February 21, 2023 • 46 mins
EPISODE 138: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Only Marjorie Taylor Greene would be stupid enough to demand a "national divorce" in which the United States "separates by red states and blue states" - when SHE LIVES IN A BLUE STATE. But then again, what do you expect? She was raised on a diet of Fox News.
Speaker McCarthy has now unilaterally handed over 41,000 hours of 1/6 Capitol Security Video to Tucker Carlson and Carlson can now provide a roadmap to the next seditionists on how to avoid security while also gaslighting the story of 2021. Last week, we learned of the astonishing cynical manipulation of America by Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and the others, who didn't believe a word of the denialist crap they sold the country. Between those two stories it's time for the country to act to de-platform and close down Fox News as a clear and present danger to the future of the United States of America. The Department of Justice needs to seek a Restraining Order to keep Fox from manipulating the video McCarthy gave it.
I've been arguing since 1998 that Fox News was a mortal peril. Since 2007 I've said it was more damaging to this country than Al-Qaeda has been. We must shut them down the way we shut down Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.
B-Block (23:15) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Moscow commentators react to Biden's trip to Kyiv: "We should've blown him up." Flaco leaves the nest. Adams schools DeSantis. (26:51) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: All she did was tap the balloon. But it wasn't a balloon, it was a $42,000 ceramic sculpture and it crashed to the floor. The Texas School Superintendent whose gun was found by a 3rd Grader. And CNN owner John Malone has to admit one of two things: that after the Don Lemon debacle, Chris Licht is a complete failure, or he hired Chris Licht BECAUSE he'd be a complete failure.
C-Block (33:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Mr. JoJo in Shreveport (34:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The influence of Fox News and the belief by some of its hosts like Carlson that they are in fact running this country is in large part the result of mainstream media negligence. In 2009, Fox tried to avenge itself against me by attacking GE's Chairman and he folded up because his mother was a Bill O'Reilly viewer and she saw what O'Reilly said and called up her son and yelled at him.
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.
Only Marjorie Taylor Green would be stupid enough to publicly
(00:26):
demand a national divorce in which the country separates by
red states and blue states, as she did yesterday without
ever realizing that she lives in a blue state which
has two Democratic senators. And she lives in a blue
state five of whose last eight governors since the end
of Jim Crow have been Democrats. And she lives in
(00:49):
a blue state which has two Democratic senators now and
eight out of the last fourteen. And she lives in
a blue state which long ago tried for a national
divorce and instead of that, got its top city burned
to the ground and suffered economic losses amounting to in
today's money, a billion and a half dollars. But you
(01:11):
do you, Marge, divorce away. Maybe you can then move
to somewhere in the new Confederacy. But I expect they
will not be taking immigrants now. You may think the
only reason that Barney Rubble's body double could repose a
national divorce when she is on the wrong side of
her own fence is that the trauma of her personal
(01:34):
life is suddenly bleeding into her political stances. But I
think what we saw here was one of those moments
in which somebody has simply had too much Fox News
pumped into them over the years, and they suddenly explode
where they resounding fatal salvo of imbecility. Marjorie Taylor Green
(01:55):
does not understand that conservatives and fascists and Republicans are
not in the majority in this country, nor that she
is not currently in a red state, nor that Georgia
gets around twenty billion dollars more from the federal government
every year than its residents pay into the federal government
every year. Nor does she understand that she doesn't really
(02:18):
know how to spell or speak American English. And of
course all those things are or are not true. She
was raised on Fox News, which brings me to my point.
It is time for us as a country to address
the danger Fox News represents, to act swiftly and decisively
(02:38):
against Fox News, to d platform it, and to in
fact destroy it. Yesterday, after several hints and even more
leaks over a couple of days, Fox News confirmed that
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has
given Tucker Carlson forty one thousand hours of January sixth
(02:59):
Capital Surveillance and Security video, And McCarthy has given it
to Carlson X inclusively, And McCarthy has done so without
consultation with House colleagues, without hearings, without any authority other
than his own belief that since the January sixth committee
was run by the House of Representatives, all footage that
that committee obtained and did not release is his to
(03:22):
do with as he pleases, and how he pleases. Is
to turn this video, which will give the plotters of
the next attempted coup and the next attempt to hang
a vice president, and the next attempt to overthrow the
government of the United States, an exact roadmap to the
location of every security camera, and every emergency facility, and
every emergency door and room in the entirety of the
(03:45):
US capital complex. And Kevin McCarthy might as well have
handed it to the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Tucker Carlson is probably not an actual Russian asset. He
is probably doing their work as a hobby, but he
(04:05):
might as well be one. He is not loyal to
this country, nor to any aspect of how it is governed.
He does not approve of how its leaders are elected.
He has no interest in making sure that money and
power cannot crush the week at every turn. There is
to Tucker Carlson no concept of truth, nor of law,
nor of decency. There is one touchstone, only how much
(04:30):
can Tucker Carlson get away with. Tucker Carlson is loyal
to only one thing. Tucker Carlson, He is dedicated to
only one thing. The vendetta he has had against liberals
in particular, but honestly against America in general, since he
was fired first by CNN, then by PBS, then by MSNBC,
(04:52):
and then when he was first marginalized by Fox News
before it finally gave him the power he demanded from
it in two thousand sixteen. Handing him video footage of
the who attempt so he can give away all the
security secrets of the capital and so he can use
his immense propaganda platform to try to rewrite the history
(05:14):
of the insurrection he and the other vermin of Fox
News successfully helped to foment is like handing him a
series of pipe bombs. It will never occur to Tucker Carlson,
not for a second, to try to dispose of them
safely and properly. He will only think about who he
can metaphorically kill with them metaphorically for him, less metaphorically
(05:38):
for others, others who will see the video, which a
federal court ruled two years ago, should largely be held
back or at least distributed only after a careful review
to make sure that each frame of it does not
jeopardize still more law enforcement officers or congressman or senators
or staffers or you know, vice presidents. Instead, it will
(06:01):
be in the hands of Tucker car Wilson to decide
what does and does not become public, because Tucker Carlson believes,
in a very real sense that he is supposed to
be running this country, maybe not running it in the
way you or I understand the term, maybe not even
(06:23):
in the way that Trump understands it. After an election
which you have to win or falsely loudly claim you
did win. Tucker Carlson does not believe in such obstructions
to and formalities about what really matters in this country,
which is what Tucker Carlson wants. Last week's revelations from
(06:46):
the dominion defamation lawsuit were numerous enough to have a
new Netflix series based on them. Hell twelve new series,
hell hundred new series, Hell never mind new Netflix series.
There were enough to create a new Netflix with nothing
but dramas based on the texts and the emails Carlson
and Laura Ingram and Seawan Nity and Rupert Murdoch and
the others sent each other. But the most relevant of
(07:10):
all of that correspondence remains Carlson's reaction after a Fox
reporter tweeted that there was no evidence of voting machines
altering or deleting Republican votes. Quote please get her fired,
Carlson texted to Shawn Hannity, Seriously, what the blank. I'm
(07:30):
actually shocked. It needs to stop immediately. It's measurably hurting
the company. The stock price is down. That's it, in
just twenty six words. That's all Tucker Carlson knows understands
(07:51):
were values in this world. And the Speaker of the
House of Representatives has handed this creature forty one hours
of January six surveillance video to do with as he pleases,
and guess what the Department of Justice should take Fox
and Carlson and the Speaker of the House to court
(08:11):
and attempt to get a temporary restraining order to prevent
the revelation of one frame of that video, and then
a permanent restraining order. The Attorney General should launch an
inquiry into which laws Speaker McCarthy has broken in his
unilateral action about the video release. And the Democrats and
the Liberals and the media pressure groups and the boycotters,
and more importantly you and I we should all make
(08:35):
every noise we can to get Direct TV to stop
carrying Fox News, and to get Verizon to stop carrying
Fox News, and Comcast and Dish and Cox and every
satellite provider and every cable provider and every Internet provider.
