September 18, 2024 • 46 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 30: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: The debate bounce is here. And maybe it’s more than that. Kamala Harris may – repeat MAY – caveat MAY – warning even if so keep your foot on the gas…MAY be beginning pulling away from Trump in the polls. She's up by six in Morning Consult, got a six-point swing in Mark Penn's Harris poll.
According to the 538 Average of Polls, yesterday, for the first time since July 2021, her net favorability moved into positive territory: 46-point-6 percent approval to 46-point-5 percent disapproval. It’s about as NOT-a-landslide as you can get but it is an almost unprecedented turnaround. Vice President Harris, whose net approval is plus zero-point-one was on July 14th, -17.
There's also the 538 poll average where she’s up by three and its electoral college model in which Harris wins 61 times out of 100… and the Economist Polling Average… which shows her up by four… and Nate Silver’s OK-Maybe-I-Did-Pull-This-Number-Out-Of-My-Ass model which he acknowledges went from last week giving Trump a two-thirds chance of winning to him saying to Axios that Harris is quote “moving up in the polls enough that the model is converging back toward 50/50 in the Electoral College.”
JD VANCE IS A BLESSING - TO HARRIS: Insists Haitians are from "Haitia." Claims Robert F. Kennedy Junior was assassinated. Is doubling down on Springfield. May be dumber than Trump. And here's good news: the authorities are still investigating Trump's scandal at Arlington National Cemetery.
B-Block (21:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Megyn Kelly takes time from her bid to beat Kari Lake in the effort to corner the market in camera filters, to F-bomb Taylor Swift. Turns out at least one of the anti-Ukraine memes Elon Musk tweeted was made by the Kremlin's favorite disinformation creator. And Bill Ackman is so mad about the debate he's referring it to...a top college sports league?
C-Block (33:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I just re-told this story Monday in real life so I thought I'd bring it up again. 15 years ago this summer Bill O'Reilly sent Jesse Watters to stalk the chairman of GE because I was criticizing Billo and Fox. The chairman's mother called him up and yelled at him, and he of course responded as any true businessman would: he threaten to turn off MSNBC and its $200,000,000 annual profit like a light bulb so Mommy wouldn't be upset.
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 iHeartRadio. Harris
fifty one, Trump forty five, Morning Consult, Harris fifty one,
(00:26):
Trump forty three, Big Village, Harris forty nine, Trump forty five,
Monmouth University Harris fifty two Trump forty eighth, Harris Pohle,
Harris is Mark Penn on July twenty six, Mark Penn,
the Dick Morris of Bill Rasmussen's Only Bitterer, had it
(00:47):
Trump by two, Now he has it Harris by four.
This is the debate bounce, and maybe it is more
than that. She may repeat, may caveat may warning. Even
if so, keep your foot on the gas. May be
pulling away from Trump. There may be new polls today
(01:07):
reflecting Trump's Sunday, when a twenty sixteen Trump voter with
a gun tragically snuffed out the life of Trump's round
of golf. It was only five holes.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Old e.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He may get a bump. We don't have any of
those yet. And there could be a bounce, because Lord knows,
Trump and Vance and the louder and dumber of the
Trump surrogates are doing everything they can to milk this,
except for saying you better support Trump. Or we'll have
to have somebody else from our own side try a
third time, even as the campaign leadership itself is reportedly
(01:42):
desperate to move on from the shooting attempts and try
to focus him on policy. You know, policy like mandatory childbirthing,
with Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacking the Vice president last night
for only being a stepmother, even though she Huckaby has
(02:03):
endowed her unfortun child with the name huck huck Huckabee,
although what a lectern he will inherit someday policies They
want to keep Trump on policies, killing off another Senate
attempt to protect in vitro fertilization yesterday, and Vance's clever
(02:24):
revelation that under Trump Bamacare, that would take people with
pre existing conditions and put them in their own insurance
pool so that they can't afford healthcare and the insurance
companies don't have to pay for healthcare, which is just
the old Monty Python joke about how they'd love to
pay you your claim, but unfortunately you signed up for
(02:45):
their never pay policy. Back to the Vice President's polling,
and it is so good. Even Axios was forced to
write an article headlined Kamala Harris's polling renaissance and lead
with the fact that, according to the five thirty eight
average of polls yesterday, for the first time since July
of twenty twenty one, her net favorability moved into positive
(03:08):
territory forty six point six percent approval to forty six
point five percent disapproval. Now that is about as not
a landslide as you could get. But I can't believe
I'm saying this. As Axios notes, it is an almost
(03:28):
unprecedented turnaround. Vice President Harris, whose net approval is plus
zero point one above water, was on July fourteenth at
minus seventeen, and again Axios is sticking to averages of
large numbers of poles. It also highlighted the five point
(03:50):
thirty eight polling average, where she's up by three, and
its electoral college model, in which Harris wins sixty one
times out of one hundred, and the Economist polling average,
which shows her up by four. And Nate Silver's Okay,
maybe I did pull this number out of my ass model,
which he acknowledges went from last week giving Trump a
(04:10):
two thirds chance of winning to Nate now saying to
Axios that Harris is quote moving up in the polls
enough that the model is converging back toward fifty to
fifty in the electoral college. There is one other number
of note inside the ABC poll from Sunday in that
Harris is at forty five percent among likely voters who
(04:34):
are white. So what that's not a majority? Well, if accurate,
forty five percent would be the largest white support for
any Democratic nominee since Jimmy Carter in nineteen seventy six.
Is that number accurate? I don't know the five thirty
eight net approval number who knows Harris by six in
(04:57):
Morning consult seven to eight in Big Village got a
six point swing in the Mark Penn poll. I don't know.
You know what we need? We need some poll numbers
on whether or not the poll numbers are at all reliable.
I see them chiefly, not as some sort of guarantee,
nor even a disincentive to work harder, work harder than that.
(05:18):
I see them chiefly as everybody involved getting to sleep
more and spending more time trying to get her elected
and less time trying to choose move to Montreal or
move to Toronto. Oh Toronto, Because there's baseball no Montreal
because that baseball is the Blue Jays. Oh, there goes
(06:05):
the Canadian audience. Actually they know, they know about the
Blue Jays. They know. Meanwhile, I wish there were a
kind of all purpose omnibus polling number to indicate just
how much of a gift from a divine providence JD.
Vance really is. I mean, maybe his IQ plus the
number of points Harris has gained since Trump picked him.
(06:29):
I bet the number is like up to eighty seven
or eighty eight by now. Because JV is a freaking moron.
I mean, he may be functionally dumber than Trump. He
certainly has an advantage on Trump of being generally aware
of what those sounds are that are coming out of
his mouth. Yet he is magnificently unaware that what is
(06:53):
coming out of his mouth is wildly unpopular, totally untrue,
and additionally far too complex for the idiots who are
going to vote dictatorship because they have convinced themselves it's freedom.
At Sparta, Michigan, yesterday, JV doubled down on the Republican
lies about the immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Never mind that
(07:17):
Senator Vance senator from Ohio is literally terrorizing residents of
his own state. And I don't even mean the immigrants here,
I mean the multi generational Springfield residents, Jebediah Springfield himself,
who have seen their city shut down over this nonsense.
(07:39):
Vance is insistent that the Democrats and the media owe
him and Trump apologies because all those bomb threats, not
one of them has turned out to be a bomb,
not yet.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Anyway, I've seen this from the American media, a lot
of people who pretend.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
To be fair journalists.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You know what, they've been saying for the last few days,
Springfield has been experiencing an unbelievable number, something like thirty
five forty bomb threats in Springfield and the last and
just the last few days. And you know what, the
governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said every single
one of those bomb threats was a hoax.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Vance might as well have quoted sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.
There attempted murder. Now, honestly, what is that? Do they
give an Obel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they? Remarkably,
that was the highlight of Vance's day. Here he is
insisting that the Haitian immigrants there all there, legally, all
(08:44):
invited to work there by employers who had jobs that
the incumbent Ohioans wouldn't take. None of the Haitians eating pets.
Vance is insisting that the Haitians come from some foreign land,
a land that exists only in JV's mind, a land
(09:04):
called Haitia. Oh And then he has a surprise for
Trump prostitute Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Twenty thousand migrants, primarily from Haitia have been dropped into Springfield, Ohio.
I mean, we're very proud on our side to have
the support of Bobby Kennedy Junior, and he's a great guy.
Have gotten known very well over the last few weeks.
