April 24, 2023 • 49 mins
EPISODE 184: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Fani Willis has a batch of texts from the Georgia Voting Machine Access scandal so powerful she could indict at least two Trump minions now - probably Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell right now - and maybe Trump himself because he knew about the plan as Giuliani pitched it a month earlier in the Oval Office as Trump listened. The good news/bad news is that nothing is touching Trump's popularity among Republican primary voters: 46% back him outright; 66% have him as their first or second choice. How could that be good news? DeSantis is NOT a successor. There is no successor. This could all die with him. The only cloud on the horizon? Dianne Feinstein. Not only can't Dick Durbin subpoena Clarence Thomas or John Roberts but when he was to humiliate himself by inviting Roberts to a hearing, Roberts doesn't even reply to his letter - he has a flunky do it for him. All this because Feinstein isn't there and rumored to be REALLY not there. The solution is simple: write up her resignation, forge her signature, and if she's lucid, she can protest and stop it. This isn't a game. For much of the Senate day Democrats do not have a majority because they're treating her like a beloved teacher fading out from a prep school somewhere. This. Is. Metaphorical. War.
B-Block (19:47) WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A nice racism tie between basketball's Phil Jackson and NC Lt. Governor Mark Robinson (who wants his fellow African-Americans to PAY reparations), Senator Hawley and his tiny manhood, and of course Elon Musk, who over the subject of checkmarks just Blue himself. (25:10) BREAKING NEWS: NBC fires my lying ex-friend Jeff Shell as CEO - for lying. Deadline.Com reports he had an affair with a CNBC Correspondent, Hadley Gamble - the woman Russian state TV once accused of trying to distract Vladimir Putin with her "sex appeal" - and compared her to Sharon Stone CROSSING HER LEGS IN BASIC INSTINCT. I'm so full of Schadenfreude I actually sing "The Ode To Joy" in the original German.
C-Block (34:30) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Tobias in California. (35:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: If the Shell news isn't fun enough, CNN and Chris Licht make his biggest mistake yet. There are nine laws of cable TV news and the new Gayle King/Charles Barkley show will violate ALL NINE OF THEM.
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. It
sure looks like they've got much of the Trump Georgia team,
(00:25):
including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and maybe Trump himself,
first for stealing confidential data from a voting machine there,
and then for conspiracy to use that data to falsely
desertify first the twenty twenty presidential vote in that state
and then the Senate runoff vote in that state as well.
(00:45):
CNN reporting that the Trump operatives communicated by text, including
that standard text in which you remind each other not
to tell anybody. Quote here's the plan. Let's keep this
close hold. And as a reminder, if you ever type
words akin to don't tell anybody, you might as well
(01:06):
get on all TV networks at the same time and
announce whatever it is you don't want to tell anybody.
One of the not too bright culprits, a guy who
washed out of the National Security Agency, Jim Penrose, texted
to Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, on January nineteenth,
twenty twenty one, after the Trump ship had sailed, or
(01:27):
more correctly sank. He texted, per CNN, quote, we only
have until Saturday to decide if we are going to
use this report to try to decertify the Senate runoff election,
or if we hold it for a bigger moment. Could
you be more specific? I believe Matt text is so
complicated the jury will be out nearly twenty minutes. By
(01:48):
the way, the bigger moment he referenced there we hold
it for a bigger moment. That would have been a
lawsuit for after certification. It would have been more dramatic
that way. All of this happened thirteen days after the
former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County, Georgia, a lady with
blue hair named Kathy Latham and not blue hip hair,
(02:10):
was caught on video holding the door open to the
Board of Elections there for Scott Hall and Paul Maggio,
who promptly downloaded the voting data onto a portable hard
drive at they say the behest of Sydney Powell. Good
luck in prison, Sydney Powell. The data was then all
uploaded to an encrypted server so Powell and the inaccurately
(02:33):
named ninja guys Logan and Penrose could access it. Oh
and so Rudy Giuliani could access it. A Trump White
House staffer who was at the Armageddon meeting in the
Oval Office on the eighteenth of December twenty twenty testified
that amid the sub coup plans like Marshall Law and
seizing ballots nationwide and naming Powell as special counsel, et cetera,
(02:56):
one attendee proposed accessing voting machines in Georgia, and that
one attendee was Rudy Giuliani. Good luck in prison, Rudy Giuliani.
The office of the Fulton County DA Fani Willis already
told Giuliani he is a target of its investigation, and
after the special pre grand jury grand jury there reported
(03:20):
back that there should be a lot of indictments, some
for witness perjury. Willis is trying to construct a racketeering
case against everybody that in large part appears to be
because the DA has other texts from these Keystone cops.
Penrose and Sidney Powell paid for the team to go
(03:41):
to Coffee County on January seventh and steal the voting
materials paid in advance, and Penrose and the cyber Ninja's
CEO idiot he was texting Logan were also named in
a criminal investigation in Michigan for trying to seize voting
machines there. Back at the Ranch, Special counsel Jack Smith
(04:04):
has all this inside his ever expanding investigation. And no,
it does not have to be one or the other.
Smith can indicte and Fannie Willis can indict. It's a
big tent in that way. And as in aside, if
you were going to call your company, whether it delivers
voter fraud or pizza, if you're going to call it ninja's,
(04:25):
would you please try and act like a ninja just
once in a while. Now. The key, of course, is
to get somebody to flip and say Trump approve the
Georgia Plan in the White House in December twenty twenty
or enabled the attempt to cover up the Georgia Plan.
And the key to that would obviously be Juliani. And
(04:48):
even though I know him thirty years, God help me,
I cannot tell if he's going to be too scared
not to flip and give them Trump or too stupid
to flip and give them Trump. Because Rudy is also
a big tent. He's both scared and stupid. It is
another big week on the whole for Donald J. Chump
Tomorrow the e Gen Carrol trial starts here near as
(05:11):
I can tell. The defense continues to be She's not
even my type, which is not me being sexist. It
is what he actually said about her in June twenty nineteen,
which is just another drop in our bucket of understanding
that the fundamental issue is this guy is somewhere on
the serial killer paint chart spectrum, and anything he does
(05:34):
that resembles an ordinary bit of human behavior is just
clever mimicry. This is Ted Bundy in a long tie. Well,
we then have to extend that realization to his cult.
NBC out with a poll that's NBC Who's chairman Jeff
shell Rennegg done a plan to bring me back to
(05:55):
MSNBC and he got fired yesterday for intra office extramarital
So I will be literally singing the Schadenfreud song for
you later. NBC outw poll that chose National Republican primary
voter support for Trump holding at forty six percent, with
DeSantis at thirty one. Among the others, only Pence got
as high as six percent. Pence, who said on Face
(06:17):
the Nation yesterday that the current outrage of crazy old
white people with guns shooting and trying to kill others
who rang their doorbell or drove up their lane or
happened to be a kid chasing a lost ball. That
that reflects quote the fear that so many Americans are
feeling about the crime wave, a reminder that Pence is
just another scumbag who had one good day in his life,
(06:40):
and that one good day was mostly the result of
fear of getting caught back to that pole. And before
you think, maybe a forty six thirty one Chump Dessantis
split might mean Descantis still has a chance to overtake Voldemort.
Hang on, NBC did something smart besides firing CEO jeffhell.
(07:01):
It asked for second choices among Republican primary vote. Twenty
percent of them picked Trump as a second choice, which
means only a third of Republican primary voters are not
content with him running as their nominee for a third
straight time. Thirty three percent of them took DeSantis as
second choice, meaning he's second choice barring the really dramatic
(07:27):
and whoever imagined we would ever live in a world
in which the possible indictment of the Republican nominee in
two different states and federally would not be considered really dramatic.
Barring the really dramatic, Trump is going to be the
Republican nominee next year. And I think there is a
silver lining in this. Last November, after Trump screwed the
(07:47):
pooch in the midterms and then launched his campaign as
if he were sleepwalking, it looked like we might get
that dream scenario in which somebody rested the nomination away
from him, and Trump's serial killer personality would make him
run as the third part already candidate. I think that's dead.
(08:08):
The arrest did not curb their enthusiasm. His declaration that
he is their justice and their retribution did not curb
their enthusiasm. His plan for mass deportations and building new
cities like San fran Trump and New Trump and Trump City, Arizona,
and mandatory stop and frisk that didn't either. The anybody
(08:30):
but Trump dream is I think dead. But I think
this good news has replaced it. The Trump cult really
doesn't see any line of succession for him. There is
nobody they actually want besides him. That's bad in the
short term, but excellent in the long term because it
allows for the possibility that this nightmare dies with him.
(08:51):
And I use that reference deliberately because you know damned
well that when he stumbles off this mortal coil, some
double digit percentage of his kool Aid drinkers will And
since he's not really dead, he's coming back from the beyond,
and he will run again in twenty twenty eight or
twenty thirty two or twenty fifty six. No, no, he's
not dead. He's just resting. The problem with a political
(09:14):
cult anywhere, at any time is that it requires a
similar figure to keep it afloat. Ask Hitler, Ask Huey Long,
ask even Stalin, although Stalin came to power so young
that he had time to institutionalize much of the oppression,
which kept his cult in line more prosaically. And recently,
(09:34):
ask George W.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
How many people said, seriously as late as two thousand
and three or two thousand and four, I had at
least half a dozen on my show alone that George W.