I believe the word is d platform. I mean, right now,
(08:56):
the forces of fascism in this country and the propaganda
outlets they control, have already succeeded in creating a completely
fictitious narrative in which the news Max channel, which is
like Fox News but for those addicts who do not
mind their cocaine mixed with rat poison. In this narrative,
news Max has been deep platformed and canceled and silenced
(09:18):
by Direct TV, when in fact this is entirely a
question of news Max raising its price for direct TVs
use from zero dollars per year to thirteen million dollars
per year and direct TV saying what the f the
Democrats and the liberals, and the media pressure groups and
the boycotters, and most importantly you and I, we have
(09:40):
already been convicted of this crime. Let's get a little
something for our money. Let's move to silence an outrageous
un American fifth column eating away at this nation's freedoms,
at its very viability, to say nothing of what it
has done to poor stupid Marjorie Taylor Green and millions
(10:01):
like her who literally do not know where they are
at this moment. What is the right way going to do?
In response, say, oh, you didn't really try to d
platform news Max, but now now you're really trying to
d platform Fox. The right is as ever crying. Let
(10:22):
us give them something to cry about. Since literally months
after I went from just sports into covering we're also
covering news and politics, I have been noting and commenting
and shouting and yelling and screaming that Fox News was
not only not news and should not be called news,
(10:46):
but then it represented an ever growing threat to the
continuation of representative government in this country. In two thousand seven,
I said in an interview that al Qaeda really heard us,
but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has heard us.
Fox News is worse than al Qaeda. We're for our society.
It's as dangerous as the ku Klux Klan. Ever was
(11:11):
serious journalists, the kind that talked loudly in restaurants dismissed
my criticisms of and two thousand seven and two thousand
sixteen and today as just ploys for ratings. I was
just punching up at Bill O'Reilly, thus my hyperbole. Actually, no,
I wasn't. It was obvious then to me, and I
(11:34):
thought to everybody else that Fox News was being used
by the right wing in this country, the way the
Nazis used radio in Germany in the early nineteen thirties
to change reality, to change it from stuff that really
happened out there to a narrative that left the population
in a constant state of fear of outsiders and in
a constant state of rage and umbridge against democracy, against liberals,
(11:58):
and against minorities. It was worse than al Qaeda. It
is worse than al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden killed thousands
of US. Rupert Murdoch has in essence killed the minds
of millions of us. In two thousand nine, O'Reilly and
Murdoch and Fox decided that I had to be silenced
(12:21):
the platformed, if you will, so they attacked not me,
but my boss and my boss's boss, and ultimately the
chairman of the multinational that owned all of us, the
head of g E, Jeffrey Immelt. I have told this
story before, and I will tell it again in all
its grizzly detail at the end of this podcast. In short, though,
(12:45):
O'Reilly accused GE of building parts for roadside bombs used
to kill American servicemen in Iraq. He then had a
camera crew run by Jesse Waters chase Emmelt around. He
mentioned Immelt by name on his show. Immelt's mother was
an O'Reilly viewer, and she called her son and yelled
(13:07):
at him. Jeff m Lt naturally kept a calm head,
befitting the man responsible for the fifth, sixth or seventh
largest corporation in the world, or whatever it was ranked then,
and he immediately threatened the president of NBC that if
his name was mentioned again on Fox News, he would
immediately take MSNBC off the air and fire everybody connected
(13:28):
with it, because these are businessmen and businesses first last,
and everything in between unless Mommy calls. The next thing
I knew, Roger Ales was inside thirty Rock negotiating with
Jeff Zucker over how MSNBC should cover Fox and how
(13:48):
Fox should cover MSNBC and m L and g E.
And even when an NBC executive boasted about this to
The New York Times, most of the American media did
not notice that two out of the three cable news
outlets were colue looting over how and how not to
cover the news. Most that did notice it simply wrote
(14:12):
it off to me trying to get ratings and dismissed
what I did as the liberal version of O'Reilly. I
would hope that after this Kevin McCarthy Tucker Carlson packed
about the January six video. And why am I reminded
of the Hitler Stalin packed when I say the McCarthy
Carlson pact coming so fresh on the heels of the
(14:34):
Fox texts in the dominion case, that somebody, somebody with
a large platform, somebody at CBS or ABC or NBC
or the New York Times or the Washington Posts somebody
would recognize what Fox News is right now and start
(14:54):
up I don't know four and fifty three parts series
on what they are right now. Even if they would
like to pretend that Fox News just became that last Tuesday,
so be it. Because whether it was or it was
not in two thousand thirteen or two thousand three or
at its launch, Fox News is now a clear and
(15:17):
present danger to the safety and security of the United
States of America. It is whether because of money or blackmail,
or most likely just sheer fascistic empathy and sheer spite.
It is a propaganda arm both of the anti democratic
conspiracies alive in this country and of the government of Russia.
(15:38):
And the clarity of how it at its faces like
Carlson and Hannity and Ingram acted in mercenary, financially driven
defense of election denial and thus the violence and the
coup attempts that followed and will follow again. The clarity
of what Fox was behind the scenes between November and
January and what it is today, with Tucker Carlson ready
(16:00):
to issue a video gas lighting on behalf of Trump
and sedition and also do issue an illustrated guide on
how to get past all those annoying Capitol Hill security
cameras next time. Fox News has rendered our response as
a nation to the peril of Fox News essential and urgent.
(16:22):
We have no choice. We must destroy fox News, and
if there is some means to do so, prosecuted, it
is essential and urgent. It is one thing to be
the salesman of madness and conspiracy and rage and paranoia.
It is quite another, and somehow I think it's far worse,
(16:46):
far more damaging, far more insidious, to be the salesman
of madness and conspiracy and rage and paranoia without believing
any of it. The real invested, insane, inconsolable, election deniers
and hate mongers are somehow slightly less despicable and certainly
(17:06):
less threatening because they are Zealots, and thus Zelots have
left half of their plans for world domination undone, because
they believe not only that God will do that part
for them, but that God loves only them and nothing
bad could happen to them. Fox News is far more
dangerous because, in becoming completely devoid of true belief in
(17:29):
anything but its ability to sell morality to morons at
great profit, Fox News has absolved itself of any responsibility
for it. These people do not question their own ethics.
They haven't seen ethics in themselves, their colleagues, their guests,
their employers. In twenty five years, there isn't even moral
(17:51):
relativism because morality, even a mistaken belief that they have
morality and the rest of us don't, morality is no
longer part of the equation. At Fox News. In the past,
they used to sell this country out because they believed
in fascism. Now Carlson and Ingram and Hannity and all
the others are selling this country out because they believe
(18:13):
in money. And we have handed them all the video
from January six and a license to lie about everything
without consequences, about this in particular, without consequences. And we
might as well have given them guns and nukes and
the security code to every home in this country. Hell,
(18:35):
Kevin McCarthy just gave them the security code to every
panic room in the Capitol. And our in action, our
disbelief that there could be anything so cynical as this
is how this country has been previously blighted by big
tobacco and by big pharma. And with a historical nod
to Marjorie Taylor Green by big slavery. We know it
(19:00):
can kill you. It's not our fault that you believe us.