But I think in many ways this country never healed
(09:35):
from the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Robert F. Kennedy Junior has not been assassinated. In fact,
he's very much alive, if you call that living. I
wonder if JV has even noticed what he said, or
if after each speech he just asks his team to
rate his eyeliner game. And a quick note about where
(10:02):
Vance spoke. Sparta, Michigan, named for the almost legendary city
of ancient Greece. The original Sparta had a social structure,
at least as complicated as ancient Rome. The laws favored
the native citizens Spartiates, moth acts, other mixed heritage residents
with full rights, and then there were the Periacoy, who
(10:25):
were non Sparta natives of the town. And then there
were the slaves, the helots. The helots were made famous
again in the Frank Capra Gary Cooper film Meet John Doe,
in which Cooper's sidekick played by Walter Brennan, calls people
he doesn't like helots. When pressed for a definition, Brennan
finally explains helots a lot of heels, which brings us
(10:50):
back to Vance and Trump helots a lot of heels.
The leads story tomorrow might yet be Trump's Arlington National
Cemetery defilement. ABC News, which has been way ahead on
(11:13):
this story after NPR broke it, originally says the investigation
is still alive even though the Army considers the matter closed.
Quote the investigation is ongoing at Joint Base Meyer Henderson
Hall by base authorities, the Pentagon told ABC, which translates
as the police department at the base that has jurisdiction
(11:38):
over Arlington National Cemetery is still on the job. ABC
says it has yet to get hold of Trump campaign
officials for necessary interviews. You will recall NPR identified two
of the key ones two weeks ago as the deputy
campaign manager, Justin Caparrale and Trump advance man Michelle Picard.
(12:03):
Picard was reported the one who shoved a female cemetery
staffer out of the way after she tried to tell
them it was against military rules to film while standing
atop the graves of our war dead. Meanwhile, the lead
story today might have been Trump Junior, but he deleted it.
You will recall the guy in charge of social media
(12:25):
for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire who tweeted that
anybody who murdered Kamala Harris would be a hero. He
then deleted that. Then the FBI came to say hello
to him anyway yesterday. And Jeremy Kaufman, who turns out
to have some connection to that New Hampshire town of
Grafton that the Libertarians took over like twenty years ago,
(12:48):
until the lack of laws or rules, or the lack
of even a willingness to submit to organized garbage pickups
led all the humans to have to flee when the
bears came out of the woods and attacked them for
their food. Jeremy Hoffman posted video of the FBI explaining
(13:09):
assassination threats to him, and he wrote, you can see
the shame on their faces. You couldn't and this is
the democratic regime manifest It wasn't initially Trump, Junior Ouday retweeted.
Kaufman added quote a masterclass on how to handle what
appears to be regime intimidation tactics. I don't know anything
(13:31):
about Jeremy, but everyone should take note and handle themselves
accordingly when they inevitably come knocking on your door. Junior
was real proud of this until somebody apparently pointed out
to him that he had just praised a guy who
had praised assassinating presidential candidates and sooner or later talking
(13:52):
about lead stories, the sheriff of Portage County, Ohio, which
is between Akron and Youngstown. He will be the lead story,
or somebody like him will be. Bruce Zakowski posted to
Facebook over the weekend quote, when people ask me what
will happen if the flip flopping laughing hyena wins, I say,
(14:15):
write down all the addresses of people who had her
signs in their yards. So multiple o's. When the illegal
human locust when which she supports, need places to live,
we'll already have the addresses of their new families who
supported their arrival. Mister Zukowski incidentally has a fu Man
(14:39):
chew mustache, a cowboy hat, badly dyed hair, and a
large collection of chins. His post included a close up
shot of this story being told by Laura Ingram on Fox.
He now says, you and I have gotten it all wrong.
His newest Facebook post quote, As the chief law enforcement
(15:02):
officer of Portage County, I have sworn to protect all
citizens of my county. Recently, I placed a post on
my personal Facebook page that may have been a little misinterpreted. I,
as the elected sheriff, do have a First Amendment right,
as do all citizens. If the citizens of Portage County
want to elect an individual who has supported open borders,
(15:23):
which I personally visited twice and neglected to enforce the
laws of our country, then that is their prerogative. With elections,
there are consequences. That being said, I believe that those
who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept
responsibility for their actions. I am a lawman, not a politician.
(15:45):
So he made a veiled threat against Harris supporters. He
called legal immigrants into his own state quote locust unquote.
He insisted he had been misinterpreted, and then he said
all of it again. Good God. Maybe we shouldn't make
him the lead story, because if jd. Vance has to
(16:07):
withdraw from Trump's ticket for some reason, they could put
this helot Zakowski in as the new running mate and
nobody would know the goddamned difference. Also of interest here,
if you're wondering why Elon Musk, I'm sorry Leon Leon Musk.
(16:27):
If you're wondering why Leon Musk has done the crazy
anti American things he's done lately. No, he's not running
for sheriff of Portage County, Ohio. But it turns out
one of his anti Ukraine memes, one that's been retweeted
eighty six thousand times, it was designed by, according to
(16:48):
Radio Free Europe, the Kremlin. That's next this discountdown. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman Stella ahead of us on
(17:21):
this editiontive Countdown. I just told this story again at
lunch on Monday and the listener was somebody who is
now in this business, who said he was just a kid,
just a nightly viewer fifteen years ago, and he had
absolutely no idea that this drama was playing out behind
the scenes as he watched that it consumed nearly the
(17:43):
entire summer of two thousand and nine at MSNBC. That
was the year that the CEO of the International Monolith
Corporation ge General Electric nearly shut down MSNBC like he
was hitting the off button on a remote, simply because
(18:05):
his mother was a Bill O'Reilly cultist, and Billo had
said mean things about her boy, and she had called
him up and yelled at him. And for some reason,
the chairman did not like my idea, which was to
go over to his mom's house in Cincinnati and yank
the cable out of her wall so she would not
hear Bill O'Reilly say any more bad things about her
boy Jeff. Instead, he's wanted to fire all of us
(18:29):
and give back the two hundred million dollars a year
in profit coming up in things I promised not to tell.
Business is a matter of business. The business of America
is business, except if my mom is upset. First, there
are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
(18:51):
specimens who constitute two days Mommy's really mad at me?
Worst persons in the world. I still can't get over it.
It's fifteen years ago. I still can't get I'm not
even near getting over it. The last things I say
on Earth may be can you believe this idiot, Jeff
imilt AnyWho speaking of idiocy at NBC The Bronze Worst.
(19:15):
Meghan Kelly, No, this is not about her ongoing death
struggle war against Carrie Lake. One of them will corner
the market on camera filters and the other will be
left unfiltered. God help us all. No, no, this is
about what she said this time. Megan Kelly was never
(19:36):
really talented. She used to have a somewhat icy allure
to her. Now she's just getting a little bit more
kareny everyfing day. I'm allowed to criticize Taylor Swift and
I don't give a s. I don't like putting the
word S in women's mouths like this. I don't give
(19:58):
a who gets upset this is disgusting. If she wants
to vote Harris Wallas. She can do it all she wants,
but say, the reason she's doing it is because of
Tim Walls's position on LGBTQ. F you, Taylor Swift, this
is unbelievable. Megan has a screw loose and i'd say
(20:18):
f you back, Megan Kelly. But Fox fired you and
NBC fired you, and your television careers over at age
fifty three. So what's the point of saying FU two?
Life has already done that to you? The runner up worser.
Maybe she can get a job with this guy, Leon
(20:39):
Elon Musk to you Leon, Donald Trump per Julia Davis,
the invaluable columnist of The Daily Beast, creator of the
Russian media Monitor. She watches, as she says in her bio,
she watches Russian state TV, so you don't have to god.
Is that true? She's quoting Radio Free Europe. A trove
(21:02):
of leaked records from a Russian disinfo campaign reveals how
Moscow sought to discredit Ukraine and Western governments that support it,
while also trying to boost support for far right political
parties in the European Union. The documents highlight the internal
operations of the Social Design Agency the Social Design Agency. Wow,
(21:24):
that sounds kind of twenty second century, doesn't it No,
it's just a Moscow based company that the United States
says has led the propaganda campaign at the Kremlins behest
the design in the Moscow Social Design Agency its memes.
The campaign to continue Radio Free Europe includes a diverse
(21:46):
mix of memes, falsified videos, and government documents, and a
network of websites impersonating legitimate news outlets to disseminate fake
stories aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine. In the records,
there is the production trail kind of the a family
tree of one particular meme which shows President Zelenski of
(22:09):
Ukraine his face tense, he's sort of coiled, he's staring
as if angry, as if he's looking for an email
to come in on a computer screen, and the caption
reads when it's been five minutes and you haven't asked
for a billion dollars in aid. The meme was posted
by Elon Musk on October first, twenty twenty three, and
(22:31):
it has been retweeted eighty six thousand times since and
Julia Davis and Radio Free Year Report. It was created
by the Kremlin's own social design agency. I'm beginning to
think Musk was created by the Kremlin's own social design agency.