Bush was the greatest president in a century. I heard
somebody say it was the greatest president since Lincoln. Fifteen
years out of office, and his own party has buried
(09:59):
George W. Bush alive. Rondatis was the regional cult leader
closest to Trump, and evil in deviousness in not letting
little things like morals or laws impede him. But just
as Mike Pence is not Trump's successor, and Junior Trump
is not Trump's successor, and Stephen Miller is not Trump's successor,
(10:19):
DeSantis has already proved it he also is not Trump's successor.
He climbed up onto that national stage and promptly tripped
over his own elevator shoes. He, as the NBC poll suggested,
is second choice. By the way, did I mention NBC
fired its chairman yesterday, the liar guy. There is one
(10:43):
dark cloud in this fairly sunny forecast for the week
ahead in Truth, Justice, and the American Way, And as usual,
it was put there by Democrats. I have mentioned several
times that right now the Dems do not have a
majority inside the Senate Judiciary Committee and in other subcomponents
of the Senate as well. Not really, because Diane findesign
(11:07):
is missing in action, her absence shingles. It still shingles,
right we calling it something?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Now?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Are we sticking with shanles? Shingles? It's still shingles. Her
absence literally means there is no eleventh vote in that
committee with which Dick Durbin can get a judge approved,
or get a subpoena of John Roberts, or of Clarence
Thomas or of me, for God's sake. And it's even
worse than that. Remember Durbin writing a letter saying, we're
(11:38):
holding in an ethics hearing about the Supreme Court, and
we're inviting you Justice Roberts to just pop by or
send anybody on the Court you like, anybody at all,
even that handmade Amy Cony Barrett. Not only did Chief
Justice Roberts not say yes to this letter, shocking, he
(11:59):
didn't even answer the letter himself. That is shocking. Urban's
reply came from Judge Roslin R. Mouskof, Secretary of the
Judicial Conference. The Judicial Conference handles policymaking for the federal courts,
and it stands there as a barrier to remind up
(12:20):
at these senators that one group here is appointed for
life and it ain't them. And Secretary mouse Coaugh, yes,
it's maus like we didn't have enough augers and symbolism going.
Secretary Mousekaf basically said she was turning it over to
a committee within her organization on financial disclosure. She might
as well have written back to Dick Durbin, We'll get
(12:42):
back to you next year or maybe in twenty five,
impotent senate weasel. Her future is in her own hands,
Dick Durbin said of Feinstein yesterday. And then he mentioned
she served for decades with distinction in this and it's
her turn. It's like he's a headmaster at a failing
(13:04):
prep school talking about a beloved teacher who does not
know where they are anymore. He says, no, he has
not talked to her in weeks. He claims, Chuck Schumer
has the rumor mill. Of course he is. Nobody has
talked to her in weeks, and we are held hostage,
no judges, no real investigation of that horror Clarence Thomas
(13:24):
or that judicial quizzling John Roberts, because of a senator
who may be really missing in action. And I somewhat
grotesquely suggested last week that if one ailing Republican senator's
vote was all that stood between Lindsay Graham and subpoenaing
Say Catangi Brown Jackson, Graham would shove that ailing Republican
senator down a flight of stairs. More practically, let me
(13:48):
ask you why Democrats should not do something far less
grotesque that Republicans also would certainly do in a minute.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And remember, this is not a game.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
This is not a testimonial dinner on behalf of a
retiring professor or night watchman or ballplayer. This is the
attempt to save this nation from a madman with the
personality of a serial killer, who has planted his agents
in every major national institution, from the Supreme Court down
(14:19):
to the Visiting Nurse Association. Here is what you do.
You write up the resignation letter for Senator Dianne Feinstein.
You forge her signature, and if she is still lucid,
she can object to it. If not, problem solved, let's
go to effing work. Already still ahead on this initiative countdown.
(14:56):
It is hard to believe that his spaceship could blow
up and his car company could lose a quarter of
its value, and neither would be the low point of
his week the Twitter Blue check fiasco, or to steal
the line from Arrested Development, how Elon Musk blew himself
speaking of desperately bad businessmen. Saturday, my old colleague Chris
(15:18):
lichtive CNN, the presumed paste eater makes his worst programming
decision ever.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
We'll hire Gayle King and Charles Barkley and we'll put
them on one show and we'll call it Charles King.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Wait, maybe there's a better name somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wait, give me a day or so.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And while I was still chortling about that yesterday, the
man who misled me about taking me back to MSNBC
for two years and then basically told reporters, well, Keith
should have known I was lying is fired as the
CEO of NBC for lying and having an extra marital
relationship inside NBC. There's so much schadenfreud this week. I
(16:01):
will actually sing for you the Schadenfreud saw.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That's next. This is count Doll. This is Countdown with
Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Still ahead on an all new edition of Countdown. The
Shot in Freud is special, featuring a disastrous new show
at CNN under Chris Licht and the ouster of the
CEO of NBC who lied to me for having an
extramarital affair inside the company about which he also lied
allegedly with an on air reporter. This is so much fun.
(16:50):
I'm actually going to sing the shot in Freud song
the Ode to Joy first time. For the daily roundup
of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger X specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world, I got a
tie here for the between Mark Robinson, the Lieutenant governor
of North Carolina now running for governor, and Phil Jackson,
legendary basketball coach about whom they've always been racism, rumbles
(17:14):
and mumbles. Jackson first. He has revealed in a podcast
that he stopped watching the NBA during the playoff bubble
of twenty twenty because the league supported Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
They even had slogans on the floor in the baseline.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
He said, it was trying to cater to an audience
or trying to bring in a certain audience to the game,
and they didn't know it was turning other people off. Unquote.
NBA rosters, Phil are now eighty percent black, which is
where they were basically when you were a coach. Maybe
just work with me here, Phil, Maybe it mattered to
the players, and even to the players who weren't black.
(17:50):
Maybe it really just mattered to people then, and the
people who dismissed it as quote, politics were just finding
an excuse for their own racism. Phil Meanwhile, he's tied
with Lieutenant Governor Robinson, who is African American, but desperately
attempting not to be, at least for the sake of
the Republican Party. Robinson repeated to a North Carolina GOP
(18:12):
meeting that American blacks are not owed reparations for slavery. Instead,
he thinks American blacks oe reparations for freedom. What Robinson
didn't know was, as he said this, he stood behind
a podium that was supposed to say NC GOP.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
But the NC and the OP.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Were in black, and the G was inside a red star,
and the prongs of the star stuck out and covered
the opening in the sea. So the sign seemed to
read no GOP. You got that right. Mark the runner up,
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. That book, he said, was being
censored and canceled just because he shot a clenched fist
(18:48):
of support to the January sixth mob that was about
to overtake the Capitol. Oh, it will be out on
May sixteenth. That got published anyway, and it's titled Manhood.
That's two words, one printed on top of the other
on a red on red cover. It's twenty four dollars
a night eighty cents for Josh Hawley's Manhood. That's the
(19:08):
not really hardcover edition obviously, but our winner, Elon Muskie.
Where do we begin? The blue check mark fiasco. NBC
News reports there were four hundred and twenty thousand Legacy
blue check marks issued to prevent impersonation and scamming. The
number of those people who signed up for the eight
(19:29):
dollars Vanity blue check marks was nineteen, four hundred and
ninety seven. Basically, twenty thousand did four hundred thousand didn't.
The number of legacies who signed up as the legacy
marks were disappearing twenty eight two eight against the deadline,
a Twitter source supposed we reveal the number of Vanity
(19:50):
Blues who signed up in total for the final twenty
four hours was four hundred. Musk apparently tried to make
light of this at first. He took three celebrities who
questioned the process and said he was personally buying Twitter
Blue for them. William Shatner, Stephen Lebron, James King, and
Lebron said no thanks. Instantly, The blue check mark became
(20:11):
not a status symbol, not like it was before. It
was an anti theft device before, not a status symbol instead,
now it's a scarlet.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Letter, only only blue. It's a blue scarlet letter.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And then at this point panic apparently set in in
musk Land. On Saturday, blue check marks reappeared for every
Twitter user with more than a million followers, complete with
the explanation on each user's homepage that they had paid
for Twitter Blue and had provided a phone number, which
they didn't. And it's not just cheesy, but under section
(20:45):
forty three A of the Lanham Act, that is illegal.
It's called false endorsement, and it's defined as anything quote
likely to confuse consumers as to the plaint of sponsorship
or approval of the product. In short, any account with
more than a million followers that now has a blue
check market didn't four can now sue Elon Musk for
(21:07):
false endorsement. Of course, this gets even worse. There are
countless Twitter accounts with more than a million followers, even
though the celebrity whose account it was is now sadly dead,
so that Twitter and Musk are now claiming that Pele
brought bought Twitter blue, and Anthony Bourdain bought Twitter blue,
and Kobe Bryant and especially problematic Gibbon Musk's Saudi investors
(21:30):
in Twitter. Twitter is now claiming that Jamal Koshogi has
bought Twitter Blue. Happily for the living who did not
buy it, there is a way out if you got it.
