a shootout, which Argentina won four to two
shootout rather than say overtime like every other sport in
the world would play for its championship. Because soccer is
not a real sport, A shootout a bunch of guys
taking the shot one at a time, like at the
(25:53):
end of a regular season National Hockey League game while
most of the fans are filing out as if you
were to decide the seventh game of the World Series
tied three three after nine by stopping the game and
then seeing which of two pitchers could pick off the
most base runners, or if a Super Bowl was tied
thirty nine thirty nine after regulation, and it went not
(26:14):
to overtime, but instead to a competition for the longest
punts a shootout. Soccer the sport of the future here
in America, always has been, always will be on. Everybody
Rest up now, because it's now the soccer off season,
which lasts until next Monday, when Brentford hosts taught New Matsburgh.
(26:38):
But to be fair, there is not another championship, at
least until the English Football League plays for the Papa
John's Trophy exactly three months from today. If they're tied,
that game will be decided by a round of rock
paper scissors. It's the World's game. NFL. After Minnesota's record
breaking comeback Saturday, down thirty three nothing at halftime, win
(26:59):
thirty ninety six in overtime against Indianapolis, the Las Vegas
Raiders led the New England Patriots seventeen to three at
the half. Yesterday, the Pats scored twenty one unanswered points.
It was tied at twenty four. New England ran a
wacky package of laterals in hopes of avoiding overtime, but
the Patriots Jacoby Myers through it directly to the Raiders
(27:20):
Chandler Jones for the game losing touchdown. That is what
you're good for being named after an injury law firm baseball,
the Aaron Judge Baseball. His sixty second home run was
auctioned Saturday night for one and one half million dollars.
The fan who caught it, Corey Yeoman's, had turned down
a private offer of three million dollars for it. Corey
(27:43):
is an investment broker, or at least he was. Thank you,
Nancy Faust and a baseball free agent signing. ESPN reporting
the Boston Red Sox signed thirty eight year old x
l A Dodger infielder Justin Earner for eleven million a
(28:06):
year for two years. It's not for me to question
the wisdom of the last place team in the American
League East, but the Dodgers did pay Turner two million
dollars last month just so they did not have to
keep him and pay him sixteen million next year. My
(28:29):
top three suspensions of all time. The Twitter thing does
not make the cut. Coming up in Things I Promised
not to tell. First, the daily roundup of the misgrants,
morons and Dunning Kruger Effect specimens who constitute today's worst
persons in the world. Lebronze Larry Elder, they laugh out loud,
funny without knowing it, right winger and former candidate for
(28:52):
governor of California. No, seriously, he spied the drama fire
on Twitter and hurried down to the Chevron for extra
gas courting Larry Elder. If Adolph Hitler mout say tongue
and Emil and Musk were walking down the street and
you gave an American lefty a gun with two bullets,
he'd put both in elon Musk gross enough by itself,
(29:14):
but then Musk replied and miss both times. Funny dog.
One thing. Musk never objected to the image of him
walking down the street with Hitler and Mao. The runner
up Marjorie Trailer Park Green again. Do you remember this
from her? I would have won January sixth speech. Yes,
(29:43):
we moved from Target and CBS to Walmarch Marjorie Trailer
Park Green riding on Trump's website. Walmart, many of your
customers in my district are reaching out to me about
sex toys being sold in your Dalton store. Yes, it
was customers who reached out to Marge. It's not her
(30:04):
just because she knows that all the sex toys are
being sold at these three stores and where in the stores.
To resume the quote, They're extremely upset and absolutely hard
find that sex toys are being sold openly right next
to children's toothbrushes. This is grooming. Well it's not grooming,
(30:24):
but that's not the point. See what Marge is actually
upset about is she's offended by the presence of toothbrushes
in her sex toy aisle clean up on Aisle seven.
But our winner Chris Licked, chairman and chief executive officer
of CNN Worldwide, who when we were at MSNBC together,
(30:45):
I thought used to eat paste. Big New York Times
profile yesterday, in which Licked spent about twenty paragraphs emphasizing
that he's the real victim here and insisting that when
Stephen Colbert tried to talk him out of taking the
CNN job, he told Colbert, no, this is a calling.