Musk might as well be Benny Johnson at this point,
(22:52):
Kremlinny Benny. He might as well be doing the work
of a Russian agent inside this country. And this is
forty eight hours after he asked on his own website
why nobody had yet tried to assassinate Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris and then deleted it without explanation except the
lame excuse that, oh, you didn't left at my joke. Well,
(23:14):
that's because we're not as stoned as you are. Elmo,
why do we permit Leon to stay in our country?
I'll compromise in this. I mean he can stay in
our country, but only in jail. Arrest Elon Musk today
for threatening the lives of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
and investigate him just on this meme created by the Kremlins. Memesar,
(23:40):
but our winner, And yes, somebody's worse than that. He's
the worst. But he's the worst because he always manages
to do something horrible, but to do it so badly,
so self destructively, so self owningly that we all manage
to get enraged and then we get a great laugh
out of it and him and we are laughing at him.
And that is none other than Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman
(24:05):
is the billionaire hedge clipper manufacturer. Oh I'm sorry, I
read that wrong, hedge fund manager. His company is called
Pershing Square. If you have money in Pershing Square, I'm
suggesting you get it out now. I know nothing about
hedge funds, but all I know is this guy is
an idiot. And if he's decided to do what he's
done and he's managing money, I would when you put
(24:28):
your money in, I'd give it a nice long kiss
goodbye and wish it a happy existence somewhere else. This
is the guy who remember trying to destroy his alma mater, Harvard,
because I forget exactly what he wanted, but it would
not make him king of Harvard or whatever he wanted.
I don't know. I went to Cornell. We're simple country folk.
(24:50):
We're the ones who helped prosecute the anti Semites on
our campus last year. We don't understand your city slicker,
Havid Yawd ways. Bill Ackman has now taken this pathetic,
obvious fake ABC whistleblower Affidavid about the debate. It's supposedly
from a technician or somebody at ABC, full of redactions
(25:14):
like the guy's name or his job or any facts
that he might have at his hands. And at one
point he says he's worked there ten years. No, it's
thirty years since Disney took over ABC. No, it's ten years.
And the deal, he says they made with Kamala Harris
was she was not to be asked any questions. This
was her deal breaker. You could not ask the vice
(25:37):
president in the ABC debate about when she was Attorney
General of San Francisco. Well, she never was the attorney
general of San Francisco, because there is no such job
as attorney general of San Francisco. Whoever made this thing
up didn't know the fundaments that the job she had
was was attorney general of the state of California. You'd
(26:00):
have a district attorney that was a different job in
San Francisco, a different controversy with a different person. Morons.
So Bill Ackman puts out half a dozen tweets about
a really badly done fake, clearly does not read any
of the replies, because the moment he put out this one.
Everybody jumped on and even the ones who supported him
(26:21):
and said, Bill, you've topped yourself. Here's here it is
it forbade him? Come to think of it, I am
going to alert the at SEC directly about at Disney,
at ABC and their misleading response to the whistleblowers accusations
about the presidential debate. Six fifty seven am, September seventeenth,
(26:41):
twenty twenty four, seven hundred and twenty three thousand views,
three point three thousand retweets, nineteen thousand likes. I'm going
to alert the at SEC. At SEC is the Twitter
x handle four No, not the Security Is and Exchange Commission,
which Bill seems to think. At SEC is the two
(27:04):
handle for the Southeastern Conference College Sports League, the sixteen
universities of the Southeastern Conference, the SEC most recent football champs, Alabama.
I'm sure they'll they'll say, thanks, Bill, we'll send some
refs right over and look into it. Ten yards for
getting the handle wrong, Say Bill, did you really go
(27:26):
to college and get to your current age of eighty
five or whatever you are without knowing that the Twitter
handle for the Securities and Exchange Commission is sec GUB
Did you even check Bill, where's all that money in
your hedge fund? Could you've asked your twenty year old
wife about it? Maybe I'm sorry for the Southern accent.
(27:47):
It just it went with the Southeastern Conference thing. Anyway.
I would bet professors Dunning and Krueger would pay millions
for the rights to study Bill Ackman. Two days.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Worst person in the world received, we will receive Captain,
said Bo cap Custer, said Bo catgut a cc.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
He went to Harvard. He attended Harvard. I don't know
if he went. The executive producer of our MSNBC newscast Countdown,
Isy Povich and I were on the grown up elevator
(28:36):
to the office of NBC President Jeff Zuocker on the
fifty second floor of thirty Rock in New York, Summoned
there by some garbled message from MSNBC president Phil Griffin
about MSNBC being taken off the air. I was mumbling
to Izzy, Sundry imprecations and reminiscences eight freaking months? Is
(28:56):
we spent twelve freaking months forcing them to create meadows
show It last eight months, all the crap prompter practice
getting her over her fears rockets past. CNN only eight
months of show, and now it's all gone. Izzy reminded
me it was not just Rachel's show that was threatened,
which was why poor Court Harson from Hardball was already upstairs,
(29:18):
along with poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin and Rachel's
executive producer, Bill Wolf and some clown from Morning Joe
and a couple of other MSNBC executives and us. I know,
I know, I did the line from the drunken Irishman
from Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with the bad accent. It's
the end of the world, I said, Jeff Immelt is
(29:40):
going to take MSNBC off the air. I didn't need
any of my overwrought visions from two years earlier of
the future of liberal news commentary falling out the NBC
window to its death on the rink. This was the
real thing. The chairman of General Electric was threatening to
open the window himself, throw us out the window himself,
(30:01):
and then race down to the pavement to stomp on
our dying remains himself. Poor Ed Schultz heard Jeff Zucker
say those words, and he had screwed up his face
and tilted his head like a puppy hearing a car crash.
He had not believed it the first time. He had
not believed at the second time. Zucker said it a
(30:21):
third time. Immelt is going to take MSNBC off the
effing air at, Schultz groaned. After weeks of Griffin's coaxing,
he had finally just moved from Nebraska to New York
the preceding weekend. Yet he was still, somehow only the
second most strung out person in the room. You, Zucker
shouted at me, You're the smartest one in the room.
(30:44):
What the f do we do now? I'll confess I
was shaken by this because it appeared for once that
Zucker was not being sarcastic. I had never before seen
him flush nor flustered. This was a guy who wore
fleece in July. Now he was beat red and sweating.
Sometimes he knew what he was doing, and, as his
(31:04):
opposition to hiring Matdow had proved, sometimes he didn't know
what he was doing. But he always acted as the
most confident man in the galaxy. But now he literally
had no clue what to do next. And he not
only could not ignore my advice, he desperately needed it.
This situation and that color on his face were almost
worth watching the corporate fascists nuke my network. I asked
(31:29):
Zucker to explain what happened? You got Dan, Well know
what happened. Zucker moved towards me, and I stood up
and I told him I would see myself out. He stopped,
remembering that he did indeed actually need my help. I'm sorry,
I apologize. This isn't Rachal, this is this is immelt.
Last week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He told Murdoch he
(31:49):
wasn't gonna take any more of what you were saying
about him on the air. So he did a piece
last night accusing GE of manufacturing the components that been
used in roadside bombs that were built in a rand
to kill Americans in Iraq, which is which is true legally,
that's legally they found roadside bombs that had like thirty
year old GE transistors or TV tubes from nineteen fifty
(32:11):
four or is something in them. Legally, GE did manufacture
components that were used in roadside bombs that were built
in around to kill Americans in Iraq. So o'reiley puts
this on his effing show as a lead story and
then Fox sent two camera crews in this little crap
producer from a Riley show, Jesse Waters something to steak
(32:31):
Emmelt out and chase him around the GE shareholders meeting
in Charlotte. Zucker finally came up for air, and I
jumped in, Why didn't emmelt have six camera crews to
stake out the two Fox crews and chase them around
in Charlotte? I mean, isn't that one of our news
hubs Charlotte doesn't emmelt own like twenty camera crews?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
There?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
He bring a camera crew, you'll bring two camera crews.