If you've got one of these vanity blues, you can
make it disappear simply by altering your name or your
avatar photo.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You may have to do it more than once.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
But sue Elon first, because he sure did it. He
went and blew himself Elon plas some wag on Twitter said,
the Vanity blue check mark now seems to be compensation
for guys who have small penises.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay, the wag was me Musk days.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Worst worst and the line.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And now to the number one story on the countdown,
and there's so many things I promised not to tell.
It's going to take the rest of the show two segments.
There's the latest news of Chris lickt His latest solution
to CNN's free fall is a weekly news show with
Gail Kane and Charles Barkley, and they announced it Saturday,
even though they have no idea when it's going to start.
(22:43):
Had that not been funny enough? News broke yesterday and
was expanded upon late last night that my former friend
of twenty years Jeff Shell had been fired as the
CEO of NBC Universal Chairman of NBC gone and rarely
nobody saw it coming. Went off like an atomic bomb
at every goddamn NBC affiliate from Albuquerque to say dusky.
(23:06):
Jeff Shell, who misled me from literally the night the
story of his getting the NBC CEO job broke in
December twenty nineteen through September twenty twenty one, misled me
that he wanted to bring me and count Down back
to MSNBC, that we needed to keep fighting to find
a way to make it happen, and then had one
of his lackeyes tell me, after two years of this
(23:28):
that Rachel Matdow has vetoed it. And then when I
told this story publicly, Shell had one of the NBC
news pr flunkies say there had never been any real
interest in bringing me back and that in essence I
should have known Jeff Shell was lying to me all
that time. In other words, the chairman of NBC was
lying to you for two years. You should have known
(23:48):
that that is not the flex that NBC thought it was. However,
apparently it was foreshadowing. Yesterday, Shell wrote a brief note
emailed throughout NBC Television and the rest of the company,
explaining he was truly sorry for an inappropriate relationship with
a woman, and this was his last day at the company.
(24:09):
There was some kind of complaint, There was a quick investigation,
and then it was mutually decided that Shell and NBC
should part ways, which means it was mutually decided you're
effing fired. And then late last night came the second
nuclear detonation of the day at NBC. The Hollywood website
Deadline is reporting, quote multiple sources tell Deadline that the
(24:32):
woman who filed the complaint against NBC Universal CEO Jeffshell
for inappropriate conduct was CNBC anchor and senior international correspondent
Hadley Gamble unquote. This would be the same Hadley Gamble
who interviewed Vladimir Putin, the Dictator of Russia, on stage
(24:54):
at Russian Energy Week in a panel in twenty twenty
one while wearing a very tight black dress. She was
wearing the dress not Putin, and then caught Putin making
goofy faces at her, and then Russian state media came
out with a story claiming she had been sent there
as a sex object to distract Putin quote like she
(25:15):
was in the movie Nine and a half Weeks or
Basic Instinct, and Russian State Media in both the Sharon's
stone leg crossing scene about Hadley Gamble. Back to the
Deadline story quote, Deadline has learned that Shell had a
relationship with Gamble which started about eleven years ago and
continued sporadically up until a couple of years ago, when
(25:37):
it ended. The complaint was lodged. Within the past month,
Deadline has learned the matter went all the way to
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, through the proper channels,
and was handled expediently. Sources said. The outside law firm
hired to investigate delivered their findings to top Comcast brass
within the past week. We hear and then comes the
(25:59):
real kicker in the Deadline story quote. Deadline has learned
that there was communication between Shell and Gamble via company
email which came to light in the investigation.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Woy So, the chairman of NBC, was what sending emails
inside the NBC email system to his ex lover, a
reporter for CNBC, inside the company system after the relationship.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Ended, and he was asking for what, So you're saying,
maybe you should have known I was lying. Wasn't just
used on me my favorite boss, my true friend, friend
at Fox Sports in nineteen ninety nine to two thousand,
who stayed in touch, who moved on to Comcast, and
when Comcast was buying NBC, reappeared in my life to
(26:50):
try to talk me out of leaving my show on MSNBC.
He said he would fix everything because when Comcast took over,
he would be in charge of NBC cable stations. Probably
shouldn't have been saying that Comcast execs were under strict
instructions not to intervene in day to day operations at
NBC before they actually closed the sale.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But what am I?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The Federal Trade Commission? And then he lied to me
for two years or he lied about lying to me. Oh,
now he's lying about this Hadley gamble and they fired
him for it. That's a shame. One PostScript to this,
The Wall Street Journal suggests one of the candidates to
(27:30):
replace Shell is Sezar Conde, chairman of NBC News. He
was the guy Shell wanted me to meet to discuss
the return of Countdown and how to make it happen.
And one day early in twenty twenty one, this conde
invited me to breakfast. A few days later, his assistant
then called to find an appropriate quiet restaurant nearby where
we could meet. We found one, we arranged, it was
(27:52):
all set, and thirty minutes later she called back and
canceled the breakfast because suddenly says our conde was going
to be out of town for a week. Oh, we
do it whenever he got back, which apparently he never has.
Because the next thing is the statement about how I
should have known Jeff Shell was lying constantly. And if
it sounds like I am having way too much shodden
Fried of fun, it's because I'm sitting here, stamping my feet,
(28:14):
having wait too much shot and Fry of fun, so
much fun, I feel like bursting out in song.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Oh Nancy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Ride a s food talk on our.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
S arm about Lepton for your drunken Deely diem dinzo
in don feed bast mood thing got.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
A man and bell Don Broyd Bard Sup, don't knan
fast and I'll just leave you with this.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
The Hapley gamble didn't pay off, and she has left
Jeff a shell of his former self. Still ahead on Countdown,
(29:37):
Part two of Things I Promised not to Tell And
it was a big weekend for people who don't like
people I don't like. There are nine rules of cable news,
and CNN's new Charles Barkley Gail King show violates all
nine of them. First in each tradition of Countdown to
feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog
has its day. Tobias is an eight year old Husky
(29:59):
mix handsome white and creamy tan fella. He has soulful eye.
He has not been taken care of by a human
in years, and understandably, he has trust issues with people,
and he's on the kill list in the high kill
shelter at DeVore, California, and he desperately needs out and fast.
He needs a foster in the area. He needs our
(30:20):
pledges to help defray the costs of a rescue to
get him out and train him before they kill him.
You can find Tobias on my Twitter feeds, and as always,
if you pledge and we don't save him, you're under
no obligation on the other hand, with your help we
might save him. I thank you, and Tobias thanks you.
(30:56):
And as promised to two topical editions of things I
promised not to tell Jeff Shelled gone at NBC and
at see It end, Chris Lickt stepped done another rake,
and soon or late one of these rakes will be
his last. Lickt has gone ahead and done it. He
(31:18):
will premiere show about News, co hosted by Charles Barkley,
who has never done a news show before, and Gail King,
who has never been on a successful news show before.
It will be once a week, starting sometime in the
near future, we think on one of seven possible nights
to be determined, and they've announced it now. This is
(31:43):
the genius of Chris Lickt in action again. And when
I say genius, of course, I mean when we were
at MSNBC together, we all thought Chris Lickt eight paste.
There are nine fundamental rules of cable TV news, and
this idea violates all nine of them. Here they are
Number one, don't mistake friends of yours for universally popular
(32:04):
television people. Number two, remember that no matter how big
the ratings, last place in the ratings is still last place.
Number three. Remember that whatever somebody's ratings are over there,
that does not mean that they will get those same
ratings over here. Number four. Remember the law of the
day part number five. Remember news viewers actually don't want
(32:29):
pop culture figures or sportscasters giving their opinions on the news.
I know what you're saying. I'm going into detail on
this in a little bit. Number six. You may think
cable viewers want neutral, non ideological balance shows, but there's
only about just this scant twenty five years worth of
(32:49):
data proving that no, no, they do not want neutral,
non ideological balanced shows at all. Number seven, once a
week on cable news might as well be once a year.
Number eight. If you have recentably made a bad, big mistake,
recognize it and do not repeat it. And number nine,
(33:11):
do not do not pick a cute title for a show,
especially if it is a play on the name of
the host or the hosts okay, one by one. Number one,
don't mistake friends of yours for universally popular TV figures
or talent. I got nothing against Gail King. She is
a very nice lady. I knew her so long ago
(33:33):
that when we met I was just starting at SportsCenter
and she was a local newscaster in Hartford, Connecticut. Then
she had an NBC talk show canceled, She had a
syndicated talk show canceled, She had a show on Oprah's network, canceled.
Other jobs at XM Radio, at ABC News not one success,
and she went to work at CBS under Chris Lickt. Now,
(33:55):
if you're Chris licked you have to recognize the first say,
six failures out of six tries are more important than
your successful friendship. You do not say of a Gail
King Charles Barkley show, as Lickt actually did last week
on the record quote, wouldn't that be a fun show
to watch? Wouldn't you watch that show? I would watch
that no matter what network it was on. If that's
(34:17):
the methodology here, guess what, Chris, you will soon get
plenty of time to watch any show, no matter what
network it's on. Number two, remember that last Place is
still last Place. I know that the CBS morning show
she is now on is the best Last Place show
of all the dozens of different Last Place shows CBS
(34:39):
has produced in the mornings over the decades dating back
to nineteen fifty four when it was Walter Cronkite and
a puppet co hosting the morning news, and most relevantly,
this show was the last news program that CNN's new
boss had anything to do with, and Gail King is
thus one of only four or five people in the
news business he knows the first thing about. But it's
(35:00):
still a last place show. The ratings from the week
before last, people who chose to watch a network morning
show and chose the one Gail King is on two
point two million people who chose one of the ones
Gail King is not on five point nine million.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Law three.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Remember that whatever somebody's ratings are over there does not
mean they're going to get those same ratings over here.