It's your We had big tobacco and big pharma. Fox.
Fox is just big bullshit, still ahead of us. In
(19:27):
this edition of Countdown, Little Jimmy O'Keefe leaves Project Veritas
an ironic name, claiming somebody was making up stories about him.
What does that sound so familiar? Owl Watch twenty three,
the latest The Wandering Eagle Owl of Central Park. Flacco
leaves the nest literally. Mayor Eric Adams of New York
(19:49):
finally makes himself useful, targeting Ron De Santis, and I
promised you the story about how the head of g
E nearly killed off MSNBC in two thousand nine because
Fox said mean things about him and his mommy heard them.
All the gory details ahead. That's next. This is Countdown?
(20:16):
Does is Countdown with Keith old Woman Both scripts to
the news, some headlines, some update, some snarks, some predictions.
Dateline Moscow, Okay. President Biden's visit to Kiev totally did
not disorient the Kremlin or its versions of Tucker Carlson,
Laura Ingram, and Seawan Hannity well Ingram and Hannity. Tucker
(20:39):
Carlson is the Russian version of Tucker Carlson. On the
nightly Russian TV marathon devoted to keeping the People in Line.
Not only did propagandist Olgus Scobiva admit Russia's special operation
in Ukraine has been going on for a year that
is far from reaching its goals. There is a huge
number of deaths, but Scobiva and other panelists said that
(21:00):
Kremlin had made a huge mistake in not blowing Biden up.
The Daily Beasts. Russian TV watcher Julia Davis also reports
the commentators insisted their country also missed a terrific chance
when the then British Prime Minister Bars Johnson was in Kiev,
that they could have blown him up too. Well, that's silly.
(21:21):
All they had to do was wait for Johnson to
go home to England and blow himself up. Date Line,
Central Park, New York. I'll watch twenty three up to Fleco.
The escaped eagle owl now on his own for two days,
shy of three weeks, and his aerial range has now
expanded from about eight or ten blocks from his original
home to fifty. He was spotted in the park's north
(21:44):
Woods yesterday up around a street. Late last week, the
zoo announced that since he's been feeding himself Central Park
rats yum yum, you know them as hot Dogs, they
have been suspended their attempts to recapture Flacco, although they
will keep eyes on him in case there is any
trouble in the future, for instance, if he runs out
(22:05):
of rats. Dateline Washington, the least successful political provocative tour
of our time, Little Jimmy O'Keefe is out on his
ass today after the power struggle at the ironically named
Project Veritas ended with his resignation. O'Keefe has vowed to
start a rival Project Veritas, and said his exit was
(22:25):
forced by people who ruined his reputation by fabricating stories
about him. O'Keefe can now also return his energies to
his sideline as a professional Lee Harvey Oswald look alike
you know them as hot dogs and Dateline Staten Island,
Florida governor and unannounced because if he announced, he'd have
(22:46):
to quit as Florida governor. Presidential candidate Ron de Santis
was in New York's armpit yesterday too. I don't know
meet people worse than him. The Staten Island visit got
so much attention that even New York Mayor Eric Adams
noticed Adams tweeting a welcome to New York to de Santists.
Quote New York a place where we don't ban books,
(23:07):
discriminate against our l G B, t Q plus neighbors,
use asylum seekers as props, or let the government stand
between a woman and healthcare. We're happy to teach you
something about values while you're here. If your New Yorker
friends are unusually quiet today, it's because it's the first
time they've ever heard Adams come out in favor of
any of those things. Next you'll be telling us he's
(23:28):
a democrat. I had. We were all summoned to the
fifty second floor of thirty Rock, at which the president
of NBC told us MSNBC was about to be taken
(23:50):
off the air, and all of us fired because the
chairman of g E was mad. I'm not really the chairman.
The chairman's mother was mad. Next, first time for the
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons, and Dunning Krueger effects
best who constitute today's worst persons in the worldd the bronze.
An unnamed customer at the Art Windwood Fair in Miami,
(24:14):
one of those Jeff Coon's sculptures that look exactly like
balloon animals was on display. A balloon, bright blue and
not made out of balloon stuff. Apparently the customer did
not know that. I thought, I guess that it was
a balloon dog. She tapped the dog with her finger
and it fell off the pedestal and shattered into a
(24:37):
hundred pieces because it wasn't made out of balloon stuff.
It was at balloon sculpture made out of ceramic. And
now it's about one hundred different pieces of balloon sculpture
worth about four and twenty dollars each. We have really
overdone this. Destroy the balloon thing. It is balloon. The
(25:00):
runner up, Superintendent Robbie Stuteville of Rising Star Elementary School
in Rising Star, Texas, also ironically named Superintendent Student Bill,
wants everybody to know that his gun is fine, and
he's fine, and everything is fine. Sure enough, he'd done
found his good silly him. He left it in a bathroom,
(25:22):
But happily somebody found it and told a teacher and
got Superintendent Studentville his gun back. The person who found
it was a third grader who found it in a
bathroom stall fifteen minutes after this idiot left it in there.
But not to worry, Studentville told parents. Quote there was
never a danger, he said, adding quote other than the obvious. Sure,
(25:47):
he's not a student, but our winner, John Malone, the
fascist who bought CNN and installed Chris Licked to destroy it.
Did I ever tell you that when we were at MSNBC.
You know the rest of it. By now, with the
latest CNN humiliation, the unofficial suspension of Don Lemon for
saying that at Nikki Lee was no longer in her
prime as a woman, Malone's going to have to do
(26:09):
one of two things. A fire Chris Licked, because every
move Licked has made not only has not worked, but
has damaged c ANN beyond repair. Or b He's just
gonna have to admit he hired Licked to damage c
ann beyond repair. There is reason to ponder whether or
not Don Lemon was set up here, not set up
(26:29):
so he'd say something misogynistic or something stupid about Nicki Haley.
But first they took away his solo show. Then they
up ended his life by sticking him in the graveyard
that is the Mornings. Then they stuck him with these
two nitwitted co hosts who have all the ambition and
none of the talent, And then they just waited for
something bad to happen, and it did. You can't fire
(26:51):
a Don Lemon, but you can demote him, demote him again,
deprive him of sleep, and hope for the worst. A
long time ago, when I worked for Fox Sports and
Rupert Murdoch, I reported that Murdoch was trying to sell
the l A Dodgers baseball team, which he owned. Before
I went on the air with the story, though, I
went to Murdoch's personal public relations man and told him, look,
(27:13):
I'll kill this story if you want, because it is,
after all, your candy store. Like I said, no, if
you believe it's legit, if your sources are good, you
can report it, but you must make it clear nobody
in the company told you this, and you must run
our corporate denial. And I said, well, flying of course,
Murdoch got back from vacation found out I had reported
he was trying to sell the Dodgers, which he was,
(27:34):
and as he later admitted, he went nuts and he
ordered they should fire me. The problem was I hadn't
done anything to get fired, and if they had fired me,
they would have owed me all the rest of my
one thousand dollar a month salary all at once. So
instead they simply called up and said, you're not hosting
baseball this year. And when I did nothing, the next day,
they called up and canceled my cable sports show. When
(27:56):
I still did nothing, the day after that, they told
me they were taking away my office. By now it
was clear what they were trying to do. They're trying
to get me to overreact, to blow up, to call
a reporter and attack Fox in public so they could
fire me for cause and then not owe me the
one k a month. Look, even I could see through that.