Zucker started to not like me again. Now you suggest
that where were you in? All right, never mind, it
doesn't matter. Emmel says. If there's one more story on
Bill O'Reilly about GE manufacturing components for roadside bombs in Iraq,
he's taking MSNBC off the air immediately. It'll just be
(33:13):
twenty four hours of lock up and I'm fired, and
you're fired. And then he pointed at Chris Matthews, producer,
and Matthews is fired. And he pointed at poor Ed
Schultz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered, So smart asked,
what the f do we do. I feigned all the
nonchalants I could feign. If I could have lit a
shroot by striking a match on the sole of my boot,
(33:36):
I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why is Emmelt
so worked up about what O'Reilly said about him? Only
O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of that crap. Nobody
at GE, nobody investing in GE could possibly believe we're
building components for roadside bombs. Zucker inhaled deeply. Emmelt's mother
(34:00):
believes it. All the heads in the room turned toward
the press. In of NBC Missus. Emmelt back in Cincinnati
is a devoted Bill O'Reilly viewer watches him every night,
sees this, calls him, says, Sonny, why are you manufacturing
components that were used in roadside bombs built in Iran
to kill Americans in Iraq? I had not expected that,
(34:25):
I said to Zucker, So so he'll really burn what
two hundred million a year in profits just between Rachel
and me? Because his mom watches Bill O'Reilly, Zucker got
angry again. You bet your effing ass he will now
you said it was manageable. How how the hef do
we manage it? Ulberman? Just a minute? How old is she?
(34:48):
Zucker summoned all his annoyance. How old is who Emmelt's mother?
How old is she? Jeff Zucker was really annoyed. How
the f should I know? You're missing the point? I
had him really worked up, nearly to the boiling point.
Great guess, Zucker spluttered, I don't know. He's in his
(35:10):
mid fifties. She's got to be eighty ninety something. I
stifled a fake yawn. Yeah, you're right, probably closer to
ninety now that I think of it. So the problem
is she watches O'Reilly. She tells him what's on Fox?
What O'Reilly's saying about ge? Well, I think you have
a simple solution. I'd say, the first thing you do
(35:31):
is you send over a couple of big guys to
her house and you pull the freaking cable out of
the wall. Zucker actually gasped. My producer is Hepovich unsuccessfully
stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel crack a smile.
Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Olderman. I crossed my legs. Oh,
it's a little funny, and anyway, it's not essential if
(35:53):
the problem is emailed is threatening to take the network
off the air because O'Reilly is avenging himself against me
by attacking him and attacking ge. The short term solution
is easy, and in fact it is manageable. The long
term solution that's not easy, and that's not manageable. But
the short term one that's simple. Rest of this week,
next week, maybe the week after that. Even we just
(36:14):
don't mention Fox News on MSNBC. Something resembling a smile
cross Zucker's face. It made him look a little less
like a lizard person and more like a monkey with glasses.
You do that forever? No, not forever. I would not
do that, I said to Bias time. Yes, but remember
(36:38):
who was it who was in my office last winter
telling me that I should go on the air and
just to f with Fox? I should ask why Rupert
Murdoch was still running a huge international media company like
News Corp, despite all the reports that he's suffering from dementia,
even though there haven't been any reports that he's suffering
from dementia. For everybody's sake, here, who was that again,
(36:59):
who told me to do that? Zuker's goodwill was gone again.
Obviously that was me. What's your point? My point is,
we built this new brand of ours organically on a
couple of themes, a couple of statements of principle, and
one of them is to use your words just to
f with Fox. If we don't f with Fox for
(37:21):
a couple of weeks at the start of the summer,
who's going to care. Who's gonna notice? But like after
two weeks, three weeks, our viewers are gonna notice, and
the TV writers are gonna notice, and then the crap
we'll hit from every direction. You can think of temporary
freeze on mentioning Fox and mentioning O'Reilly and mentioning Murdoch. Fine,
permanent freeze. Might as well let Immelt turn us off
(37:43):
in the morning. After all, I don't think Zooker actually
heard the last part about em Milt turning us off.
After all, the lack of color was returning to his face. Okay, breathe,
he kept saying to himself. Breathe, breathe, Okay, breathe. He
looked at me and nodded. He pointed at Izzy and
at Phil Griffin and me. You you, and you and I.
(38:06):
We will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all meet
again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody, are
we clear? Nothing on the air about Fox. Silence in
the room. Then the assorted noises of people rising, mixed
with attempts to resuscitate poor Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's guy,
Harson I think, was almost at the door out of
(38:27):
Zucker's office, an office so big that it was to
steal the Ring Lardner line, the size of the Yale Bowl,
but with lamps. And then a voice spoke up, quietly
but firmly, Excuse me. It was Rachel Maddow. Excuse me.
I will not have the content of my show dictated
by any corporations, including the one I work for. Remember
(38:51):
this is June two thousand and nine. She still felt
that way then, and especially one I don't work for.
I will walk out first. I cannot have the audience
wondering what else I have not told them. I don't
do a lot about Fox on my show. But if
there is a story about Fox, I will not honor
this freeze. I will report that story. And if I'm
prevented from reporting that story, I will leave. Whereupon she left,
(39:13):
Zucker barked Phil Alderman, is he stay? When the rest
of the room had cleared, Zucker blew air out of
his mouth as if it were smoke. He gestured violently
at me with his right arm. I told you she
was a mistake. You didn't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I told you.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Now, she's your problem. All of this is your problem.
Get her back on the reservation or else. Now I
had run out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get
her back on the reservation, Jeff. But if you think
this is my problem, just think about what happens if
he really does take us off the air, or if
it just gets out that he threatened to take us
(39:49):
off the air because his mother didn't like what Fox
said about him. That's my problem. Uh uh, that's your problem.
And it's the problem of the CEO of the fricking
sixth largest corporation in the world, who makes his business
(40:09):
decisions involving hundreds of millions of dollars of profits based
on what his mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin
managed to pull Zucker away and Izzy and I made
for the door, saying nothing until we were in the elevator. Finally,
she asked, what are you going to do about Rachel?
(40:30):
I look straight ahead. I have depth perception issues while
traveling forward, backwards, up or down. Yeah, if I know
what I'm gonna do about her. But I got an idea.
I mean, the only person she was really talking to
in there was herself. This isn't a brand new surprise
success for her anymore. This is successful. This is what
nine ten months she's successful. She said she was once
(40:52):
a dancing cell phone outside of cell phone store outside
of Boston. She ain't going back to that. I went
to talk to Rachel about an hour later and reassured her.
I mentioned that powerful as Fox was, they were not
going to be able to re invade Iraq by themselves,
and unless she moved it way closer than it had been,
nobody would cross her censorship line. And I said, just
(41:14):
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in nineteen forty. I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean that'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Three nights later, well after midnight on a Friday, my
NBC issued BlackBerry buzzed with a quick email from Rachel Maddow. Hey,
she wrote, don't necessarily quote me because I'm really drunk,
but just make the best deal you can for us.
I trust you. We don't need to do Fox all
the time. I never do Fox stories anyway. I just
had to say that, and this is the best platform
(41:53):
we will ever have. Well she was right, at least
for the time being. A couple of weeks later, I
had to sneak in a script that blasted Fox, and
at ten thirty at home that night, I got a
call from a drunk can Phil Griffin shouting into the phone.
I of a family. Zucker had to go meet with
Roger Ayles secretly inside thirty Rock, and I hope they
(42:16):
remember to clean the room afterwards. And mlt even had
to meet with Murdoch. And then, happily, some idiot Ge
executive decided to boast to The New York Times about
getting us little talent children under control and a big
deal with the executives over at Fox and how they'd
settled everything, which blew up the whole deal instantly, because
the moment the deal went public, NBC looked so stupid,
(42:40):
and even NBC News was now risked. The only point
of the whole thing was to keep the Immelts and
the Zuckers and the Griffins and the ales Is from
throwing us and our little island of liberal commentary out
of that window at thirty Rock. But as Rachel Mattow
and I would be constantly reminded in the ensuing years,
(43:00):
thirty Rock has a lot of freaking windows. I've done
all the damage I can do here as I await
(43:21):
Bill Ackman reporting me to the Southeastern Conference, thank you
for listening. We are now back to five episodes a week,
posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is
a Monday Countdown. If I can do that, you can
send this to somebody who doesn't listen or subscribe. I
mean somebody who'd like it, or somebody who wouldn't like it.