An average of million, two hundred and eighty four thousand
people watch Gail King's show on CBS week before last.
The most recent day we have of cable news ratings, Thursday,
April twentieth, two million, two hundred and sixty eight thousand
(35:39):
people watch CNN between seven pm and midnight total. For
twenty years, CNN has been relentlessly advertising and promoting and
pushing Anderson Cooper, who has an even higher profile job
at CBS than King does for twenty years, he's been pushed.
Cooper's CBS show is sixty minutes and it gets roughly
seven and a half million viewers an episode. A CNN
(36:01):
show gets five hundred thousand viewers. His CNN show gets
seven and a half percent the ratings of his CBS show.
If that number holds up for Gail King, her CNN
show will get one hundred and seventy one thousand viewers.
That's like a third of what CNN is getting right
(36:24):
now in primetime. Yet somebody at CNN is saying this
will be our breakthrough show.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Four.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Remember the Law of the Day part. Early on the
morning of February twenty second, two thousand and five, the
President of CBS less Moonbez, and the president of CBS News,
Andrew Hayward, sneaked into my apartment building. There had been
a late hitch in their plan to hire Katie kirk
away from the Today Show, which was on in the mornings,
to make her the anchor of the CBS Evening News,
which was on, as their clever title implied, in the evenings. Now.
(36:59):
These guys were confident they could get around that hitch,
but they had no backup plan, and they decided kind
of at the last minute. I was the backup plan. Now,
apart from my what the hell, let me tell you
what I really think, pitch, I mean, my odds getting
the job are about one in one thousand, I asked
them before you signed, Katie Kirk, have you considered the
possibility that being a successful co host of a morning
(37:20):
show might not translate into being a successful sole anchor
of the CBS evening news, which is on in the evenings.
Have you considered what we called in radio day parts.
It's not the same job. It's not what people know
her for. Morning shows are interviews, Evening news is are
(37:41):
reading teleprompter and then getting on a plane for Afghanistan.
It's not what people watch her for. And last Moonvez said,
but she's a star, And I said, let me just
tell you precisely how it matters that what time somebody
is on is bigger than whether or not they're a star.
When I was a local sportscaster in LA Channel five,
we did the ten o'clock news, so I came on
(38:02):
about ten fifty every night. I was I've got to
use the word I was beloved. The ratings went up
at ten fifty every night. It was the only newscast
in a major city in America where the ratings went
up when the sports guy came on. Naturally, I got
hired away by another station, your station, last Channel two
in LA. They got paid seven times when I was
(38:22):
making and we did the eleven o'clock news. So I
came on not at ten fifty, but at eleven thirty
every night, and I was hated. None of the viewers
got my jokes. Nobody liked me anymore. They hated me,
and I was shocked. My bosses were shocked, and their
bosses were shocked. And then they spent a shocked fortune
on research to figure out why it didn't work. And
(38:45):
they came back and they said, look, the evidence is overwhelming.
All the people who loved this guy's sportscasts apparently had
the jobs where they had to be in the office
at seven or eight in the morning because of the
whole East coast West coast thing, and they were literally
staying up as late as they could to watch them
at ten fifty. When you put them on at eleven thirty,
all the people who liked him are asleep less Andy,
(39:11):
I said, ten to fifty PM and forty minutes later
at eleven thirty pm. They are different day parts. And
if ten fifty pm at eleven thirty pm are different
day parts, then seven am and six thirty pm are
completely different day parts. They didn't listen. I didn't expect
them to. They hired Katie Kirk who was a morning
(39:32):
success and was a nighttime disaster, and now CNN wants
to hire a morning not success and put her on
at night. So what could possibly go wrong here? Back
to our laws Number five, news viewers actually do not
want pop culture figures or sportscasters giving their opinions on
(39:52):
the news. I don't have stats on this. I just
again have my own experience. When I was a news
commentator on MSNBC and had as a sideline co host
of an hour of Dan Patrick's ESPN radio show and
then co host a Football Night in America on NBC.
That was fine, keep the politics out of the sportscast,
and nobody cares if you do both the sportscast and
(40:13):
the newscast. But anytime I was perceived as a sportscaster
giving opinions on the news, like when I first left
ESPN to go to AMSNBC, and then when I left
Fox Sports to become a news anchor at CNN, big trouble.
Viewers could accept the change and even the overlap from
news to sports, but from sports to news, particularly commentary,
(40:38):
It's going to take a year two, maybe maybe three
before viewers will accept Charles Barkley or take him seriously.
And then the interim what could also happen is he
could really tarnish his sports brand.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Six.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
You may think cable viewers want neutral, non ideological, balance shows,
but there's only about twenty five years of data proving
oh they don't. Pre Chris Lick, CNN was not purely ideological,
but nobody watching thought they were piously neutral, especially not
about Chump the new fascist owners, and Licked promised to
return to the old CNN whatever that was. What they
(41:16):
got was hemorrhage. CNN's ratings for the first quarter of
this year are down thirty four percent from the first
quarter of twenty twenty two. As the announcement was made,
Barkley promised his show would not lean any one way politically,
and I in turn promise that whatever the audience size
is on week one, he really does that and remains neutral,
(41:40):
his audience size will be thirty four percent smaller on
week two. Seven. Once a week on cable news might
as well be once a year. No once a week
show has ever succeeded in cable news. I was there
when it started. CNN later tried a rotation of five
(42:03):
once a week shows in prime time in the late
nineties and promptly lost its ratings monopoly. Every network has
tried them except Fox. MSNBC is trying it now with
Rachel Mattow and the ratings are really disturbing. Before she
cut back to Monday's only her high watermark ratings, like
the old saw Goes were the rising tide that lifted
(42:24):
all boats. Last Monday at nine pm a week ago,
she drew two hundred and thirty five thousand viewers in
the advertising demo, which is very good these days. The
show before her at one hundred and forty seven thousand.
The show after her had one hundred and forty one thousand.
In other words, about ninety thousand additional demo viewers showed
up just for Meadows once a week show, and then
(42:46):
they went away. They stopped watching MSNBC, so they are
paying and maybe this had something to do with Jeff
Shell getting fired. They are paying Rachel Maddow thirty one
million dollars a year to get an additional ninety thousand
viewers a week. In fact, that may be generous, yes,
the rest of the week when it's not her in
(43:07):
the nine PM slot, the nine PM slot average one
hundred and seventy nine thousand demo viewers. They may be
paying Rachel thirty one million dollars a year for only
fifty six thousand viewers above average a week. And the
ratings at eight pm and ten pm were higher on
the nights she wasn't on on nine PM compared to
(43:29):
those when she was. It is a maximum of cable news.
Nobody is going to watch your network on nights you
are not on just because they want to say thank
you to your employer, even if everything I'm saying about
Barkley and King is wrong. Shows that are on once
a week do not help the other shows on your
cable news network. You want to succeed based on a
(43:51):
bunch of shows that are on once a week, you're
going to need about twenty eight really good once a
week shows, and that's just for primetime. Law eight of
the nine if you've recently made a bad mistake, recognize
it and don't repeat it. Chris Lick's last brainstorm was
to go big, to hire a big name to appear
(44:14):
once a week, to take what was previously the online
only supplement to Bill Maher's show on HBO and put
it on live on Friday nights on CNN. Friday the seventeenth,
two hundred and seventy seven thousand viewers. Every other hour
that night on MSNBC and Fox had at least one
million viewers. Bill Maher two hundred and seventy seven thousand,
(44:38):
two hundred and seventy seven thousand viewers is about at
the point where you have to consider whether it's worth
paying for all that electricity required to length the studio.
And the last rule rule nine, do not pick a
cute title for a show, especially if it is a
play on the name of the host or hosts. People
(44:59):
don't believe this today, but as I've mentioned before, Tucker
Carlson used to work at MSNBC had his his own
primetime show, and as a favor to a friend, I
served as the liberal foil to Tucker Carlson for a
few demo pilot shows and at some point the former
CNN president, the one who tried the five nights a
week with once a week shows he was then running MSNBC,
(45:22):
Rick Kaplan. He saw these demos and he liked the interplay,
probably because I was just saying whatever I could say
to get me off the stage the fastest. So I
go back to my office and write my show. So
Kaplan approached me with an offer. He would tear up
my contract. He would give me a huge raise if
I would do Countdown and stick around until eleven o'clock
(45:42):
every night and co host co host with Tucker Carlson.