(28:17):
I kept quiet and kept getting a hundred k a month.
So if you're wondering what's going on with Don Lemon
and see Ann, keep that story in mind and accept
the possibility that they're trying to get him to explode
at them, so either they will have to fire him,
or better yet, then he will have to quit. John
just fire him and pay him the money. A cheap
(28:39):
billionaire Malone two Day's worst Person and Wor still ahead
(28:59):
on countdown I've now spent nearly more time promising it
than telling it. The day Fox News and Roger Ales
and Rupert Murdoch nearly got MSNBC taken off the air
on the spot because corporate executives are cowards. First, in
each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need
(29:20):
you can help. Every dog has its day to Shreveport, Louisiana,
and it is amazing how often this exact story unfolds.
A family has a dog it loves, who loves the family.
Maybe something unfortunate happens, maybe not out the dog goes
literally out the door, out of the car, out of
their lives. Mr Jojo is a sweet, temperate pit Terrier mix.
(29:43):
They dumped him on the Texas Louisiana border. He had
no idea how to feed nor protect himself. Thankfully, Parish
Pause of Shreveport found him. They're trying to heal up
his wounds, scabs, skin disease, and broken heart. Happily, the
last part usually is the easiest as to the first part.
If you can help, go to cuddly dot com and
search Mr Jojo. We're just look for him on my
(30:06):
Twitter feed. Donate if you can your retweets will also
help greatly. Hi, thank you, and Mr Jojo thanks you.
The executive producer of our MSNBC newscast Countdown, Izzy Povich,
and I were on the grown up elevator to the
(30:27):
office of NBC President Jeff Zucker 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 we spent
(30:48):
twelve freaking months forcing them to create meadows showed 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 along with
(31:10):
poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin at 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 Emil is going to
(31:31):
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, and then
(31:53):
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 until to his
head like a puppy hearing a car crash. He had
not believed at the first time. He had not believed
at the second time. Zucker said it a third time.
(32:13):
Amelt is going to take MSNBC off the fffing 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. What the f
(32:36):
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 opposition to hiring Matto
(32:57):
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, we're almost worth watching the corporate
fascists knuke my network. I asked the Sucker to explain
(33:21):
what happened? You, god, dad, 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 rational, this is this is I melt last
week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He told Murdach he wasn't
gonna take any more of what you were saying about
(33:42):
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 true. They found roadside bombs that had like
thirty year old GE transistors or or TV tubes from
nineteen fifty four or is something in them? Eagally g
(34:05):
E did manufacture components that were used in roadside bombs
that were built in around to kill Americans in Iraq.
So O'Reilly puts this on his fing show as a
lead story, and then Fox sent two camera crews in
this little crap producer from Oriley Show, Jesse water Something,
to stake Immilt out and chase him around the GE
shareholders meeting in Charlotte. Zucker finally came up for air
(34:30):
and I jumped in, why didn't m L 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's doesn't m l own like
twenty camera crews? There? 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,
(34:51):
never mind, it doesn't matter. mL 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 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
(35:13):
Sheltz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered. So Smart asked,
what the f do we do? I feigned all the
nonchalance I could feign. If I could have lit a
shroot by striking a match on the soul of my boot,
I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why is m
el so worked up about what O'Reilly said about him?
(35:35):
Only O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of that crap.
Nobody had Ge, nobody investing in GE could possibly believe
we're building components for roadside bombs. Zoocker inhaled deeply. M
L's mother believes it. All the heads in the room
turned towards the president of NNBC. Mrs m L back
(35:58):
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 a rand to kill Americans in Iraq? I had
not expected that, I said to Zooker. So so he'll
(36:18):
really burn what two hundred million a year in profits
just between Rachel and me? Because he's 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
ff do we manage it? Ulverman, just a minute? How
old is she? Zucker summoned all his annoyance? How old
(36:42):
is who m ELTs 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. It was great, guess, Zucker spluttered,
I don't know. He's in his mid fifties. She's gotta
be eighty nineties something I stifled to fake yawn. Yeah,
(37:07):
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 saying about Ge? Well,
I think you have a simple solution. I'd say the
first thing you do is you send over a couple
of big guys to her house and you pull the
freaking cable out of the wall. Zooker actually gasped, My producer,
(37:31):
is Hepovich unsuccessfully stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel
crack a smile. Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Alderman,
I crossed my legs. Oh, it's a little funny. And anyway,
it's not essential. If the problem is Email is threatening
to take the network off the year because O'Reilly is
avenging himself against me by attacking him and attacking Ge.
(37:53):
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
at even we just don't mention Fox News on MSNBC
something resembling a smile across Zucker's face. It made him
(38:15):
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 who was it who was
in my office last winter telling me that I should
go on the air and and just to f with Fox?
(38:36):
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 who told me to do that?
Zucker's goodwill was gone? Again? Obviously that was me. What's
(38:56):
your point? My point is, we built this new brand
of ours organically and a couple of themes, a couple
of statements principle, and one of them is to use
your words just to f with Fox. If we don't
f with Fox for a couple of weeks at the
start of the summer, who's gonna care. Who's gonna notice?
(39:16):
But like after two weeks, three weeks. Our viewers are
gonna notice, and the TV writers are gonna notice, and
then the crap will hit from every direction. You can
think of temporary freeze on mentioning Fox, then mentioning O'Reilly
and mentioning Murdock. Fine, permanent freeze. Might as well let
him L turn us off in the morning. After all,
(39:37):
I don't think Zucker actually heard the last part about
m L 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 and you and you and I
will we will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all
(40:00):
meet again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody,
Are we clear? Thing on the air about Fox? Silence
in the room, Then the assorted noises of people rising,
mixed with attempts to resuscitate for Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's
guy Harson I think, was almost at the door out
of Zooker's office, an office so big that it was
(40:21):
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
(40:42):
this is June two 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, Hooker barked
(41:05):
phil lerman 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. I told you. Now, she's
your problem. All of this is your problem. Get her
back on the reservation or else. Now I had run
(41:26):
out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get her back
on the reservation. Jeff, But do 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 off the
air because his mother didn't like what Fox said about him.
(41:49):
That's my problem. Uh, that's your problem. And it's the
problem of the CEO of the freaking sixth largest corporation
in the world, who makes his business decisions involving hundreds
of millions of dollars of profits based on what his
mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin managed to pull
(42:11):
Zooker 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? I looked
straight ahead. I have depth reception issues while traveling forward, backwards,
up or down the 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
(42:32):
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 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
(42:53):
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
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in nine. I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
(43:14):
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean that would be fun. Right. 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
(43:35):
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 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 drunken
(43:56):
Phil Griffin shouting into the phone, I have a family.