(43:43):
That works too. Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel are
the musical directors of Countdown and they arranged, produced and
performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration in keyboards,
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and
it was produced by Tko Brothers, And yes, Jeff mL
really was going to take the network off the air,
(44:05):
and the guy who was stalking him really was Jesse Waters,
and they really were proud that they had made a
deal with Fox in which they let Fox decide what
NBC thought was news and what wasn't. And the moment
it hit the fresh air of the real world, half
a dozen NBC News executives threatened to quit anyway. Our
(44:30):
satirical and fifty musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust, who had nothing to do
with ge. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And of course they're hearing about everything involved in this
show right now from the Southeastern Conference thanks to Bill Ackman.
(44:50):
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend John Dean. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
the forty ninth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
counting a election day for those of you who say no,
it's the forty eighth and the forty fifth day since
convicted felon domestic jay terrorists first attempted coup against the
(45:15):
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if you
have to to keep him from doing it again while
we still can. And please, Maga nuts, please stop trying
to shoot at Trump. Please. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(45:38):
Bulletin says that it requires until the next one on
Keith Olderman good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:03):
Countdown with Keith Oltram is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Harris
fifty one, Trump forty five, Morning Consult, Harris fifty one,
(00:26):
Trump forty three, Big Village, Harris forty nine, Trump forty five,
Monmouth University Harris fifty two Trump forty eighth, Harris Pohle,
Harris is Mark Penn on July twenty six, Mark Penn,
the Dick Morris of Bill Rasmussen's Only Bitterer, had it
(00:47):
Trump by two, Now he has it Harris by four.
This is the debate bounce, and maybe it is more
than that. She may repeat, may caveat may warning. Even
if so, keep your foot on the gas. May be
pulling away from Trump. There may be new polls today
(01:07):
reflecting Trump's Sunday, when a twenty sixteen Trump voter with
a gun tragically snuffed out the life of Trump's round
of golf. It was only five holes.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Old e.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He may get a bump. We don't have any of
those yet. And there could be a bounce, because Lord knows,
Trump and Vance and the louder and dumber of the
Trump surrogates are doing everything they can to milk this,
except for saying you better support Trump. Or we'll have
to have somebody else from our own side try a
third time, even as the campaign leadership itself is reportedly
(01:42):
desperate to move on from the shooting attempts and try
to focus him on policy. You know, policy like mandatory childbirthing,
with Sarah Huckabee Sanders attacking the Vice president last night
for only being a stepmother, even though she Huckaby has
(02:03):
endowed her unfortun child with the name huck huck Huckabee,
although what a lectern he will inherit someday policies They
want to keep Trump on policies, killing off another Senate
attempt to protect in vitro fertilization yesterday, and Vance's clever
(02:24):
revelation that under Trump Bamacare, that would take people with
pre existing conditions and put them in their own insurance
pool so that they can't afford healthcare and the insurance
companies don't have to pay for healthcare, which is just
the old Monty Python joke about how they'd love to
pay you your claim, but unfortunately you signed up for
(02:45):
their never pay policy. Back to the Vice President's polling,
and it is so good. Even Axios was forced to
write an article headlined Kamala Harris's polling renaissance and lead
with the fact that, according to the five thirty eight
average of polls yesterday, for the first time since July
of twenty twenty one, her net favorability moved into positive
(03:08):
territory forty six point six percent approval to forty six
point five percent disapproval. Now that is about as not
a landslide as you could get. But I can't believe
I'm saying this. As Axios notes, it is an almost
(03:28):
unprecedented turnaround. Vice President Harris, whose net approval is plus
zero point one above water, was on July fourteenth at
minus seventeen, and again Axios is sticking to averages of
large numbers of poles. It also highlighted the five point
(03:50):
thirty eight polling average, where she's up by three, and
its electoral college model, in which Harris wins sixty one
times out of one hundred, and the Economist polling average,
which shows her up by four. And Nate Silver's Okay,
maybe I did pull this number out of my ass model,
which he acknowledges went from last week giving Trump a
(04:10):
two thirds chance of winning to Nate now saying to
Axios that Harris is quote moving up in the polls
enough that the model is converging back toward fifty to
fifty in the electoral college. There is one other number
of note inside the ABC poll from Sunday in that
Harris is at forty five percent among likely voters who
(04:34):
are white. So what that's not a majority? Well, if accurate,
forty five percent would be the largest white support for
any Democratic nominee since Jimmy Carter in nineteen seventy six.
Is that number accurate? I don't know the five thirty
eight net approval number who knows Harris by six in
(04:57):
Morning consult seven to eight in Big Village got a
six point swing in the Mark Penn poll. I don't know.
You know what we need? We need some poll numbers
on whether or not the poll numbers are at all reliable.
I see them chiefly, not as some sort of guarantee,
nor even a disincentive to work harder, work harder than that.
(05:18):
I see them chiefly as everybody involved getting to sleep
more and spending more time trying to get her elected
and less time trying to choose move to Montreal or
move to Toronto. Oh Toronto, Because there's baseball no Montreal
because that baseball is the Blue Jays. Oh, there goes
(06:05):
the Canadian audience. Actually they know, they know about the
Blue Jays. They know. Meanwhile, I wish there were a
kind of all purpose omnibus polling number to indicate just
how much of a gift from a divine providence JD.
Vance really is. I mean, maybe his IQ plus the
number of points Harris has gained since Trump picked him.
(06:29):
I bet the number is like up to eighty seven
or eighty eight by now. Because JV is a freaking moron.
I mean, he may be functionally dumber than Trump. He
certainly has an advantage on Trump of being generally aware
of what those sounds are that are coming out of
his mouth. Yet he is magnificently unaware that what is
(06:53):
coming out of his mouth is wildly unpopular, totally untrue,
and additionally far too complex for the idiots who are
going to vote dictatorship because they have convinced themselves it's freedom.
At Sparta, Michigan, yesterday, JV doubled down on the Republican
lies about the immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. Never mind that
(07:17):
Senator Vance senator from Ohio is literally terrorizing residents of
his own state. And I don't even mean the immigrants here,
I mean the multi generational Springfield residents, Jebediah Springfield himself,
who have seen their city shut down over this nonsense.
(07:39):
Vance is insistent that the Democrats and the media owe
him and Trump apologies because all those bomb threats, not
one of them has turned out to be a bomb,
not yet.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
Anyway, I've seen this from the American media, a lot
of people who pretend.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
To be fair journalists.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You know what, they've been saying for the last few days,
Springfield has been experiencing an unbelievable number, something like thirty
five forty bomb threats in Springfield and the last and
just the last few days. And you know what, the
governor of Ohio came out yesterday and said every single
one of those bomb threats was a hoax.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Vance might as well have quoted sideshow Bob from the Simpsons.
There attempted murder. Now, honestly, what is that? Do they
give an Obel prize for attempted chemistry? Do they? Remarkably,
that was the highlight of Vance's day. Here he is
insisting that the Haitian immigrants there all there, legally, all
(08:44):
invited to work there by employers who had jobs that
the incumbent Ohioans wouldn't take. None of the Haitians eating pets.
Vance is insisting that the Haitians come from some foreign land,
a land that exists only in JV's mind, a land
(09:04):
called Haitia. Oh And then he has a surprise for
Trump prostitute Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Twenty thousand migrants, primarily from Haitia have been dropped into Springfield, Ohio.
I mean, we're very proud on our side to have
the support of Bobby Kennedy Junior, and he's a great guy.
Have gotten known very well over the last few weeks.
But I think in many ways this country never healed
(09:35):
from the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Robert F. Kennedy Junior has not been assassinated. In fact,
he's very much alive, if you call that living. I
wonder if JV has even noticed what he said, or
if after each speech he just asks his team to
rate his eyeliner game. And a quick note about where
(10:02):
Vance spoke. Sparta, Michigan, named for the almost legendary city
of ancient Greece. The original Sparta had a social structure,
at least as complicated as ancient Rome. The laws favored
the native citizens Spartiates, moth acts, other mixed heritage residents
with full rights, and then there were the Periacoy, who
(10:25):
were non Sparta natives of the town. And then there
were the slaves, the helots. The helots were made famous
again in the Frank Capra Gary Cooper film Meet John Doe,
in which Cooper's sidekick played by Walter Brennan, calls people
he doesn't like helots. When pressed for a definition, Brennan
finally explains helots a lot of heels, which brings us
(10:50):
back to Vance and Trump helots a lot of heels.
The leads story tomorrow might yet be Trump's Arlington National
Cemetery defilement. ABC News, which has been way ahead on
(11:13):
this story after NPR broke it, originally says the investigation
is still alive even though the Army considers the matter closed.