Let me read your paragraph ten of the article by
(31:06):
James B. Steward at The Times quote. A chorus of
media pundits has pounced on every tidbit of bad news.
Mr Licht's early programming efforts aimed at repositioning the network
as broader and less partisan, have prompted howls of criticism,
Oh of criticism, with former MSNBC host and former colleague
(31:31):
Keith Olberman publicly calling Mr Licht a quote TV fascist
after he moved Don Lemon, a liberal host, from a
primetime slot to a revamped morning show. How of criticism,
to which Licked answered, quote the uninformed vitriol, especially from
the left has been stunning. Dude, we worked in adjoining
(31:56):
offices for like four years. Mine is thoroughly informed vitriol.
But seriously, and let me just turn the music down
just for a second here. Seriously, Chris, for the sake
of the fact that I used to work at CNN,
and someday, very soon, you too will also be able
to say that you used to work at CNN. May
(32:18):
I offer helpful vitriol, Chris Licked? Maybe just hear me out.
Maybe you should post a Twitter poll that reads, should
I step down his head of CNN? I will abide
by the results of this pole, Chris, What do you
mean nobody voted no Licked Today's worst person? How the
(32:42):
betrill in the world to the number one story on
the Countdown? And my favorite topic, me and things I
promised not to tell, and I knew that someday this
(33:04):
would come in handy. I mean, how many people do
you know who are involved in the apartheid Clyde drama
at Twitter? Who can say to you, ah, I know,
this doesn't even make my list of my top three suspensions.
I mean, the thing with Muscus just stupid. It is
defamatory and it's CD, but it's not dramatic because each
(33:29):
time he tweets something else, it gets more and more
stupid and less and less connected to reality. And trust me,
the main storyline with my suspension by Twitter is not
my suspension with Twitter. It's the psycho drama going on,
the arguments among the many voices inside Elon Musk's head
(33:50):
for real drama and thus real fun. I give you
up I, ESPN and MSNBC two thousand and ten. Which
of these suspensions will you be talking about? Sorrow? So
my third favorite suspension in the countdown up I United
pres International, whose radio network was called up I Audio,
(34:13):
where I broke in as a full time broadcaster summer nine.
The sports director Sam Rosen still the voice of the
New York Rangers on television. Was half listening to an
audition tape of my college broadcasts with me in the
room with him in March of that year, and then
Sam suddenly was completely listening to it. He stopped the
tape and he said to me, you do this every day.
(34:35):
I nodded, and he said, six months ago, first opening here.
In seven years. We listened to two hundred tapes. The
guy we hired, his tape wasn't half as good as yours.
Great feeling and a terrible one at the same time.
But four months later, on the second of July, their
senior sportscaster quit effective in two weeks. Because the holiday
(34:57):
was a Wednesday, July four, they had no chance to
hire somebody who already had a job, or anybody who
didn't already live in New York. An entire week of
interviewing and choosing was lost to the calendar. I had
graduated a month before, and the phone rang at my
folks house in the suburbs, and stand Sabik, who ran
the radio network, asked, tired of sitting around the town
(35:19):
pool yet? I said, yes, be here Thursday at noon.
You're hired. And I'm mentioning him for a reason which
we will find out in just a moment. Now. It
did not hurt that up I was a union shop
and the union paid based on experience, and because I
had been a stringer four u p I, I was
granted sixteen days of experience. Thus they could pay me
(35:41):
sixteen thousand, five hundred and twenty eight dollars for my
first year rather than just sixteen thousand, five hundred. By
the following September, when I was twenty one years old,
up I had already had me joined Rosen and Sabik
covering the nineteen eighty Lake Plastic Winter Olympics, and had
America not boycotted the Summer Games that year, I would
have gone to Russia to cover the Summer Games nineteen
(36:03):
eighty alone. I still remember filling out the Soviet questionnaire,
and in particular one question what size boat deck shoe
is applicant wearing? Expected as it was, they were sending
me to cover in the World Series by myself in
a few weeks. As this story unfolds, which was pretty cool,
(36:25):
I had also been written up already in Sports Illustrated
because I had begun to collect recordings of athletes who
continually said, you know, during their answers. I made it
into a contest most you knows by an athlete per second.