It would be perfect, he said, because he could combine
our initials and give the show the greatest name in
cable news history, TKO. The content of the show, its feasibility,
and this did not matter to him. What he was
(46:03):
in love with was the title TKO. It's perfect, the
name of the new Charles Barkley Gaile King Show. It
leaves me wondering if Chris Lick actually did this, if
he actually developed not a show, but a title for
a show. Charles Barkley's nickname is King Charles, so let's see,
he can't host it by himself. He doesn't even host
(46:25):
his own basketball show by him, so he needs a
co host he.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Needs I got it.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
It's perfect. He needs somebody named King. That way, the
title of the show will be King Charles. Let's see
who can we get Stephen King. No, he'll never do it. Nos,
eyebrows scare children. Larry King No, no, sadly no, he's
gone now though. Oh look, if anybody could come back
to do a new show, it would be Larry Now
(46:53):
King Wally from Sportsphone. Now he's the PA announcer for
the Knicks, right, so he's got a larger audience every night. Wait,
I got it. Gail King, King Charles get it? Isn't
that clever? I would watch that no matter what network
goes on, so it couldn't be worse. Actually I'm wrong
(47:13):
about that. The show could have been called King Charles,
and it could have had three hosts, Gail King, Charles
Barkley and King Charles of Great Britain. Okay, so Jeff
(47:40):
Shell's gone, Chris Lick closer to his end. I have
done all the damage I could do here, well almost.
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of
the music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, guitars Bassed
(48:02):
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by ITK Overrops. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Aloud.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of ESPN, INC.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever,
and our announcer today was John Dean. Everything else pretty
(48:23):
much my fault. So that's countdown for this the eight
hundred and thirty ninth days since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Don't forget. Keep arresting him while we still can. The
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow, and until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Right ot for talk on our sarm in about Tapton
drunken Sam Dinzo.
Speaker 7 (49:16):
Be Don feed bast Moack got a man and fell
down Froyd Dot Boe, sunt Free.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Duncan and Faust. Countdown with Keith Olreman 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. It
sure looks like they've got much of the Trump Georgia team,
(00:25):
including Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell and maybe Trump himself,
first for stealing confidential data from a voting machine there,
and then for conspiracy to use that data to falsely
desertify first the twenty twenty presidential vote in that state
and then the Senate runoff vote in that state as well.
(00:45):
CNN reporting that the Trump operatives communicated by text, including
that standard text in which you remind each other not
to tell anybody. Quote here's the plan. Let's keep this
close hold. And as a reminder, if you ever type
words akin to don't tell anybody, you might as well
(01:06):
get on all TV networks at the same time and
announce whatever it is you don't want to tell anybody.
One of the not too bright culprits, a guy who
washed out of the National Security Agency, Jim Penrose, texted
to Doug Logan, CEO of Cyber Ninjas, on January nineteenth,
twenty twenty one, after the Trump ship had sailed, or
(01:27):
more correctly sank. He texted, per CNN, quote, we only
have until Saturday to decide if we are going to
use this report to try to decertify the Senate runoff election,
or if we hold it for a bigger moment. Could
you be more specific? I believe Matt text is so
complicated the jury will be out nearly twenty minutes. By
(01:48):
the way, the bigger moment he referenced there we hold
it for a bigger moment. That would have been a
lawsuit for after certification. It would have been more dramatic
that way. All of this happened thirteen days after the
former GOP chairwoman of Coffee County, Georgia, a lady with
blue hair named Kathy Latham and not blue hip hair,
(02:10):
was caught on video holding the door open to the
Board of Elections there for Scott Hall and Paul Maggio,
who promptly downloaded the voting data onto a portable hard
drive at they say the behest of Sydney Powell. Good
luck in prison, Sydney Powell. The data was then all
uploaded to an encrypted server so Powell and the inaccurately
(02:33):
named ninja guys Logan and Penrose could access it. Oh
and so Rudy Giuliani could access it. A Trump White
House staffer who was at the Armageddon meeting in the
Oval Office on the eighteenth of December twenty twenty testified
that amid the sub coup plans like Marshall Law and
seizing ballots nationwide and naming Powell as special counsel, et cetera,
(02:56):
one attendee proposed accessing voting machines in Georgia, and that
one attendee was Rudy Giuliani. Good luck in prison, Rudy Giuliani.
The office of the Fulton County DA Fani Willis already
told Giuliani he is a target of its investigation, and
after the special pre grand jury grand jury there reported
(03:20):
back that there should be a lot of indictments, some
for witness perjury. Willis is trying to construct a racketeering
case against everybody that in large part appears to be
because the DA has other texts from these Keystone cops.
Penrose and Sidney Powell paid for the team to go
(03:41):
to Coffee County on January seventh and steal the voting
materials paid in advance, and Penrose and the cyber Ninja's
CEO idiot he was texting Logan were also named in
a criminal investigation in Michigan for trying to seize voting
machines there. Back at the Ranch, Special counsel Jack Smith
(04:04):
has all this inside his ever expanding investigation. And no,
it does not have to be one or the other.
Smith can indicte and Fannie Willis can indict. It's a
big tent in that way. And as in aside, if
you were going to call your company, whether it delivers
voter fraud or pizza, if you're going to call it ninja's,
(04:25):
would you please try and act like a ninja just
once in a while. Now. The key, of course, is
to get somebody to flip and say Trump approve the
Georgia Plan in the White House in December twenty twenty
or enabled the attempt to cover up the Georgia Plan.
And the key to that would obviously be Juliani. And
(04:48):
even though I know him thirty years, God help me,
I cannot tell if he's going to be too scared
not to flip and give them Trump or too stupid
to flip and give them Trump. Because Rudy is also
a big tent. He's both scared and stupid. It is
another big week on the whole for Donald J. Chump
Tomorrow the e Gen Carrol trial starts here near as
(05:11):
I can tell. The defense continues to be She's not
even my type, which is not me being sexist. It
is what he actually said about her in June twenty nineteen,
which is just another drop in our bucket of understanding
that the fundamental issue is this guy is somewhere on
the serial killer paint chart spectrum, and anything he does
(05:34):
that resembles an ordinary bit of human behavior is just
clever mimicry. This is Ted Bundy in a long tie. Well,
we then have to extend that realization to his cult.
NBC out with a poll that's NBC Who's chairman Jeff
shell Rennegg done a plan to bring me back to
(05:55):
MSNBC and he got fired yesterday for intra office extramarital
So I will be literally singing the Schadenfreud song for
you later. NBC outw poll that chose National Republican primary
voter support for Trump holding at forty six percent, with
DeSantis at thirty one. Among the others, only Pence got
as high as six percent. Pence, who said on Face
(06:17):
the Nation yesterday that the current outrage of crazy old
white people with guns shooting and trying to kill others
who rang their doorbell or drove up their lane or
happened to be a kid chasing a lost ball. That
that reflects quote the fear that so many Americans are
feeling about the crime wave, a reminder that Pence is
just another scumbag who had one good day in his life,
(06:40):
and that one good day was mostly the result of
fear of getting caught back to that pole. And before
you think, maybe a forty six thirty one Chump Dessantis
split might mean Descantis still has a chance to overtake Voldemort.
Hang on, NBC did something smart besides firing CEO jeffhell.
(07:01):
It asked for second choices among Republican primary vote. Twenty
percent of them picked Trump as a second choice, which
means only a third of Republican primary voters are not
content with him running as their nominee for a third
straight time. Thirty three percent of them took DeSantis as
second choice, meaning he's second choice barring the really dramatic
(07:27):
and whoever imagined we would ever live in a world
in which the possible indictment of the Republican nominee in
two different states and federally would not be considered really dramatic.
Barring the really dramatic, Trump is going to be the
Republican nominee next year. And I think there is a
silver lining in this. Last November, after Trump screwed the
(07:47):
pooch in the midterms and then launched his campaign as
if he were sleepwalking, it looked like we might get
that dream scenario in which somebody rested the nomination away
from him, and Trump's serial killer personality would make him
run as the third part already candidate. I think that's dead.
(08:08):
The arrest did not curb their enthusiasm. His declaration that
he is their justice and their retribution did not curb
their enthusiasm. His plan for mass deportations and building new
cities like San fran Trump and New Trump and Trump City, Arizona,
and mandatory stop and frisk that didn't either. The anybody
(08:30):
but Trump dream is I think dead. But I think
this good news has replaced it. The Trump cult really
doesn't see any line of succession for him. There is
nobody they actually want besides him. That's bad in the
short term, but excellent in the long term because it
allows for the possibility that this nightmare dies with him.
(08:51):
And I use that reference deliberately because you know damned
well that when he stumbles off this mortal coil, some
double digit percentage of his kool Aid drinkers will And
since he's not really dead, he's coming back from the beyond,
and he will run again in twenty twenty eight or
twenty thirty two or twenty fifty six. No, no, he's
not dead. He's just resting. The problem with a political
(09:14):
cult anywhere, at any time is that it requires a
similar figure to keep it afloat. Ask Hitler, Ask Huey Long,
ask even Stalin, although Stalin came to power so young
that he had time to institutionalize much of the oppression,
which kept his cult in line more prosaically. And recently,
(09:34):
ask George W.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Bush.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
How many people said, seriously as late as two thousand
and three or two thousand and four, I had at
least half a dozen on my show alone that George W.
Bush was the greatest president in a century. I heard
somebody say it was the greatest president since Lincoln. Fifteen
years out of office, and his own party has buried
(09:59):
George W. Bush alive. Rondatis was the regional cult leader
closest to Trump, and evil in deviousness in not letting
little things like morals or laws impede him. But just
as Mike Pence is not Trump's successor, and Junior Trump
is not Trump's successor, and Stephen Miller is not Trump's successor,
(10:19):
DeSantis has already proved it he also is not Trump's successor.