Quote the investigation is ongoing at Joint Base Meyer Henderson
Hall by base authorities, the Pentagon told ABC, which translates
as the police department at the base that has jurisdiction
(11:38):
over Arlington National Cemetery is still on the job. ABC
says it has yet to get hold of Trump campaign
officials for necessary interviews. You will recall NPR identified two
of the key ones two weeks ago as the deputy
campaign manager, Justin Caparrale and Trump advance man Michelle Picard.
(12:03):
Picard was reported the one who shoved a female cemetery
staffer out of the way after she tried to tell
them it was against military rules to film while standing
atop the graves of our war dead. Meanwhile, the lead
story today might have been Trump Junior, but he deleted it.
You will recall the guy in charge of social media
(12:25):
for the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire who tweeted that
anybody who murdered Kamala Harris would be a hero. He
then deleted that. Then the FBI came to say hello
to him anyway yesterday. And Jeremy Kaufman, who turns out
to have some connection to that New Hampshire town of
Grafton that the Libertarians took over like twenty years ago,
(12:48):
until the lack of laws or rules, or the lack
of even a willingness to submit to organized garbage pickups
led all the humans to have to flee when the
bears came out of the woods and attacked them for
their food. Jeremy Hoffman posted video of the FBI explaining
(13:09):
assassination threats to him, and he wrote, you can see
the shame on their faces. You couldn't and this is
the democratic regime manifest It wasn't initially Trump, Junior Ouday retweeted.
Kaufman added quote a masterclass on how to handle what
appears to be regime intimidation tactics. I don't know anything
(13:31):
about Jeremy, but everyone should take note and handle themselves
accordingly when they inevitably come knocking on your door. Junior
was real proud of this until somebody apparently pointed out
to him that he had just praised a guy who
had praised assassinating presidential candidates and sooner or later talking
(13:52):
about lead stories, the sheriff of Portage County, Ohio, which
is between Akron and Youngstown. He will be the lead story,
or somebody like him will be. Bruce Zakowski posted to
Facebook over the weekend quote, when people ask me what
will happen if the flip flopping laughing hyena wins, I say,
(14:15):
write down all the addresses of people who had her
signs in their yards. So multiple o's. When the illegal
human locust when which she supports, need places to live,
we'll already have the addresses of their new families who
supported their arrival. Mister Zukowski incidentally has a fu Man
(14:39):
chew mustache, a cowboy hat, badly dyed hair, and a
large collection of chins. His post included a close up
shot of this story being told by Laura Ingram on Fox.
He now says, you and I have gotten it all wrong.
His newest Facebook post quote, As the chief law enforcement
(15:02):
officer of Portage County, I have sworn to protect all
citizens of my county. Recently, I placed a post on
my personal Facebook page that may have been a little misinterpreted. I,
as the elected sheriff, do have a First Amendment right,
as do all citizens. If the citizens of Portage County
want to elect an individual who has supported open borders,
(15:23):
which I personally visited twice and neglected to enforce the
laws of our country, then that is their prerogative. With elections,
there are consequences. That being said, I believe that those
who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept
responsibility for their actions. I am a lawman, not a politician.
(15:45):
So he made a veiled threat against Harris supporters. He
called legal immigrants into his own state quote locust unquote.
He insisted he had been misinterpreted, and then he said
all of it again. Good God. Maybe we shouldn't make
him the lead story, because if jd. Vance has to
(16:07):
withdraw from Trump's ticket for some reason, they could put
this helot Zakowski in as the new running mate and
nobody would know the goddamned difference. Also of interest here,
if you're wondering why Elon Musk, I'm sorry Leon Leon Musk.
(16:27):
If you're wondering why Leon Musk has done the crazy
anti American things he's done lately. No, he's not running
for sheriff of Portage County, Ohio. But it turns out
one of his anti Ukraine memes, one that's been retweeted
eighty six thousand times, it was designed by, according to
(16:48):
Radio Free Europe, the Kremlin. That's next this discountdown. This
is countdown with Keith Olberman Stella ahead of us on
(17:21):
this editiontive Countdown. I just told this story again at
lunch on Monday and the listener was somebody who is
now in this business, who said he was just a kid,
just a nightly viewer fifteen years ago, and he had
absolutely no idea that this drama was playing out behind
the scenes as he watched that it consumed nearly the
(17:43):
entire summer of two thousand and nine at MSNBC. That
was the year that the CEO of the International Monolith
Corporation ge General Electric nearly shut down MSNBC like he
was hitting the off button on a remote, simply because
(18:05):
his mother was a Bill O'Reilly cultist, and Billo had
said mean things about her boy, and she had called
him up and yelled at him. And for some reason,
the chairman did not like my idea, which was to
go over to his mom's house in Cincinnati and yank
the cable out of her wall so she would not
hear Bill O'Reilly say any more bad things about her
boy Jeff. Instead, he's wanted to fire all of us
(18:29):
and give back the two hundred million dollars a year
in profit coming up in things I promised not to tell.
Business is a matter of business. The business of America
is business, except if my mom is upset. First, there
are still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects
(18:51):
specimens who constitute two days Mommy's really mad at me?
Worst persons in the world. I still can't get over it.
It's fifteen years ago. I still can't get I'm not
even near getting over it. The last things I say
on Earth may be can you believe this idiot, Jeff
imilt AnyWho speaking of idiocy at NBC The Bronze Worst.
(19:15):
Meghan Kelly, No, this is not about her ongoing death
struggle war against Carrie Lake. One of them will corner
the market on camera filters and the other will be
left unfiltered. God help us all. No, no, this is
about what she said this time. Megan Kelly was never
(19:36):
really talented. She used to have a somewhat icy allure
to her. Now she's just getting a little bit more
kareny everyfing day. I'm allowed to criticize Taylor Swift and
I don't give a s. I don't like putting the
word S in women's mouths like this. I don't give
(19:58):
a who gets upset this is disgusting. If she wants
to vote Harris Wallas. She can do it all she wants,
but say, the reason she's doing it is because of
Tim Walls's position on LGBTQ. F you, Taylor Swift, this
is unbelievable. Megan has a screw loose and i'd say
(20:18):
f you back, Megan Kelly. But Fox fired you and
NBC fired you, and your television careers over at age
fifty three. So what's the point of saying FU two?
Life has already done that to you? The runner up worser.
Maybe she can get a job with this guy, Leon
(20:39):
Elon Musk to you Leon, Donald Trump per Julia Davis,
the invaluable columnist of The Daily Beast, creator of the
Russian media Monitor. She watches, as she says in her bio,
she watches Russian state TV, so you don't have to god.
Is that true? She's quoting Radio Free Europe. A trove
(21:02):
of leaked records from a Russian disinfo campaign reveals how
Moscow sought to discredit Ukraine and Western governments that support it,
while also trying to boost support for far right political
parties in the European Union. The documents highlight the internal
operations of the Social Design Agency the Social Design Agency. Wow,
(21:24):
that sounds kind of twenty second century, doesn't it No,
it's just a Moscow based company that the United States
says has led the propaganda campaign at the Kremlins behest
the design in the Moscow Social Design Agency its memes.
The campaign to continue Radio Free Europe includes a diverse
(21:46):
mix of memes, falsified videos, and government documents, and a
network of websites impersonating legitimate news outlets to disseminate fake
stories aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine. In the records,
there is the production trail kind of the a family
tree of one particular meme which shows President Zelenski of
(22:09):
Ukraine his face tense, he's sort of coiled, he's staring
as if angry, as if he's looking for an email
to come in on a computer screen, and the caption
reads when it's been five minutes and you haven't asked
for a billion dollars in aid. The meme was posted
by Elon Musk on October first, twenty twenty three, and
(22:31):
it has been retweeted eighty six thousand times since and
Julia Davis and Radio Free Year Report. It was created
by the Kremlin's own social design agency. I'm beginning to
think Musk was created by the Kremlin's own social design agency.
Musk might as well be Benny Johnson at this point,
(22:52):
Kremlinny Benny. He might as well be doing the work
of a Russian agent inside this country. And this is
forty eight hours after he asked on his own website
why nobody had yet tried to assassinate Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris and then deleted it without explanation except the
lame excuse that, oh, you didn't left at my joke. Well,
(23:14):
that's because we're not as stoned as you are. Elmo,
why do we permit Leon to stay in our country?
I'll compromise in this. I mean he can stay in
our country, but only in jail. Arrest Elon Musk today
for threatening the lives of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
and investigate him just on this meme created by the Kremlins. Memesar,
(23:40):
but our winner, And yes, somebody's worse than that. He's
the worst. But he's the worst because he always manages
to do something horrible, but to do it so badly,
so self destructively, so self owningly that we all manage
to get enraged and then we get a great laugh
out of it and him and we are laughing at him.