This is also relevant to the story. The Canadian broadcasting
companies Radio Network read this thing in Sports Illustrated, and
they called me if I could do a long interview
(36:46):
with them and play a couple of the clips. Stand Sabic,
my boss's boss, said yes to the interview, but note
of the clips. We paid five dollars each for those,
he said, in complete seriousness. I said that was silly,
and Stan laughed, and I laughed, and he said that's silly.
And the answer still know that was Stan. One afternoon,
(37:08):
the Canadian producer called again to see if I could
persuade them to run the clips or otherwise they might
have to cancel the interview. As I was talking to him,
Stan Sabik walked past the desk I was sitting at.
He was in a bad mood about something else, and
he also heard things wrong and jumped to the wrong conclusion.
He decided that I was promising the Canadians the clips
(37:29):
when I was only promising them, and I would ask
him again. So now Stan yelled at me for real.
Now I had had three interviews with other potential employers
in Boston and New York in the preceding three months.
And while I was grateful to Stan and Sam and
U p I, I was making exactly five dollars a
month more than I was spending, even while on a
(37:50):
strict budget, and they were treating me pretty rough. So
I was ready to leave you, p I, and so
I yelled back at Stan. Finally I realized in the
midst of this yelling that Stan had misunderstood what had happened.
Why are you yelling at me? Yelled? I didn't promise
them the tape. I promised them I'd ask you again
about the tape. Stand calmed down just enough, but he
(38:11):
was still very loud when he said, okay, Christ Sorry,
why didn't you say that earlier? Last thing I ate
is a screaming match with you. You're louder than I am.
And he walked away, laughing. I did not know where
he went. Turned out he was going down to take
a walk on Fort Street to cool off, but before
he could get to the elevator, his boss yelled out
(38:34):
from his office at Stand. His boss was the general
manager of the network, Frank Shortino, and Frank had just
gotten back from lunch, and at lunch Frank never had
anything to eat, if you get my drift, but that
he was all that yelling about sabic stand started to explain,
but once he mentioned my name, Frank Shortino shot past
(38:54):
him and went to find me. Frank was about twice
my age, and bluntly that fact piste him off. He
found me in the splain small editing room where Sam
rose and had listened to my tape in March the
previous year, and Frank actually grabbed me by the shoulder.
You you don't give no lip to no managers. You
pack your stuff up and get the hell out of you.
(39:15):
You're fighted. After I recovered from the contact, high off
the alcohol on his breadth, I found myself starting to
lunge towards him. Frank was doubt was a better fighter
than I would be, but I was half a foot
taller and I was ready to go. I stopped myself
in lest time than it took to read this sentence,
and I walked past him, got my stuff and went home.
(39:39):
And as I wondered where I would get the October
rent from the phone rang it was Sam Rosen. Don't
do anything, just be cool, the union will never let
this happen. I was astonished. Really, yeah, the the wire
Guild is useless about money, but job insecurity. Please, he
can't fire you because he doesn't like you, because you're
one and I don't know if you're noticed. But he
(40:00):
was drunk, Sam paused, I mean even for him, he
was drunk. Just stay cool. I had the next two
days off anyway, so there wasn't much else for me
to do but stay cool. The phone rang early on Tuesday,
and it was the union shop steward. They had just
had their third hearing about me, and he wanted to
report that I had not been fired, that I had
(40:22):
been suspended, but then I should report to work as
scheduled on Thursday, and that while u p i S
personnel director was going to write a warning letter to
put in my file about the argument with Stan Sabic,
and write another letter that would go into Shortino's file too.