He climbed up onto that national stage and promptly tripped
over his own elevator shoes. He, as the NBC poll suggested,
is second choice. By the way, did I mention NBC
fired its chairman yesterday, the liar guy. There is one
(10:43):
dark cloud in this fairly sunny forecast for the week
ahead in Truth, Justice, and the American Way, And as usual,
it was put there by Democrats. I have mentioned several
times that right now the Dems do not have a
majority inside the Senate Judiciary Committee and in other subcomponents
of the Senate as well. Not really, because Diane findesign
(11:07):
is missing in action, her absence shingles. It still shingles,
right we calling it something?
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Now?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Are we sticking with shanles? Shingles? It's still shingles. Her
absence literally means there is no eleventh vote in that
committee with which Dick Durbin can get a judge approved,
or get a subpoena of John Roberts, or of Clarence
Thomas or of me, for God's sake. And it's even
worse than that. Remember Durbin writing a letter saying, we're
(11:38):
holding in an ethics hearing about the Supreme Court, and
we're inviting you Justice Roberts to just pop by or
send anybody on the Court you like, anybody at all,
even that handmade Amy Cony Barrett. Not only did Chief
Justice Roberts not say yes to this letter, shocking, he
(11:59):
didn't even answer the letter himself. That is shocking. Urban's
reply came from Judge Roslin R. Mouskof, Secretary of the
Judicial Conference. The Judicial Conference handles policymaking for the federal courts,
and it stands there as a barrier to remind up
(12:20):
at these senators that one group here is appointed for
life and it ain't them. And Secretary mouse Coaugh, yes,
it's maus like we didn't have enough augers and symbolism going.
Secretary Mousekaf basically said she was turning it over to
a committee within her organization on financial disclosure. She might
as well have written back to Dick Durbin, We'll get
(12:42):
back to you next year or maybe in twenty five,
impotent senate weasel. Her future is in her own hands,
Dick Durbin said of Feinstein yesterday. And then he mentioned
she served for decades with distinction in this and it's
her turn. It's like he's a headmaster at a failing
(13:04):
prep school talking about a beloved teacher who does not
know where they are anymore. He says, no, he has
not talked to her in weeks. He claims, Chuck Schumer
has the rumor mill. Of course he is. Nobody has
talked to her in weeks, and we are held hostage,
no judges, no real investigation of that horror Clarence Thomas
(13:24):
or that judicial quizzling John Roberts, because of a senator
who may be really missing in action. And I somewhat
grotesquely suggested last week that if one ailing Republican senator's
vote was all that stood between Lindsay Graham and subpoenaing
Say Catangi Brown Jackson, Graham would shove that ailing Republican
senator down a flight of stairs. More practically, let me
(13:48):
ask you why Democrats should not do something far less
grotesque that Republicans also would certainly do in a minute.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
And remember, this is not a game.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
This is not a testimonial dinner on behalf of a
retiring professor or night watchman or ballplayer. This is the
attempt to save this nation from a madman with the
personality of a serial killer, who has planted his agents
in every major national institution, from the Supreme Court down
(14:19):
to the Visiting Nurse Association. Here is what you do.
You write up the resignation letter for Senator Dianne Feinstein.
You forge her signature, and if she is still lucid,
she can object to it. If not, problem solved, let's
go to effing work. Already still ahead on this initiative countdown.
(14:56):
It is hard to believe that his spaceship could blow
up and his car company could lose a quarter of
its value, and neither would be the low point of
his week the Twitter Blue check fiasco, or to steal
the line from Arrested Development, how Elon Musk blew himself
speaking of desperately bad businessmen. Saturday, my old colleague Chris
(15:18):
lichtive CNN, the presumed paste eater makes his worst programming
decision ever.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Okay, I got it.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
We'll hire Gayle King and Charles Barkley and we'll put
them on one show and we'll call it Charles King.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Now.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Wait, maybe there's a better name somewhere.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Wait, give me a day or so.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
And while I was still chortling about that yesterday, the
man who misled me about taking me back to MSNBC
for two years and then basically told reporters, well, Keith
should have known I was lying is fired as the
CEO of NBC for lying and having an extra marital
relationship inside NBC. There's so much schadenfreud this week. I
(16:01):
will actually sing for you the Schadenfreud saw.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
That's next. This is count Doll. This is Countdown with
Keith Olberman.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Still ahead on an all new edition of Countdown. The
Shot in Freud is special, featuring a disastrous new show
at CNN under Chris Licht and the ouster of the
CEO of NBC who lied to me for having an
extramarital affair inside the company about which he also lied
allegedly with an on air reporter. This is so much fun.
(16:50):
I'm actually going to sing the shot in Freud song
the Ode to Joy first time. For the daily roundup
of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger X specimens who
constitute today's worst persons in the world, I got a
tie here for the between Mark Robinson, the Lieutenant governor
of North Carolina now running for governor, and Phil Jackson,
legendary basketball coach about whom they've always been racism, rumbles
(17:14):
and mumbles. Jackson first. He has revealed in a podcast
that he stopped watching the NBA during the playoff bubble
of twenty twenty because the league supported Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
They even had slogans on the floor in the baseline.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
He said, it was trying to cater to an audience
or trying to bring in a certain audience to the game,
and they didn't know it was turning other people off. Unquote.
NBA rosters, Phil are now eighty percent black, which is
where they were basically when you were a coach. Maybe
just work with me here, Phil, Maybe it mattered to
the players, and even to the players who weren't black.
(17:50):
Maybe it really just mattered to people then, and the
people who dismissed it as quote, politics were just finding
an excuse for their own racism. Phil Meanwhile, he's tied
with Lieutenant Governor Robinson, who is African American, but desperately
attempting not to be, at least for the sake of
the Republican Party. Robinson repeated to a North Carolina GOP
(18:12):
meeting that American blacks are not owed reparations for slavery. Instead,
he thinks American blacks oe reparations for freedom. What Robinson
didn't know was, as he said this, he stood behind
a podium that was supposed to say NC GOP.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
But the NC and the OP.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Were in black, and the G was inside a red star,
and the prongs of the star stuck out and covered
the opening in the sea. So the sign seemed to
read no GOP. You got that right. Mark the runner up,
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. That book, he said, was being
censored and canceled just because he shot a clenched fist
(18:48):
of support to the January sixth mob that was about
to overtake the Capitol. Oh, it will be out on
May sixteenth. That got published anyway, and it's titled Manhood.
That's two words, one printed on top of the other
on a red on red cover. It's twenty four dollars
a night eighty cents for Josh Hawley's Manhood. That's the
(19:08):
not really hardcover edition obviously, but our winner, Elon Muskie.
Where do we begin? The blue check mark fiasco. NBC
News reports there were four hundred and twenty thousand Legacy
blue check marks issued to prevent impersonation and scamming. The
number of those people who signed up for the eight
(19:29):
dollars Vanity blue check marks was nineteen, four hundred and
ninety seven. Basically, twenty thousand did four hundred thousand didn't.
The number of legacies who signed up as the legacy
marks were disappearing twenty eight two eight against the deadline,
a Twitter source supposed we reveal the number of Vanity
(19:50):
Blues who signed up in total for the final twenty
four hours was four hundred. Musk apparently tried to make
light of this at first. He took three celebrities who
questioned the process and said he was personally buying Twitter
Blue for them. William Shatner, Stephen Lebron, James King, and
Lebron said no thanks. Instantly, The blue check mark became
(20:11):
not a status symbol, not like it was before. It
was an anti theft device before, not a status symbol instead,
now it's a scarlet.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Letter, only only blue. It's a blue scarlet letter.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
And then at this point panic apparently set in in
musk Land. On Saturday, blue check marks reappeared for every
Twitter user with more than a million followers, complete with
the explanation on each user's homepage that they had paid
for Twitter Blue and had provided a phone number, which
they didn't. And it's not just cheesy, but under section
(20:45):
forty three A of the Lanham Act, that is illegal.
It's called false endorsement, and it's defined as anything quote
likely to confuse consumers as to the plaint of sponsorship
or approval of the product. In short, any account with
more than a million followers that now has a blue
check market didn't four can now sue Elon Musk for
(21:07):
false endorsement. Of course, this gets even worse. There are
countless Twitter accounts with more than a million followers, even
though the celebrity whose account it was is now sadly dead,
so that Twitter and Musk are now claiming that Pele
brought bought Twitter blue, and Anthony Bourdain bought Twitter blue,
and Kobe Bryant and especially problematic Gibbon Musk's Saudi investors
(21:30):
in Twitter. Twitter is now claiming that Jamal Koshogi has
bought Twitter Blue. Happily for the living who did not
buy it, there is a way out if you got it.
If you've got one of these vanity blues, you can
make it disappear simply by altering your name or your
avatar photo.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
You may have to do it more than once.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
But sue Elon first, because he sure did it. He
went and blew himself Elon plas some wag on Twitter said,
the Vanity blue check mark now seems to be compensation
for guys who have small penises.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay, the wag was me Musk days.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Worst worst and the line.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And now to the number one story on the countdown,
and there's so many things I promised not to tell.
It's going to take the rest of the show two segments.