Zooker had to go meet with Roger Ales secretly in
side thirty Rock, and I hope they remember to clean
the room afterwards. And m l even had to meet
with Murdoch, And then, happily, some idiot g executive decided
to boast to The New York Times about getting us
(44:17):
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, and even
NBC News was now risked. The only point of the
whole thing was to keep the mls and the Zookers
(44:38):
and the Griffins and the ailes 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, thirty Rock
has a lot of freaking windows. Countdown has come to
(45:10):
you from the studios of old Ruined Broadcasting Empire World
headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York, where
no deals are made with Fox News. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip s Chanelle. They are the
countdown musical directors. Guitars based on drums by Brian Ray,
(45:32):
all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, produced by
T k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No Horns allowed. The sports music is
the Ulderman theme from ESPN two and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
(45:54):
Our announcer today was Jonathan Banks, and everything else was
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
seven seventy seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. With
the help of Fox News, arrest Trump now while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
(46:15):
I'm keith Old Reman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with keith Old Reman is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:38):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
Only Marjorie Taylor Green would be stupid enough to publicly
(00:26):
demand a national divorce in which the country separates by
red states and blue states, as she did yesterday without
ever realizing that she lives in a blue state which
has two Democratic senators. And she lives in a blue
state five of whose last eight governors since the end
of Jim Crow have been Democrats. And she lives in
(00:49):
a blue state which has two Democratic senators now and
eight out of the last fourteen. And she lives in
a blue state which long ago tried for a national
divorce and instead of that, got its top city burned
to the ground and suffered economic losses amounting to in
today's money, a billion and a half dollars. But you
(01:11):
do you, Marge, divorce away. Maybe you can then move
to somewhere in the new Confederacy. But I expect they
will not be taking immigrants now. You may think the
only reason that Barney Rubble's body double could repose a
national divorce when she is on the wrong side of
her own fence is that the trauma of her personal
(01:34):
life is suddenly bleeding into her political stances. But I
think what we saw here was one of those moments
in which somebody has simply had too much Fox News
pumped into them over the years, and they suddenly explode
where they resounding fatal salvo of imbecility. Marjorie Taylor Green
(01:55):
does not understand that conservatives and fascists and Republicans are
not in the majority in this country, nor that she
is not currently in a red state, nor that Georgia
gets around twenty billion dollars more from the federal government
every year than its residents pay into the federal government
every year. Nor does she understand that she doesn't really
(02:18):
know how to spell or speak American English. And of
course all those things are or are not true. She
was raised on Fox News, which brings me to my point.
It is time for us as a country to address
the danger Fox News represents, to act swiftly and decisively
(02:38):
against Fox News, to d platform it, and to in
fact destroy it. Yesterday, after several hints and even more
leaks over a couple of days, Fox News confirmed that
the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has
given Tucker Carlson forty one thousand hours of January sixth
(02:59):
Capital Surveillance and Security video, And McCarthy has given it
to Carlson X inclusively, And McCarthy has done so without
consultation with House colleagues, without hearings, without any authority other
than his own belief that since the January sixth committee
was run by the House of Representatives, all footage that
that committee obtained and did not release is his to
(03:22):
do with as he pleases, and how he pleases. Is
to turn this video, which will give the plotters of
the next attempted coup and the next attempt to hang
a vice president, and the next attempt to overthrow the
government of the United States, an exact roadmap to the
location of every security camera, and every emergency facility, and
every emergency door and room in the entirety of the
(03:45):
US capital complex. And Kevin McCarthy might as well have
handed it to the Russian ambassador to the United States.
Tucker Carlson is probably not an actual Russian asset. He
is probably doing their work as a hobby, but he
(04:05):
might as well be one. He is not loyal to
this country, nor to any aspect of how it is governed.
He does not approve of how its leaders are elected.
He has no interest in making sure that money and
power cannot crush the week at every turn. There is
to Tucker Carlson no concept of truth, nor of law,
nor of decency. There is one touchstone, only how much
(04:30):
can Tucker Carlson get away with. Tucker Carlson is loyal
to only one thing. Tucker Carlson, He is dedicated to
only one thing. The vendetta he has had against liberals
in particular, but honestly against America in general, since he
was fired first by CNN, then by PBS, then by MSNBC,
(04:52):
and then when he was first marginalized by Fox News
before it finally gave him the power he demanded from
it in two thousand sixteen. Handing him video footage of
the who attempt so he can give away all the
security secrets of the capital and so he can use
his immense propaganda platform to try to rewrite the history
(05:14):
of the insurrection he and the other vermin of Fox
News successfully helped to foment is like handing him a
series of pipe bombs. It will never occur to Tucker Carlson,
not for a second, to try to dispose of them
safely and properly. He will only think about who he
can metaphorically kill with them metaphorically for him, less metaphorically
(05:38):
for others, others who will see the video, which a
federal court ruled two years ago, should largely be held
back or at least distributed only after a careful review
to make sure that each frame of it does not
jeopardize still more law enforcement officers or congressman or senators
or staffers or you know, vice presidents. Instead, it will
(06:01):
be in the hands of Tucker car Wilson to decide
what does and does not become public, because Tucker Carlson believes,
in a very real sense that he is supposed to
be running this country, maybe not running it in the
way you or I understand the term, maybe not even
(06:23):
in the way that Trump understands it. After an election
which you have to win or falsely loudly claim you
did win. Tucker Carlson does not believe in such obstructions
to and formalities about what really matters in this country,
which is what Tucker Carlson wants. Last week's revelations from
(06:46):
the dominion defamation lawsuit were numerous enough to have a
new Netflix series based on them. Hell twelve new series,
hell hundred new series, Hell never mind new Netflix series.
There were enough to create a new Netflix with nothing
but dramas based on the texts and the emails Carlson
and Laura Ingram and Seawan Nity and Rupert Murdoch and
the others sent each other. But the most relevant of
(07:10):
all of that correspondence remains Carlson's reaction after a Fox
reporter tweeted that there was no evidence of voting machines
altering or deleting Republican votes. Quote please get her fired,
Carlson texted to Shawn Hannity, Seriously, what the blank. I'm
(07:30):
actually shocked. It needs to stop immediately. It's measurably hurting
the company. The stock price is down. That's it, in
just twenty six words. That's all Tucker Carlson knows understands
(07:51):
were values in this world. And the Speaker of the
House of Representatives has handed this creature forty one hours
of January six surveillance video to do with as he pleases,
and guess what the Department of Justice should take Fox
and Carlson and the Speaker of the House to court
(08:11):
and attempt to get a temporary restraining order to prevent
the revelation of one frame of that video, and then
a permanent restraining order. The Attorney General should launch an
inquiry into which laws Speaker McCarthy has broken in his
unilateral action about the video release. And the Democrats and
the Liberals and the media pressure groups and the boycotters,
and more importantly you and I we should all make
(08:35):
every noise we can to get Direct TV to stop
carrying Fox News, and to get Verizon to stop carrying
Fox News, and Comcast and Dish and Cox and every
satellite provider and every cable provider and every Internet provider.
I believe the word is d platform. I mean, right now,
(08:56):
the forces of fascism in this country and the propaganda
outlets they control, have already succeeded in creating a completely
fictitious narrative in which the news Max channel, which is
like Fox News but for those addicts who do not
mind their cocaine mixed with rat poison. In this narrative,
news Max has been deep platformed and canceled and silenced
(09:18):
by Direct TV, when in fact this is entirely a
question of news Max raising its price for direct TVs
use from zero dollars per year to thirteen million dollars
per year and direct TV saying what the f the
Democrats and the liberals, and the media pressure groups and
the boycotters, and most importantly you and I, we have
(09:40):
already been convicted of this crime. Let's get a little
something for our money. Let's move to silence an outrageous
un American fifth column eating away at this nation's freedoms,
at its very viability, to say nothing of what it
has done to poor stupid Marjorie Taylor Green and millions
(10:01):
like her who literally do not know where they are
at this moment. What is the right way going to do?