They had managed to compromise about something crucial. They insisted
you had to be punished in some way. The shop
(40:44):
steward said, so Monday, when you got fired, you will
be considered suspended but paid for that day, but it
will be counted against you. As a day off. Best
I could do, I laughed. I was grateful. Wait there's more,
he said. You should know that the human resource guy
sent Shortino home Monday afternoon for being drunk at work,
(41:04):
for firing you without cause. He's also being charged with
the day off. Now that was a great suspension. The
second best suspension I've ever had was one I've already
mentioned here previously. In two thousand and ten, for the
third consecutive time I anchored the elections for MSNBC. We
were focused that year entirely on the Senate and the
(41:26):
governor's races. That made no sense to me, but I
didn't make that call, but it had been the plan
also since our first meeting about election night, which had
happened in August or September. Don't discuss the House, or
for that matter, the Rand Paul blowout win for the
Senate in Kentucky. So I was at the anchor desk
for the mid terms, and in seven or eight hours
on the year, I did not mention one House race
(41:49):
or candidate. Everything was fine. MSNBC had its best election
night ratings ever. And then somebody called one of the
political websites to say, who Alverman made campaign donations to
some Democrats in the House races and did that Democratic
senator race in Kentucky. And they called NBC public Relations,
and NBC public Relations called the president of MSNBC, and
(42:10):
he called me in my car on the way home
from the show, and I said, yeah, that's true. A
friend of mine asked me to donate to those three
campaigns because their candidates had received death threats a lot
of them, and each of them had gone into debt
buying extra security. One of them was the campaign of
Congresswoman Gabby Gifford's and the friend who convinced me to
(42:30):
donate to her campaign and to try to buy off
some of her security debts was Arizona State Representative Kirsten Cinema.
So the MSNBC president, who didn't know those details, said,
this looks bad. I know it's your right to do it.
It's not like we're gonna suspend you or anything stupid
like that, and and this is sort of our fault too,
(42:50):
but it just looks bad. Can can you say something,
anything you can do? And I said, yeah, it does
look bad. You're right, I'll apologize on the show tomorrow.
And I know I don't have to. I'll voluntarily stop
any campaign contributions as long as I'm doing the newscast
or the show or the anchoring of the elections or whatever.
(43:11):
Let me think about it. And he said great, and
I said great. And he asked me about the Mets.
And I went home and wrote the apology that night
and I sent it to him and he said that's great,
and I said great. And I said, also, it's great.
I already have part of tomorrow show written. And that
was it. The next morning, without a hearing, without a
phone call, without an email, without any warning, his boss,
(43:34):
the president of NBC News, this hysterical teenager disguised as
an adult named Steve Cappus. Steve Cappus puts out a
press release in which he angrily suspends me indefinitely without
pay and specifies it is for violations of the NBC
News Employee rule Book. The NBC News employee rule book
(43:58):
says NBC News employees cannot make donations to political campaigns.
NBC had a huge problem that Steve Kappus did not
know or intentionally had forgotten Number one. Within hours, there
was a petition on social media demanding my reinstatement two
hundred and fifty thousand signatures. Then NBC tried to get
(44:21):
Chris Hayes to fill in for me that night. I
have a lot of problems with Chris's work since then,
but to his eternal credit in my book, he refused
to sit in for me. He was not under contract then,
and he told the MSNBC management that suspending me was
stupid and unjustified. Even people at Fox News went on
the air that night and said this is absurd. I
(44:43):
believe one of the quotes was, are we supposed to
be surprised Keith Alderman is a Democrat? And is he
not allowed to donate because he does a liberal commentary
show on a liberal network. Well what they didn't know, though,
was at NBC there was a lot of shushing and
worrying because everybody at NBC News made political donations. They
(45:05):
just hid them by donating in their wife's name or
the kid's name or whoever. I was the only one
who had ever been honest about it. But this guy
Cappus dug in and demanded that I'd be suspended for
a month without pay at least. And all this was
public and well documented and the next thing I knew,
that petition was disseminated on of all places, Twitter, two
(45:29):
signatures before nightfall. What everybody did not know was the
part that occurred inside thirty Rock. That afternoon, NBC lawyers
called up this kid, Steve Campus, and said, as I
was told, you, idiot, have you ever read his contract?
You suspended him for violating the NBC News employee rule book. Listen,
(45:52):
Moron Alderman is not an NBC News employee. We wrote
the contract, so it specifically declares several different times, on
several different pages, that he is not an employee, that
he's an independent contractor. Remember, and now Cappus screams at
the lawyers and he says, why did you do that?