There's the latest news of Chris lickt His latest solution
to CNN's free fall is a weekly news show with
Gail Kane and Charles Barkley, and they announced it Saturday,
even though they have no idea when it's going to start.
(22:43):
Had that not been funny enough? News broke yesterday and
was expanded upon late last night that my former friend
of twenty years Jeff Shell had been fired as the
CEO of NBC Universal Chairman of NBC gone and rarely
nobody saw it coming. Went off like an atomic bomb
at every goddamn NBC affiliate from Albuquerque to say dusky.
(23:06):
Jeff Shell, who misled me from literally the night the
story of his getting the NBC CEO job broke in
December twenty nineteen through September twenty twenty one, misled me
that he wanted to bring me and count Down back
to MSNBC, that we needed to keep fighting to find
a way to make it happen, and then had one
of his lackeyes tell me, after two years of this
(23:28):
that Rachel Matdow has vetoed it. And then when I
told this story publicly, Shell had one of the NBC
news pr flunkies say there had never been any real
interest in bringing me back and that in essence I
should have known Jeff Shell was lying to me all
that time. In other words, the chairman of NBC was
lying to you for two years. You should have known
(23:48):
that that is not the flex that NBC thought it was. However,
apparently it was foreshadowing. Yesterday, Shell wrote a brief note
emailed throughout NBC Television and the rest of the company,
explaining he was truly sorry for an inappropriate relationship with
a woman, and this was his last day at the company.
(24:09):
There was some kind of complaint, There was a quick investigation,
and then it was mutually decided that Shell and NBC
should part ways, which means it was mutually decided you're
effing fired. And then late last night came the second
nuclear detonation of the day at NBC. The Hollywood website
Deadline is reporting, quote multiple sources tell Deadline that the
(24:32):
woman who filed the complaint against NBC Universal CEO Jeffshell
for inappropriate conduct was CNBC anchor and senior international correspondent
Hadley Gamble unquote. This would be the same Hadley Gamble
who interviewed Vladimir Putin, the Dictator of Russia, on stage
(24:54):
at Russian Energy Week in a panel in twenty twenty
one while wearing a very tight black dress. She was
wearing the dress not Putin, and then caught Putin making
goofy faces at her, and then Russian state media came
out with a story claiming she had been sent there
as a sex object to distract Putin quote like she
(25:15):
was in the movie Nine and a half Weeks or
Basic Instinct, and Russian State Media in both the Sharon's
stone leg crossing scene about Hadley Gamble. Back to the
Deadline story quote, Deadline has learned that Shell had a
relationship with Gamble which started about eleven years ago and
continued sporadically up until a couple of years ago, when
(25:37):
it ended. The complaint was lodged. Within the past month,
Deadline has learned the matter went all the way to
Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, through the proper channels,
and was handled expediently. Sources said. The outside law firm
hired to investigate delivered their findings to top Comcast brass
within the past week. We hear and then comes the
(25:59):
real kicker in the Deadline story quote. Deadline has learned
that there was communication between Shell and Gamble via company
email which came to light in the investigation.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Woy So, the chairman of NBC, was what sending emails
inside the NBC email system to his ex lover, a
reporter for CNBC, inside the company system after the relationship.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Ended, and he was asking for what, So you're saying,
maybe you should have known I was lying. Wasn't just
used on me my favorite boss, my true friend, friend
at Fox Sports in nineteen ninety nine to two thousand,
who stayed in touch, who moved on to Comcast, and
when Comcast was buying NBC, reappeared in my life to
(26:50):
try to talk me out of leaving my show on MSNBC.
He said he would fix everything because when Comcast took over,
he would be in charge of NBC cable stations. Probably
shouldn't have been saying that Comcast execs were under strict
instructions not to intervene in day to day operations at
NBC before they actually closed the sale.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
But what am I?
Speaker 1 (27:09):
The Federal Trade Commission? And then he lied to me
for two years or he lied about lying to me. Oh,
now he's lying about this Hadley gamble and they fired
him for it. That's a shame. One PostScript to this,
The Wall Street Journal suggests one of the candidates to
(27:30):
replace Shell is Sezar Conde, chairman of NBC News. He
was the guy Shell wanted me to meet to discuss
the return of Countdown and how to make it happen.
And one day early in twenty twenty one, this conde
invited me to breakfast. A few days later, his assistant
then called to find an appropriate quiet restaurant nearby where
we could meet. We found one, we arranged, it was
(27:52):
all set, and thirty minutes later she called back and
canceled the breakfast because suddenly says our conde was going
to be out of town for a week. Oh, we
do it whenever he got back, which apparently he never has.
Because the next thing is the statement about how I
should have known Jeff Shell was lying constantly. And if
it sounds like I am having way too much shodden
Fried of fun, it's because I'm sitting here, stamping my feet,
(28:14):
having wait too much shot and Fry of fun, so
much fun, I feel like bursting out in song.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Oh Nancy.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Ride a s food talk on our.
Speaker 6 (28:34):
S arm about Lepton for your drunken Deely diem dinzo
in don feed bast mood thing got.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
A man and bell Don Broyd Bard Sup, don't knan
fast and I'll just leave you with this.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
The Hapley gamble didn't pay off, and she has left
Jeff a shell of his former self. Still ahead on Countdown,
(29:37):
Part two of Things I Promised not to Tell And
it was a big weekend for people who don't like
people I don't like. There are nine rules of cable news,
and CNN's new Charles Barkley Gail King show violates all
nine of them. First in each tradition of Countdown to
feature a dog in need you can help. Every dog
has its day. Tobias is an eight year old Husky
(29:59):
mix handsome white and creamy tan fella. He has soulful eye.
He has not been taken care of by a human
in years, and understandably, he has trust issues with people,
and he's on the kill list in the high kill
shelter at DeVore, California, and he desperately needs out and fast.
He needs a foster in the area. He needs our
(30:20):
pledges to help defray the costs of a rescue to
get him out and train him before they kill him.
You can find Tobias on my Twitter feeds, and as always,
if you pledge and we don't save him, you're under
no obligation on the other hand, with your help we
might save him. I thank you, and Tobias thanks you.
(30:56):
And as promised to two topical editions of things I
promised not to tell Jeff Shelled gone at NBC and
at see It end, Chris Lickt stepped done another rake,
and soon or late one of these rakes will be
his last. Lickt has gone ahead and done it. He
(31:18):
will premiere show about News, co hosted by Charles Barkley,
who has never done a news show before, and Gail King,
who has never been on a successful news show before.
It will be once a week, starting sometime in the
near future, we think on one of seven possible nights
to be determined, and they've announced it now. This is
(31:43):
the genius of Chris Lickt in action again. And when
I say genius, of course, I mean when we were
at MSNBC together, we all thought Chris Lickt eight paste.
There are nine fundamental rules of cable TV news, and
this idea violates all nine of them. Here they are
Number one, don't mistake friends of yours for universally popular
(32:04):
television people. Number two, remember that no matter how big
the ratings, last place in the ratings is still last place.
Number three. Remember that whatever somebody's ratings are over there,
that does not mean that they will get those same
ratings over here. Number four. Remember the law of the
day part number five. Remember news viewers actually don't want
(32:29):
pop culture figures or sportscasters giving their opinions on the news.
I know what you're saying. I'm going into detail on
this in a little bit. Number six. You may think
cable viewers want neutral, non ideological balance shows, but there's
only about just this scant twenty five years worth of
(32:49):
data proving that no, no, they do not want neutral,
non ideological balanced shows at all. Number seven, once a
week on cable news might as well be once a year.
Number eight. If you have recentably made a bad, big mistake,
recognize it and do not repeat it. And number nine,
(33:11):
do not do not pick a cute title for a show,
especially if it is a play on the name of
the host or the hosts okay, one by one. Number one,
don't mistake friends of yours for universally popular TV figures
or talent. I got nothing against Gail King. She is
a very nice lady. I knew her so long ago
(33:33):
that when we met I was just starting at SportsCenter
and she was a local newscaster in Hartford, Connecticut. Then
she had an NBC talk show canceled, She had a
syndicated talk show canceled, She had a show on Oprah's network, canceled.
Other jobs at XM Radio, at ABC News not one success,
and she went to work at CBS under Chris Lickt. Now,
(33:55):
if you're Chris licked you have to recognize the first say,
six failures out of six tries are more important than
your successful friendship. You do not say of a Gail
King Charles Barkley show, as Lickt actually did last week
on the record quote, wouldn't that be a fun show
to watch? Wouldn't you watch that show? I would watch
that no matter what network it was on. If that's
(34:17):
the methodology here, guess what, Chris, you will soon get
plenty of time to watch any show, no matter what
network it's on. Number two, remember that last Place is
still last Place. I know that the CBS morning show
she is now on is the best Last Place show
of all the dozens of different Last Place shows CBS
(34:39):
has produced in the mornings over the decades dating back
to nineteen fifty four when it was Walter Cronkite and
a puppet co hosting the morning news, and most relevantly,
this show was the last news program that CNN's new
boss had anything to do with, and Gail King is
thus one of only four or five people in the
news business he knows the first thing about. But it's
(35:00):
still a last place show. The ratings from the week
before last, people who chose to watch a network morning
show and chose the one Gail King is on two
point two million people who chose one of the ones
Gail King is not on five point nine million.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Law three.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Remember that whatever somebody's ratings are over there does not
mean they're going to get those same ratings over here.