In response, say, oh, you didn't really try to d
platform news Max, but now now you're really trying to
d platform Fox. The right is as ever crying. Let
(10:22):
us give them something to cry about. Since literally months
after I went from just sports into covering we're also
covering news and politics, I have been noting and commenting
and shouting and yelling and screaming that Fox News was
not only not news and should not be called news,
(10:46):
but then it represented an ever growing threat to the
continuation of representative government in this country. In two thousand seven,
I said in an interview that al Qaeda really heard us,
but not as much as Rupert Murdoch has heard us.
Fox News is worse than al Qaeda. We're for our society.
It's as dangerous as the ku Klux Klan. Ever was
(11:11):
serious journalists, the kind that talked loudly in restaurants dismissed
my criticisms of and two thousand seven and two thousand
sixteen and today as just ploys for ratings. I was
just punching up at Bill O'Reilly, thus my hyperbole. Actually, no,
I wasn't. It was obvious then to me, and I
(11:34):
thought to everybody else that Fox News was being used
by the right wing in this country, the way the
Nazis used radio in Germany in the early nineteen thirties
to change reality, to change it from stuff that really
happened out there to a narrative that left the population
in a constant state of fear of outsiders and in
a constant state of rage and umbridge against democracy, against liberals,
(11:58):
and against minorities. It was worse than al Qaeda. It
is worse than al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden killed thousands
of US. Rupert Murdoch has in essence killed the minds
of millions of us. In two thousand nine, O'Reilly and
Murdoch and Fox decided that I had to be silenced
(12:21):
the platformed, if you will, so they attacked not me,
but my boss and my boss's boss, and ultimately the
chairman of the multinational that owned all of us, the
head of g E, Jeffrey Immelt. I have told this
story before, and I will tell it again in all
its grizzly detail at the end of this podcast. In short, though,
(12:45):
O'Reilly accused GE of building parts for roadside bombs used
to kill American servicemen in Iraq. He then had a
camera crew run by Jesse Waters chase Emmelt around. He
mentioned Immelt by name on his show. Immelt's mother was
an O'Reilly viewer, and she called her son and yelled
(13:07):
at him. Jeff m Lt naturally kept a calm head,
befitting the man responsible for the fifth, sixth or seventh
largest corporation in the world, or whatever it was ranked then,
and he immediately threatened the president of NBC that if
his name was mentioned again on Fox News, he would
immediately take MSNBC off the air and fire everybody connected
(13:28):
with it, because these are businessmen and businesses first last,
and everything in between unless Mommy calls. The next thing
I knew, Roger Ales was inside thirty Rock negotiating with
Jeff Zucker over how MSNBC should cover Fox and how
(13:48):
Fox should cover MSNBC and m L and g E.
And even when an NBC executive boasted about this to
The New York Times, most of the American media did
not notice that two out of the three cable news
outlets were colue looting over how and how not to
cover the news. Most that did notice it simply wrote
(14:12):
it off to me trying to get ratings and dismissed
what I did as the liberal version of O'Reilly. I
would hope that after this Kevin McCarthy Tucker Carlson packed
about the January six video. And why am I reminded
of the Hitler Stalin packed when I say the McCarthy
Carlson pact coming so fresh on the heels of the
(14:34):
Fox texts in the dominion case, that somebody, somebody with
a large platform, somebody at CBS or ABC or NBC
or the New York Times or the Washington Posts somebody
would recognize what Fox News is right now and start
(14:54):
up I don't know four and fifty three parts series
on what they are right now. Even if they would
like to pretend that Fox News just became that last Tuesday,
so be it. Because whether it was or it was
not in two thousand thirteen or two thousand three or
at its launch, Fox News is now a clear and
(15:17):
present danger to the safety and security of the United
States of America. It is whether because of money or blackmail,
or most likely just sheer fascistic empathy and sheer spite.
It is a propaganda arm both of the anti democratic
conspiracies alive in this country and of the government of Russia.
(15:38):
And the clarity of how it at its faces like
Carlson and Hannity and Ingram acted in mercenary, financially driven
defense of election denial and thus the violence and the
coup attempts that followed and will follow again. The clarity
of what Fox was behind the scenes between November and
January and what it is today, with Tucker Carlson ready
(16:00):
to issue a video gas lighting on behalf of Trump
and sedition and also do issue an illustrated guide on
how to get past all those annoying Capitol Hill security
cameras next time. Fox News has rendered our response as
a nation to the peril of Fox News essential and urgent.
(16:22):
We have no choice. We must destroy fox News, and
if there is some means to do so, prosecuted, it
is essential and urgent. It is one thing to be
the salesman of madness and conspiracy and rage and paranoia.
It is quite another, and somehow I think it's far worse,
(16:46):
far more damaging, far more insidious, to be the salesman
of madness and conspiracy and rage and paranoia without believing
any of it. The real invested, insane, inconsolable, election deniers
and hate mongers are somehow slightly less despicable and certainly
(17:06):
less threatening because they are Zealots, and thus Zelots have
left half of their plans for world domination undone, because
they believe not only that God will do that part
for them, but that God loves only them and nothing
bad could happen to them. Fox News is far more
dangerous because, in becoming completely devoid of true belief in
(17:29):
anything but its ability to sell morality to morons at
great profit, Fox News has absolved itself of any responsibility
for it. These people do not question their own ethics.
They haven't seen ethics in themselves, their colleagues, their guests,
their employers. In twenty five years, there isn't even moral
(17:51):
relativism because morality, even a mistaken belief that they have
morality and the rest of us don't, morality is no
longer part of the equation. At Fox News. In the past,
they used to sell this country out because they believed
in fascism. Now Carlson and Ingram and Hannity and all
the others are selling this country out because they believe
(18:13):
in money. And we have handed them all the video
from January six and a license to lie about everything
without consequences, about this in particular, without consequences. And we
might as well have given them guns and nukes and
the security code to every home in this country. Hell,
(18:35):
Kevin McCarthy just gave them the security code to every
panic room in the Capitol. And our in action, our
disbelief that there could be anything so cynical as this
is how this country has been previously blighted by big
tobacco and by big pharma. And with a historical nod
to Marjorie Taylor Green by big slavery. We know it
(19:00):
can kill you. It's not our fault that you believe us.
It's your We had big tobacco and big pharma. Fox.
Fox is just big bullshit, still ahead of us. In
(19:27):
this edition of Countdown, Little Jimmy O'Keefe leaves Project Veritas
an ironic name, claiming somebody was making up stories about him.
What does that sound so familiar? Owl Watch twenty three,
the latest The Wandering Eagle Owl of Central Park. Flacco
leaves the nest literally. Mayor Eric Adams of New York
(19:49):
finally makes himself useful, targeting Ron De Santis, and I
promised you the story about how the head of g
E nearly killed off MSNBC in two thousand nine because
Fox said mean things about him and his mommy heard them.
All the gory details ahead. That's next. This is Countdown?
(20:16):
Does is Countdown with Keith old Woman Both scripts to
the news, some headlines, some update, some snarks, some predictions.
Dateline Moscow, Okay. President Biden's visit to Kiev totally did
not disorient the Kremlin or its versions of Tucker Carlson,
Laura Ingram, and Seawan Hannity well Ingram and Hannity. Tucker
(20:39):
Carlson is the Russian version of Tucker Carlson. On the
nightly Russian TV marathon devoted to keeping the People in Line.