(46:14):
And the lawyers say, we did that us, And you
remember you told us that we should do that so
you could save money from your news budget, because if
Keith wasn't an NBC News employee, you would not have
to pay him health insurance and dental. Apparently. There was
(46:36):
then a very long silence, followed by the repeated use
of the phrase breached the contract, and the lawyers saying
there were now four options for Cappus, one reinstate the
non employee immediately and hope we don't get sued by
him to reinstate the non employee, immediately, apologize and write
(46:56):
a new contract. Three end the show, pay the non
employee the fifteen or sixteen million dollars you owe him
for the remainder of the contract, and hope we don't
get sued for damages beyond that. Or four, throw a
lot of money in the air at him and negotiate
a settlement and end the show in the short term.
(47:18):
What happened was they told me on a Friday I
was suspended. On Tuesday, I was back on the air,
and just like at U P I, they couldn't even
dock my pay or charge me days off for Friday
or Monday. I got a four day weekend morons, making
this even wilder. Hours after I was non suspended, Al
(47:42):
Gore called me. Al owned a struggling TV network called Current,
and he said, what NBC doing is illegal, and if
you suthe them, you could own the place. But I
think I have a better idea that can be the
start of something big. Bring countdown to Current TV. We'll
give you fifty million dollars plus bonuses, plus a piece
of the network, you'll be an owner. Well, that didn't
(48:07):
work out from a programming sense, kind of worked out
from a money sense. Anyway, years later, I was talking
to the new owners of NBC Comcast about going back there,
and their head of All News division said, yeah, Cappus.
I had to fire him, she said, after he told
me to my face he would never take orders from
a woman. So that's two of them. That still is
(48:30):
not my favorite suspension. This one is in the spring
of nine, a book about Sports Center that Dan Patrick
and I had written came out, and the publicists asked
us to get written approval and permission from ESPN that
we could promote the booking almost any fashion other than
like appearing on other TV sports shows. The executive vice
(48:51):
president of the ESPN, Howard Kats, was great about it.
He wrote a memo, he signed it, he had the
head of human resources sign it, and off we went
with permission to promote the show anyway we needed to.
And Cray Kilborn, who used to share the desk with
me and the computer because it was two sportscasters per
(49:12):
computer in those days. Kilborn had just recently left ESPN
to become the first host of the Daily Show on
Comedy Central. He asked me to come on with him
to promote the book. He told me we would pre
tape the interview then they'd run it in a week
or so, so I had some time before then. I
had to warn ESPN that the interview was coming. We
(49:33):
went out to dinner afterwards, and that same night, to
my shock, the interview ran on the show and I
called Kilborn back up, and he said the guest for
tonight show bailed out Saren Kal In the interview Kilborn
and remember this is a comedy show. He gave me
his standard stick, this five question quiz, and one of
(49:54):
the questions was and he said, this one is the
most gun Fransinkan town on the East coast. Craig had
not left ESPN happily, and hey did every minute of
it to such a degree that he made me look
like a big, big loyal fan. So, of course, to
him being on his comedy show, I answered the question
(50:14):
when is the mouse gone? For Sankin town on the
East coast with Bristol, Connecticut, I didn't really feel that way.
Of course, Bristol was remote and a little grim, and
boy didn't get out of snow. But it was a
pleasant enough place, and I always been treated well there
by the natives, and even I recognized that if I
had had a family, it would have been a great
(50:36):
place to live, and still is. What I had said
was obviously a joke. This is not, however, how the
local newspaper viewed it. They put it on page one
with a color picture of me and a five column
headline like ESPNS Alderman Semicolon Bristol, most godforsaken town on
(50:57):
East Coast. When I got back from my time off
there a day or two later, boss has called me
into the office of the vice president in charge of
Sports Center, man named John Walsh. And John Walsh accused
me of going on Killborn show without permission, and I
handed him the note his boss had written for me
about promoting the Sports Center book. John Walsh was very
(51:18):
surprised by that note. Well, he finally said, there's also
this other matter of these recordings you made for Major
League Baseball without our authorization. Now that stumped me for
a second. I didn't know what he meant. Then I remembered,
and I said, the public service announcements, the ones they're
running on the stadium scoreboards in like four or five
(51:39):
of the ballparks, the ones that are against chewing tobacco.