And that is none other than Bill Ackman. Bill Ackman
(24:05):
is the billionaire hedge clipper manufacturer. Oh I'm sorry, I
read that wrong, hedge fund manager. His company is called
Pershing Square. If you have money in Pershing Square, I'm
suggesting you get it out now. I know nothing about
hedge funds, but all I know is this guy is
an idiot. And if he's decided to do what he's
done and he's managing money, I would when you put
(24:28):
your money in, I'd give it a nice long kiss
goodbye and wish it a happy existence somewhere else. This
is the guy who remember trying to destroy his alma mater, Harvard,
because I forget exactly what he wanted, but it would
not make him king of Harvard or whatever he wanted.
I don't know. I went to Cornell. We're simple country folk.
(24:50):
We're the ones who helped prosecute the anti Semites on
our campus last year. We don't understand your city slicker,
Havid Yawd ways. Bill Ackman has now taken this pathetic,
obvious fake ABC whistleblower Affidavid about the debate. It's supposedly
from a technician or somebody at ABC, full of redactions
(25:14):
like the guy's name or his job or any facts
that he might have at his hands. And at one
point he says he's worked there ten years. No, it's
thirty years since Disney took over ABC. No, it's ten years.
And the deal, he says they made with Kamala Harris
was she was not to be asked any questions. This
was her deal breaker. You could not ask the vice
(25:37):
president in the ABC debate about when she was Attorney
General of San Francisco. Well, she never was the attorney
general of San Francisco, because there is no such job
as attorney general of San Francisco. Whoever made this thing
up didn't know the fundaments that the job she had
was was attorney general of the state of California. You'd
(26:00):
have a district attorney that was a different job in
San Francisco, a different controversy with a different person. Morons.
So Bill Ackman puts out half a dozen tweets about
a really badly done fake, clearly does not read any
of the replies, because the moment he put out this one.
Everybody jumped on and even the ones who supported him
(26:21):
and said, Bill, you've topped yourself. Here's here it is
it forbade him? Come to think of it, I am
going to alert the at SEC directly about at Disney,
at ABC and their misleading response to the whistleblowers accusations
about the presidential debate. Six fifty seven am, September seventeenth,
(26:41):
twenty twenty four, seven hundred and twenty three thousand views,
three point three thousand retweets, nineteen thousand likes. I'm going
to alert the at SEC. At SEC is the Twitter
x handle four No, not the Security Is and Exchange Commission,
which Bill seems to think. At SEC is the two
(27:04):
handle for the Southeastern Conference College Sports League, the sixteen
universities of the Southeastern Conference, the SEC most recent football champs, Alabama.
I'm sure they'll they'll say, thanks, Bill, we'll send some
refs right over and look into it. Ten yards for
getting the handle wrong, Say Bill, did you really go
(27:26):
to college and get to your current age of eighty
five or whatever you are without knowing that the Twitter
handle for the Securities and Exchange Commission is sec GUB
Did you even check Bill, where's all that money in
your hedge fund? Could you've asked your twenty year old
wife about it? Maybe I'm sorry for the Southern accent.
(27:47):
It just it went with the Southeastern Conference thing. Anyway.
I would bet professors Dunning and Krueger would pay millions
for the rights to study Bill Ackman. Two days.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Worst person in the world received, we will receive Captain,
said Bo cap Custer, said Bo catgut a cc.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
He went to Harvard. He attended Harvard. I don't know
if he went. The executive producer of our MSNBC newscast Countdown,
Isy Povich and I were on the grown up elevator
(28:36):
to the office of NBC President Jeff Zuocker on the
fifty second floor of thirty Rock in New York, Summoned
there by some garbled message from MSNBC president Phil Griffin
about MSNBC being taken off the air. I was mumbling
to Izzy, Sundry imprecations and reminiscences eight freaking months? Is
(28:56):
we spent twelve freaking months forcing them to create meadows
show It last eight months, all the crap prompter practice
getting her over her fears rockets past. CNN only eight
months of show, and now it's all gone. Izzy reminded
me it was not just Rachel's show that was threatened,
which was why poor Court Harson from Hardball was already upstairs,
(29:18):
along with poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin and Rachel's
executive producer, Bill Wolf and some clown from Morning Joe
and a couple of other MSNBC executives and us. I know,
I know, I did the line from the drunken Irishman
from Hitchcock's The Birds, complete with the bad accent. It's
the end of the world, I said, Jeff Immelt is
(29:40):
going to take MSNBC off the air. I didn't need
any of my overwrought visions from two years earlier of
the future of liberal news commentary falling out the NBC
window to its death on the rink. This was the
real thing. The chairman of General Electric was threatening to
open the window himself, throw us out the window himself,
(30:01):
and then race down to the pavement to stomp on
our dying remains himself. Poor Ed Schultz heard Jeff Zucker
say those words, and he had screwed up his face
and tilted his head like a puppy hearing a car crash.
He had not believed it the first time. He had
not believed at the second time. Zucker said it a
(30:21):
third time. Immelt is going to take MSNBC off the
effing air at, Schultz groaned. After weeks of Griffin's coaxing,
he had finally just moved from Nebraska to New York
the preceding weekend. Yet he was still, somehow only the
second most strung out person in the room. You, Zucker
shouted at me, You're the smartest one in the room.
(30:44):
What the f do we do now? I'll confess I
was shaken by this because it appeared for once that
Zucker was not being sarcastic. I had never before seen
him flush nor flustered. This was a guy who wore
fleece in July. Now he was beat red and sweating.
Sometimes he knew what he was doing, and, as his
(31:04):
opposition to hiring Matdow had proved, sometimes he didn't know
what he was doing. But he always acted as the
most confident man in the galaxy. But now he literally
had no clue what to do next. And he not
only could not ignore my advice, he desperately needed it.
This situation and that color on his face were almost
worth watching the corporate fascists nuke my network. I asked
(31:29):
Zucker to explain what happened? You got Dan, Well know
what happened. Zucker moved towards me, and I stood up
and I told him I would see myself out. He stopped,
remembering that he did indeed actually need my help. I'm sorry,
I apologize. This isn't Rachal, this is this is immelt.
Last week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He told Murdoch he
(31:49):
wasn't gonna take any more of what you were saying
about him on the air. So he did a piece
last night accusing GE of manufacturing the components that been
used in roadside bombs that were built in a rand
to kill Americans in Iraq, which is which is true legally,
that's legally they found roadside bombs that had like thirty
year old GE transistors or TV tubes from nineteen fifty
(32:11):
four or is something in them. Legally, GE did manufacture
components that were used in roadside bombs that were built
in around to kill Americans in Iraq. So o'reiley puts
this on his effing show as a lead story and
then Fox sent two camera crews in this little crap
producer from a Riley show, Jesse Waters something to steak
(32:31):
Emmelt out and chase him around the GE shareholders meeting
in Charlotte. Zucker finally came up for air, and I
jumped in, Why didn't emmelt have six camera crews to
stake out the two Fox crews and chase them around
in Charlotte? I mean, isn't that one of our news
hubs Charlotte doesn't emmelt own like twenty camera crews?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
There?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
He bring a camera crew, you'll bring two camera crews.
Zucker started to not like me again. Now you suggest
that where were you in? All right, never mind, it
doesn't matter. Emmel says. If there's one more story on
Bill O'Reilly about GE manufacturing components for roadside bombs in Iraq,
he's taking MSNBC off the air immediately. It'll just be
(33:13):
twenty four hours of lock up and I'm fired, and
you're fired. And then he pointed at Chris Matthews, producer,
and Matthews is fired. And he pointed at poor Ed
Schultz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered, So smart asked,
what the f do we do. I feigned all the
nonchalants I could feign. If I could have lit a
shroot by striking a match on the sole of my boot,
(33:36):
I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why is Emmelt
so worked up about what O'Reilly said about him? Only
O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of that crap. Nobody
at GE, nobody investing in GE could possibly believe we're
building components for roadside bombs. Zucker inhaled deeply. Emmelt's mother
(34:00):
believes it. All the heads in the room turned toward
the press. In of NBC Missus. Emmelt back in Cincinnati
is a devoted Bill O'Reilly viewer watches him every night,
sees this, calls him, says, Sonny, why are you manufacturing
components that were used in roadside bombs built in Iran
to kill Americans in Iraq? I had not expected that,
(34:25):
I said to Zucker, So so he'll really burn what
two hundred million a year in profits just between Rachel
and me? Because his mom watches Bill O'Reilly, Zucker got
angry again. You bet your effing ass he will now
you said it was manageable. How how the hef do
we manage it? Ulberman? Just a minute? How old is she?