Not only did propagandist Olgus Scobiva admit Russia's special operation
in Ukraine has been going on for a year that
is far from reaching its goals. There is a huge
number of deaths, but Scobiva and other panelists said that
(21:00):
Kremlin had made a huge mistake in not blowing Biden up.
The Daily Beasts. Russian TV watcher Julia Davis also reports
the commentators insisted their country also missed a terrific chance
when the then British Prime Minister Bars Johnson was in Kiev,
that they could have blown him up too. Well, that's silly.
(21:21):
All they had to do was wait for Johnson to
go home to England and blow himself up. Date Line,
Central Park, New York. I'll watch twenty three up to Fleco.
The escaped eagle owl now on his own for two days,
shy of three weeks, and his aerial range has now
expanded from about eight or ten blocks from his original
home to fifty. He was spotted in the park's north
(21:44):
Woods yesterday up around a street. Late last week, the
zoo announced that since he's been feeding himself Central Park
rats yum yum, you know them as hot Dogs, they
have been suspended their attempts to recapture Flacco, although they
will keep eyes on him in case there is any
trouble in the future, for instance, if he runs out
(22:05):
of rats. Dateline Washington, the least successful political provocative tour
of our time, Little Jimmy O'Keefe is out on his
ass today after the power struggle at the ironically named
Project Veritas ended with his resignation. O'Keefe has vowed to
start a rival Project Veritas, and said his exit was
(22:25):
forced by people who ruined his reputation by fabricating stories
about him. O'Keefe can now also return his energies to
his sideline as a professional Lee Harvey Oswald look alike
you know them as hot dogs and Dateline Staten Island,
Florida governor and unannounced because if he announced, he'd have
(22:46):
to quit as Florida governor. Presidential candidate Ron de Santis
was in New York's armpit yesterday too. I don't know
meet people worse than him. The Staten Island visit got
so much attention that even New York Mayor Eric Adams
noticed Adams tweeting a welcome to New York to de Santists.
Quote New York a place where we don't ban books,
(23:07):
discriminate against our l G B, t Q plus neighbors,
use asylum seekers as props, or let the government stand
between a woman and healthcare. We're happy to teach you
something about values while you're here. If your New Yorker
friends are unusually quiet today, it's because it's the first
time they've ever heard Adams come out in favor of
any of those things. Next you'll be telling us he's
(23:28):
a democrat. I had. We were all summoned to the
fifty second floor of thirty Rock, at which the president
of NBC told us MSNBC was about to be taken
(23:50):
off the air, and all of us fired because the
chairman of g E was mad. I'm not really the chairman.
The chairman's mother was mad. Next, first time for the
daily roundup of the misgrants, morons, and Dunning Krueger effects
best who constitute today's worst persons in the worldd the bronze.
An unnamed customer at the Art Windwood Fair in Miami,
(24:14):
one of those Jeff Coon's sculptures that look exactly like
balloon animals was on display. A balloon, bright blue and
not made out of balloon stuff. Apparently the customer did
not know that. I thought, I guess that it was
a balloon dog. She tapped the dog with her finger
and it fell off the pedestal and shattered into a
(24:37):
hundred pieces because it wasn't made out of balloon stuff.
It was at balloon sculpture made out of ceramic. And
now it's about one hundred different pieces of balloon sculpture
worth about four and twenty dollars each. We have really
overdone this. Destroy the balloon thing. It is balloon. The
(25:00):
runner up, Superintendent Robbie Stuteville of Rising Star Elementary School
in Rising Star, Texas, also ironically named Superintendent Student Bill,
wants everybody to know that his gun is fine, and
he's fine, and everything is fine. Sure enough, he'd done
found his good silly him. He left it in a bathroom,
(25:22):
But happily somebody found it and told a teacher and
got Superintendent Studentville his gun back. The person who found
it was a third grader who found it in a
bathroom stall fifteen minutes after this idiot left it in there.
But not to worry, Studentville told parents. Quote there was
never a danger, he said, adding quote other than the obvious. Sure,
(25:47):
he's not a student, but our winner, John Malone, the
fascist who bought CNN and installed Chris Licked to destroy it.
Did I ever tell you that when we were at MSNBC.
You know the rest of it. By now, with the
latest CNN humiliation, the unofficial suspension of Don Lemon for
saying that at Nikki Lee was no longer in her
prime as a woman, Malone's going to have to do
(26:09):
one of two things. A fire Chris Licked, because every
move Licked has made not only has not worked, but
has damaged c ANN beyond repair. Or b He's just
gonna have to admit he hired Licked to damage c
ann beyond repair. There is reason to ponder whether or
not Don Lemon was set up here, not set up
(26:29):
so he'd say something misogynistic or something stupid about Nicki Haley.
But first they took away his solo show. Then they
up ended his life by sticking him in the graveyard
that is the Mornings. Then they stuck him with these
two nitwitted co hosts who have all the ambition and
none of the talent, And then they just waited for
something bad to happen, and it did. You can't fire
(26:51):
a Don Lemon, but you can demote him, demote him again,
deprive him of sleep, and hope for the worst. A
long time ago, when I worked for Fox Sports and
Rupert Murdoch, I reported that Murdoch was trying to sell
the l A Dodgers baseball team, which he owned. Before
I went on the air with the story, though, I
went to Murdoch's personal public relations man and told him, look,
(27:13):
I'll kill this story if you want, because it is,
after all, your candy store. Like I said, no, if
you believe it's legit, if your sources are good, you
can report it, but you must make it clear nobody
in the company told you this, and you must run
our corporate denial. And I said, well, flying of course,
Murdoch got back from vacation found out I had reported
he was trying to sell the Dodgers, which he was,
(27:34):
and as he later admitted, he went nuts and he
ordered they should fire me. The problem was I hadn't
done anything to get fired, and if they had fired me,
they would have owed me all the rest of my
one thousand dollar a month salary all at once. So
instead they simply called up and said, you're not hosting
baseball this year. And when I did nothing, the next day,
they called up and canceled my cable sports show. When
(27:56):
I still did nothing, the day after that, they told
me they were taking away my office. By now it
was clear what they were trying to do. They're trying
to get me to overreact, to blow up, to call
a reporter and attack Fox in public so they could
fire me for cause and then not owe me the
one k a month. Look, even I could see through that.
(28:17):
I kept quiet and kept getting a hundred k a month.
So if you're wondering what's going on with Don Lemon
and see Ann, keep that story in mind and accept
the possibility that they're trying to get him to explode
at them, so either they will have to fire him,
or better yet, then he will have to quit. John
just fire him and pay him the money. A cheap
(28:39):
billionaire Malone two Day's worst Person and Wor still ahead
(28:59):
on countdown I've now spent nearly more time promising it
than telling it. The day Fox News and Roger Ales
and Rupert Murdoch nearly got MSNBC taken off the air
on the spot because corporate executives are cowards. First, in
each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need
(29:20):
you can help. Every dog has its day to Shreveport, Louisiana,
and it is amazing how often this exact story unfolds.
A family has a dog it loves, who loves the family.
Maybe something unfortunate happens, maybe not out the dog goes
literally out the door, out of the car, out of
their lives. Mr Jojo is a sweet, temperate pit Terrier mix.