The public service messages that I voiced against cancer, and
Walt said, yes, that's what I mean. They were going
to suspend me for doing them without permission. The next
forty eight hours was basically just me pleading with everybody
(52:00):
I knew in management to not reveal that they were
suspending me for doing anti cancer public service announcements. I said,
either don't mention the cancer part, or don't say it's
a suspension. Say it's a vacation. You and I can
talk about it as a suspension, but don't tell anybody
about it being suspension, because otherwise you're gonna look kind
(52:23):
of stupid and far worse than that. You were going
to look. How can I phrase this? You're going to
look like you are pro cancer. Sure enough, they suspended
me and announced it with pay, but they charged me
the two weeks vacation time, which was fine because I
was leaving anyway. And every newspaper in America fried them
(52:45):
for it. Some fried them for not being able to
take a joke like the one I did on Killborn Shell.
Others fried them for being you know, like I said,
pro cancer. I was in New York City during the
suspension and a cab driver approached me. The cabs slowed down,
the guy backed up a little, and the driver leaned out,
leaned out the passenger window, and he shouted, what the
(53:07):
hell is wrong with those eddiots? You work for an ESPN?
Why in favor of cancer? The ESPN folks asked my
agent to ask me to come back to work earlier
than planned so they could somehow wriggle out of this.
And I said, I will need an apology, and I
will need the two weeks vacation back, and I will
need ESPN to make a donation to the group I made,
(53:28):
the anti chewing tobacco, anti cancer p s A S four,
and I will need one of you to say, yeah,
you told us so. So this thing with Musk and
Twitter where they wouldn't let me back on the website
until I deleted the tweet that they had made invisible
(53:48):
and then declared that kind of tweet would be automatically erased.
But now everybody was sharing the screenshots of that tweet.
The streisand effect as moronic as this one is. I'm
afraid sorry, Imo, I'm afraid it just does not measure
up to getting fired and finding out that they suspended
the guy who tried to fire me. At u p I,
(54:10):
we're getting something like sixty million dollars because the NBC
guy didn't realize suspending me would breach the contract, or
the one at ESPN where the company made itself look
pro cancer. This with Musk is literally only fourth rate,
you know, just like him, I've done all the damage
(54:39):
I can do here. Thank you for listening. If you're
not following or subscribing to the podcast, please do so.
And a special thanks on that front to Elon Musk
and right wing Twitter, especially this one guy, cat turned
who kept our teeing the promo video for it Friday's
audience up, cat tured. Can you can you promote this one?
(55:02):
How about every day? I'll give a dollar? Here are
the credits signs, the ones for Ellen and cat Turd.
Most of the music, including our theme from Beethoven's Ninth,
was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John
Philip Chanelle. There the countdown musical directors, all orchestration and
keyboards by John Philip Shanelle. Guitars, bass, and drums by
(55:24):
Brian Ray produced by t Ko Brothers. Another Beethoven selections
have been arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The
sports music is the Overman theme from ESPN two, and
it was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Fauss. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. Everything else is pretty
(55:45):
much my fault. So let's countdown for this the seven
day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically
elected government of the United States. Arrest him now while
we still can more countdown tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown
(56:11):
with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
Popular Podcasts
Boysober
Have you ever wondered what life might be like if you stopped worrying about being wanted, and focused on understanding what you actually want? That was the question Hope Woodard asked herself after a string of situationships inspired her to take a break from sex and dating. She went "boysober," a personal concept that sparked a global movement among women looking to prioritize themselves over men. Now, Hope is looking to expand the ways we explore our relationship to relationships. Taking a bold, unfiltered look into modern love, romance, and self-discovery, Boysober will dive into messy stories about dating, sex, love, friendship, and breaking generational patterns—all with humor, vulnerability, and a fresh perspective.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com