(34:48):
Zucker summoned all his annoyance. How old is who Emmelt's mother?
How old is she? Jeff Zucker was really annoyed. How
the f should I know? You're missing the point? I
had him really worked up, nearly to the boiling point.
Great guess, Zucker spluttered, I don't know. He's in his
(35:10):
mid fifties. She's got to be eighty ninety something. I
stifled a fake yawn. Yeah, you're right, probably closer to
ninety now that I think of it. So the problem
is she watches O'Reilly. She tells him what's on Fox?
What O'Reilly's saying about ge? Well, I think you have
a simple solution. I'd say, the first thing you do
(35:31):
is you send over a couple of big guys to
her house and you pull the freaking cable out of
the wall. Zucker actually gasped. My producer is Hepovich unsuccessfully
stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel crack a smile.
Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Olderman. I crossed my legs. Oh,
it's a little funny, and anyway, it's not essential if
(35:53):
the problem is emailed is threatening to take the network
off the air because O'Reilly is avenging himself against me
by attacking him and attacking ge. The short term solution
is easy, and in fact it is manageable. The long
term solution that's not easy, and that's not manageable. But
the short term one that's simple. Rest of this week,
next week, maybe the week after that. Even we just
(36:14):
don't mention Fox News on MSNBC. Something resembling a smile
cross Zucker's face. It made him look a little less
like a lizard person and more like a monkey with glasses.
You do that forever? No, not forever. I would not
do that, I said to Bias time. Yes, but remember
(36:38):
who was it who was in my office last winter
telling me that I should go on the air and
just to f with Fox? I should ask why Rupert
Murdoch was still running a huge international media company like
News Corp, despite all the reports that he's suffering from dementia,
even though there haven't been any reports that he's suffering
from dementia. For everybody's sake, here, who was that again,
(36:59):
who told me to do that? Zuker's goodwill was gone again.
Obviously that was me. What's your point? My point is,
we built this new brand of ours organically on a
couple of themes, a couple of statements of principle, and
one of them is to use your words just to
f with Fox. If we don't f with Fox for
(37:21):
a couple of weeks at the start of the summer,
who's going to care. Who's gonna notice? But like after
two weeks, three weeks, our viewers are gonna notice, and
the TV writers are gonna notice, and then the crap
we'll hit from every direction. You can think of temporary
freeze on mentioning Fox and mentioning O'Reilly and mentioning Murdoch. Fine,
permanent freeze. Might as well let Immelt turn us off
(37:43):
in the morning. After all, I don't think Zooker actually
heard the last part about em Milt turning us off.
After all, the lack of color was returning to his face. Okay, breathe,
he kept saying to himself. Breathe, breathe, Okay, breathe. He
looked at me and nodded. He pointed at Izzy and
at Phil Griffin and me. You you, and you and I.
(38:06):
We will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all meet
again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody, are
we clear? Nothing on the air about Fox. Silence in
the room. Then the assorted noises of people rising, mixed
with attempts to resuscitate poor Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's guy,
Harson I think, was almost at the door out of
(38:27):
Zucker's office, an office so big that it was to
steal the Ring Lardner line, the size of the Yale Bowl,
but with lamps. And then a voice spoke up, quietly
but firmly, Excuse me. It was Rachel Maddow. Excuse me.
I will not have the content of my show dictated
by any corporations, including the one I work for. Remember
(38:51):
this is June two thousand and nine. She still felt
that way then, and especially one I don't work for.
I will walk out first. I cannot have the audience
wondering what else I have not told them. I don't
do a lot about Fox on my show. But if
there is a story about Fox, I will not honor
this freeze. I will report that story. And if I'm
prevented from reporting that story, I will leave. Whereupon she left,
(39:13):
Zucker barked Phil Alderman, is he stay? When the rest
of the room had cleared, Zucker blew air out of
his mouth as if it were smoke. He gestured violently
at me with his right arm. I told you she
was a mistake. You didn't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
I told you.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Now, she's your problem. All of this is your problem.
Get her back on the reservation or else. Now I
had run out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get
her back on the reservation, Jeff. But if you think
this is my problem, just think about what happens if
he really does take us off the air, or if
it just gets out that he threatened to take us
(39:49):
off the air because his mother didn't like what Fox
said about him. That's my problem. Uh uh, that's your problem.
And it's the problem of the CEO of the fricking
sixth largest corporation in the world, who makes his business
(40:09):
decisions involving hundreds of millions of dollars of profits based
on what his mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin
managed to pull Zucker away and Izzy and I made
for the door, saying nothing until we were in the elevator. Finally,
she asked, what are you going to do about Rachel?
(40:30):
I look straight ahead. I have depth perception issues while
traveling forward, backwards, up or down. Yeah, if I know
what I'm gonna do about her. But I got an idea.
I mean, the only person she was really talking to
in there was herself. This isn't a brand new surprise
success for her anymore. This is successful. This is what
nine ten months she's successful. She said she was once
(40:52):
a dancing cell phone outside of cell phone store outside
of Boston. She ain't going back to that. I went
to talk to Rachel about an hour later and reassured her.
I mentioned that powerful as Fox was, they were not
going to be able to re invade Iraq by themselves,
and unless she moved it way closer than it had been,
nobody would cross her censorship line. And I said, just
(41:14):
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in nineteen forty. I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean that'd be fun.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Three nights later, well after midnight on a Friday, my
NBC issued BlackBerry buzzed with a quick email from Rachel Maddow. Hey,
she wrote, don't necessarily quote me because I'm really drunk,
but just make the best deal you can for us.
I trust you. We don't need to do Fox all
the time. I never do Fox stories anyway. I just
had to say that, and this is the best platform
(41:53):
we will ever have. Well she was right, at least
for the time being. A couple of weeks later, I
had to sneak in a script that blasted Fox, and
at ten thirty at home that night, I got a
call from a drunk can Phil Griffin shouting into the phone.
I of a family. Zucker had to go meet with
Roger Ayles secretly inside thirty Rock, and I hope they
(42:16):
remember to clean the room afterwards. And mlt even had
to meet with Murdoch. And then, happily, some idiot Ge
executive decided to boast to The New York Times about
getting us little talent children under control and a big
deal with the executives over at Fox and how they'd
settled everything, which blew up the whole deal instantly, because
the moment the deal went public, NBC looked so stupid,
(42:40):
and even NBC News was now risked. The only point
of the whole thing was to keep the Immelts and
the Zuckers and the Griffins and the ales Is from
throwing us and our little island of liberal commentary out
of that window at thirty Rock. But as Rachel Mattow
and I would be constantly reminded in the ensuing years,
(43:00):
thirty Rock has a lot of freaking windows. I've done
all the damage I can do here as I await
(43:21):
Bill Ackman reporting me to the Southeastern Conference, thank you
for listening. We are now back to five episodes a week,
posting nightly just after midnight Eastern. Once again, there is
a Monday Countdown. If I can do that, you can
send this to somebody who doesn't listen or subscribe. I
mean somebody who'd like it, or somebody who wouldn't like it.
(43:43):
That works too. Brian Ray and John Phillip Chanel are
the musical directors of Countdown and they arranged, produced and
performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration in keyboards,
Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, and
it was produced by Tko Brothers, And yes, Jeff mL
really was going to take the network off the air,
(44:05):
and the guy who was stalking him really was Jesse Waters,
and they really were proud that they had made a
deal with Fox in which they let Fox decide what
NBC thought was news and what wasn't. And the moment
it hit the fresh air of the real world, half
a dozen NBC News executives threatened to quit anyway. Our
(44:30):
satirical and fifty musical comments are by the best baseball
stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust, who had nothing to do
with ge. The sports music is the Olderman theme from
ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc.
And of course they're hearing about everything involved in this
show right now from the Southeastern Conference thanks to Bill Ackman.
(44:50):
Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend John Dean. Everything else
was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this
the forty ninth day until the twenty twenty four presidential election,
counting a election day for those of you who say no,
it's the forty eighth and the forty fifth day since
convicted felon domestic jay terrorists first attempted coup against the
(45:15):
democratically elected government of the United States. Use the election,
use the mental health system, use presidential immunity if you
have to to keep him from doing it again while
we still can. And please, Maga nuts, please stop trying
to shoot at Trump. Please. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow.
(45:38):
Bulletin says that it requires until the next one on
Keith Olderman good Morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(46:03):
Countdown with Keith Oltram is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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