(29:43):
They dumped him on the Texas Louisiana border. He had
no idea how to feed nor protect himself. Thankfully, Parish
Pause of Shreveport found him. They're trying to heal up
his wounds, scabs, skin disease, and broken heart. Happily, the
last part usually is the easiest as to the first part.
If you can help, go to cuddly dot com and
search Mr Jojo. We're just look for him on my
(30:06):
Twitter feed. Donate if you can your retweets will also
help greatly. Hi, thank you, and Mr Jojo thanks you.
The executive producer of our MSNBC newscast Countdown, Izzy Povich,
and I were on the grown up elevator to the
(30:27):
office of NBC President Jeff Zucker 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 we spent
(30:48):
twelve freaking months forcing them to create meadows showed 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 along with
(31:10):
poor Ed Schultz and Phil Griffin at 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 Emil is going to
(31:31):
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, and then
(31:53):
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 until to his
head like a puppy hearing a car crash. He had
not believed at the first time. He had not believed
at the second time. Zucker said it a third time.
(32:13):
Amelt is going to take MSNBC off the fffing 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. What the f
(32:36):
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 opposition to hiring Matto
(32:57):
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, we're almost worth watching the corporate
fascists knuke my network. I asked the Sucker to explain
(33:21):
what happened? You, god, dad, 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 rational, this is this is I melt last
week sometime Bill O'Reilly snapped. He told Murdach he wasn't
gonna take any more of what you were saying about
(33:42):
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 true. They found roadside bombs that had like
thirty year old GE transistors or or TV tubes from
nineteen fifty four or is something in them? Eagally g
(34:05):
E did manufacture components that were used in roadside bombs
that were built in around to kill Americans in Iraq.
So O'Reilly puts this on his fing show as a
lead story, and then Fox sent two camera crews in
this little crap producer from Oriley Show, Jesse water Something,
to stake Immilt out and chase him around the GE
shareholders meeting in Charlotte. Zucker finally came up for air
(34:30):
and I jumped in, why didn't m L 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's doesn't m l own like
twenty camera crews? There? 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,
(34:51):
never mind, it doesn't matter. mL 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 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
(35:13):
Sheltz and you're fired, and Ed whimpered. So Smart asked,
what the f do we do? I feigned all the
nonchalance I could feign. If I could have lit a
shroot by striking a match on the soul of my boot,
I would have. It's manageable. But Jeff, why is m
el so worked up about what O'Reilly said about him?
(35:35):
Only O'Reilly's nutjob viewers actually believe any of that crap.
Nobody had Ge, nobody investing in GE could possibly believe
we're building components for roadside bombs. Zoocker inhaled deeply. M
L's mother believes it. All the heads in the room
turned towards the president of NNBC. Mrs m L back
(35:58):
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 a rand to kill Americans in Iraq? I had
not expected that, I said to Zooker. So so he'll
(36:18):
really burn what two hundred million a year in profits
just between Rachel and me? Because he's 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
ff do we manage it? Ulverman, just a minute? How
old is she? Zucker summoned all his annoyance? How old
(36:42):
is who m ELTs 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. It was great, guess, Zucker spluttered,
I don't know. He's in his mid fifties. She's gotta
be eighty nineties something I stifled to fake yawn. Yeah,
(37:07):
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 saying about Ge? Well,
I think you have a simple solution. I'd say the
first thing you do is you send over a couple
of big guys to her house and you pull the
freaking cable out of the wall. Zooker actually gasped, My producer,
(37:31):
is Hepovich unsuccessfully stifled a laugh, and I saw Rachel
crack a smile. Zucker regained himself. This isn't funny, Alderman,
I crossed my legs. Oh, it's a little funny. And anyway,
it's not essential. If the problem is Email is threatening
to take the network off the year because O'Reilly is
avenging himself against me by attacking him and attacking Ge.
(37:53):
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
at even we just don't mention Fox News on MSNBC
something resembling a smile across Zucker's face. It made him
(38:15):
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 who was it who was
in my office last winter telling me that I should
go on the air and and just to f with Fox?
(38:36):
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 who told me to do that?
Zucker's goodwill was gone? Again? Obviously that was me. What's
(38:56):
your point? My point is, we built this new brand
of ours organically and a couple of themes, a couple
of statements principle, and one of them is to use
your words just to f with Fox. If we don't
f with Fox for a couple of weeks at the
start of the summer, who's gonna care. Who's gonna notice?
(39:16):
But like after two weeks, three weeks. Our viewers are
gonna notice, and the TV writers are gonna notice, and
then the crap will hit from every direction. You can
think of temporary freeze on mentioning Fox, then mentioning O'Reilly
and mentioning Murdock. Fine, permanent freeze. Might as well let
him L turn us off in the morning. After all,
(39:37):
I don't think Zucker actually heard the last part about
m L 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 and you and you and I
will we will talk tomorrow, maybe tonight, and we'll all
(40:00):
meet again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox, anybody,
Are we clear? Thing on the air about Fox? Silence
in the room, Then the assorted noises of people rising,
mixed with attempts to resuscitate for Ed Schultz. Somebody Matthew's
guy Harson I think, was almost at the door out
of Zooker's office, an office so big that it was
(40:21):
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
(40:42):
this is June two 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, Hooker barked
(41:05):
phil lerman 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. I told you. Now, she's
your problem. All of this is your problem. Get her
back on the reservation or else. Now I had run
(41:26):
out of goodwill and jokes. Oh, I'll get her back
on the reservation. Jeff, But do 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 off the
air because his mother didn't like what Fox said about him.
(41:49):
That's my problem. Uh, that's your problem. And it's the
problem of the CEO of the freaking sixth largest corporation
in the world, who makes his business decisions involving hundreds
of millions of dollars of profits based on what his
mother says. At this point, Phil Griffin managed to pull
(42:11):
Zooker 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? I looked
straight ahead. I have depth reception issues while traveling forward, backwards,
up or down the 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
(42:32):
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 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
(42:53):
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
give me as much time as the French government took
before fleeing during the Nazi advance in nine. I said,
give me, what was it, thirty three days? Give me
(43:14):
thirty three days. If we aren't back where we were
this morning, we can both quit on the air. I
mean that would be fun. Right. 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
(43:35):
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 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 drunken
(43:56):
Phil Griffin shouting into the phone, I have a family.
Zooker had to go meet with Roger Ales secretly in
side thirty Rock, and I hope they remember to clean
the room afterwards. And m l even had to meet
with Murdoch, And then, happily, some idiot g executive decided
to boast to The New York Times about getting us
(44:17):
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, and even
NBC News was now risked. The only point of the
whole thing was to keep the mls and the Zookers
(44:38):
and the Griffins and the ailes 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, thirty Rock
has a lot of freaking windows. Countdown has come to
(45:10):
you from the studios of old Ruined Broadcasting Empire World
headquarters in the Sports Capsule Building in New York, where
no deals are made with Fox News. Thank you for listening.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip s Chanelle. They are the
countdown musical directors. Guitars based on drums by Brian Ray,
(45:32):
all orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, produced by
T k O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged
and performed by No Horns allowed. The sports music is
the Ulderman theme from ESPN two and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
(45:54):
Our announcer today was Jonathan Banks, and everything else was
pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this the
seven seventy seventh day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. With
the help of Fox News, arrest Trump now while we
still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then,
(46:15):
I'm keith Old Reman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night,
and good luck. Countdown with keith Old Reman is a
production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
(46:38):
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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