An average of million, two hundred and eighty four thousand
people watch Gail King's show on CBS week before last.
The most recent day we have of cable news ratings, Thursday,
April twentieth, two million, two hundred and sixty eight thousand
(35:39):
people watch CNN between seven pm and midnight total. For
twenty years, CNN has been relentlessly advertising and promoting and
pushing Anderson Cooper, who has an even higher profile job
at CBS than King does for twenty years, he's been pushed.
Cooper's CBS show is sixty minutes and it gets roughly
seven and a half million viewers an episode. A CNN
(36:01):
show gets five hundred thousand viewers. His CNN show gets
seven and a half percent the ratings of his CBS show.
If that number holds up for Gail King, her CNN
show will get one hundred and seventy one thousand viewers.
That's like a third of what CNN is getting right
(36:24):
now in primetime. Yet somebody at CNN is saying this
will be our breakthrough show.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
Four.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Remember the Law of the Day part. Early on the
morning of February twenty second, two thousand and five, the
President of CBS less Moonbez, and the president of CBS News,
Andrew Hayward, sneaked into my apartment building. There had been
a late hitch in their plan to hire Katie kirk
away from the Today Show, which was on in the mornings,
to make her the anchor of the CBS Evening News,
which was on, as their clever title implied, in the evenings. Now.
(36:59):
These guys were confident they could get around that hitch,
but they had no backup plan, and they decided kind
of at the last minute. I was the backup plan. Now,
apart from my what the hell, let me tell you
what I really think, pitch, I mean, my odds getting
the job are about one in one thousand, I asked
them before you signed, Katie Kirk, have you considered the
possibility that being a successful co host of a morning
(37:20):
show might not translate into being a successful sole anchor
of the CBS evening news, which is on in the evenings.
Have you considered what we called in radio day parts.
It's not the same job. It's not what people know
her for. Morning shows are interviews, Evening news is are
(37:41):
reading teleprompter and then getting on a plane for Afghanistan.
It's not what people watch her for. And last Moonvez said,
but she's a star, And I said, let me just
tell you precisely how it matters that what time somebody
is on is bigger than whether or not they're a star.
When I was a local sportscaster in LA Channel five,
we did the ten o'clock news, so I came on
(38:02):
about ten fifty every night. I was I've got to
use the word I was beloved. The ratings went up
at ten fifty every night. It was the only newscast
in a major city in America where the ratings went
up when the sports guy came on. Naturally, I got
hired away by another station, your station, last Channel two
in LA. They got paid seven times when I was
(38:22):
making and we did the eleven o'clock news. So I
came on not at ten fifty, but at eleven thirty
every night, and I was hated. None of the viewers
got my jokes. Nobody liked me anymore. They hated me,
and I was shocked. My bosses were shocked, and their
bosses were shocked. And then they spent a shocked fortune
on research to figure out why it didn't work. And
(38:45):
they came back and they said, look, the evidence is overwhelming.
All the people who loved this guy's sportscasts apparently had
the jobs where they had to be in the office
at seven or eight in the morning because of the
whole East coast West coast thing, and they were literally
staying up as late as they could to watch them
at ten fifty. When you put them on at eleven thirty,
all the people who liked him are asleep less Andy,
(39:11):
I said, ten to fifty PM and forty minutes later
at eleven thirty pm. They are different day parts. And
if ten fifty pm at eleven thirty pm are different
day parts, then seven am and six thirty pm are
completely different day parts. They didn't listen. I didn't expect
them to. They hired Katie Kirk who was a morning
(39:32):
success and was a nighttime disaster, and now CNN wants
to hire a morning not success and put her on
at night. So what could possibly go wrong here? Back
to our laws Number five, news viewers actually do not
want pop culture figures or sportscasters giving their opinions on
(39:52):
the news. I don't have stats on this. I just
again have my own experience. When I was a news
commentator on MSNBC and had as a sideline co host
of an hour of Dan Patrick's ESPN radio show and
then co host a Football Night in America on NBC.
That was fine, keep the politics out of the sportscast,
and nobody cares if you do both the sportscast and
(40:13):
the newscast. But anytime I was perceived as a sportscaster
giving opinions on the news, like when I first left
ESPN to go to AMSNBC, and then when I left
Fox Sports to become a news anchor at CNN, big trouble.
Viewers could accept the change and even the overlap from
news to sports, but from sports to news, particularly commentary,
(40:38):
It's going to take a year two, maybe maybe three
before viewers will accept Charles Barkley or take him seriously.
And then the interim what could also happen is he
could really tarnish his sports brand.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Six.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
You may think cable viewers want neutral, non ideological, balance shows,
but there's only about twenty five years of data proving
oh they don't. Pre Chris Lick, CNN was not purely ideological,
but nobody watching thought they were piously neutral, especially not
about Chump the new fascist owners, and Licked promised to
return to the old CNN whatever that was. What they
(41:16):
got was hemorrhage. CNN's ratings for the first quarter of
this year are down thirty four percent from the first
quarter of twenty twenty two. As the announcement was made,
Barkley promised his show would not lean any one way politically,
and I in turn promise that whatever the audience size
is on week one, he really does that and remains neutral,
(41:40):
his audience size will be thirty four percent smaller on
week two. Seven. Once a week on cable news might
as well be once a year. No once a week
show has ever succeeded in cable news. I was there
when it started. CNN later tried a rotation of five
(42:03):
once a week shows in prime time in the late
nineties and promptly lost its ratings monopoly. Every network has
tried them except Fox. MSNBC is trying it now with
Rachel Mattow and the ratings are really disturbing. Before she
cut back to Monday's only her high watermark ratings, like
the old saw Goes were the rising tide that lifted
(42:24):
all boats. Last Monday at nine pm a week ago,
she drew two hundred and thirty five thousand viewers in
the advertising demo, which is very good these days. The
show before her at one hundred and forty seven thousand.
The show after her had one hundred and forty one thousand.
In other words, about ninety thousand additional demo viewers showed
up just for Meadows once a week show, and then
(42:46):
they went away. They stopped watching MSNBC, so they are
paying and maybe this had something to do with Jeff
Shell getting fired. They are paying Rachel Maddow thirty one
million dollars a year to get an additional ninety thousand
viewers a week. In fact, that may be generous, yes,
the rest of the week when it's not her in
(43:07):
the nine PM slot, the nine PM slot average one
hundred and seventy nine thousand demo viewers. They may be
paying Rachel thirty one million dollars a year for only
fifty six thousand viewers above average a week. And the
ratings at eight pm and ten pm were higher on
the nights she wasn't on on nine PM compared to
(43:29):
those when she was. It is a maximum of cable news.
Nobody is going to watch your network on nights you
are not on just because they want to say thank
you to your employer, even if everything I'm saying about
Barkley and King is wrong. Shows that are on once
a week do not help the other shows on your
cable news network. You want to succeed based on a
(43:51):
bunch of shows that are on once a week, you're
going to need about twenty eight really good once a
week shows, and that's just for primetime. Law eight of
the nine if you've recently made a bad mistake, recognize
it and don't repeat it. Chris Lick's last brainstorm was
to go big, to hire a big name to appear
(44:14):
once a week, to take what was previously the online
only supplement to Bill Maher's show on HBO and put
it on live on Friday nights on CNN. Friday the seventeenth,
two hundred and seventy seven thousand viewers. Every other hour
that night on MSNBC and Fox had at least one
million viewers. Bill Maher two hundred and seventy seven thousand,
(44:38):
two hundred and seventy seven thousand viewers is about at
the point where you have to consider whether it's worth
paying for all that electricity required to length the studio.
And the last rule rule nine, do not pick a
cute title for a show, especially if it is a
play on the name of the host or hosts. People
(44:59):
don't believe this today, but as I've mentioned before, Tucker
Carlson used to work at MSNBC had his his own
primetime show, and as a favor to a friend, I
served as the liberal foil to Tucker Carlson for a
few demo pilot shows and at some point the former
CNN president, the one who tried the five nights a
week with once a week shows he was then running MSNBC,
(45:22):
Rick Kaplan. He saw these demos and he liked the interplay,
probably because I was just saying whatever I could say
to get me off the stage the fastest. So I
go back to my office and write my show. So
Kaplan approached me with an offer. He would tear up
my contract. He would give me a huge raise if
I would do Countdown and stick around until eleven o'clock
(45:42):
every night and co host co host with Tucker Carlson.
It would be perfect, he said, because he could combine
our initials and give the show the greatest name in
cable news history, TKO. The content of the show, its feasibility,
and this did not matter to him. What he was
(46:03):
in love with was the title TKO. It's perfect, the
name of the new Charles Barkley Gaile King Show. It
leaves me wondering if Chris Lick actually did this, if
he actually developed not a show, but a title for
a show. Charles Barkley's nickname is King Charles, so let's see,
he can't host it by himself. He doesn't even host
(46:25):
his own basketball show by him, so he needs a
co host he.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Needs I got it.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
It's perfect. He needs somebody named King. That way, the
title of the show will be King Charles. Let's see
who can we get Stephen King. No, he'll never do it. Nos,
eyebrows scare children. Larry King No, no, sadly no, he's
gone now though. Oh look, if anybody could come back
to do a new show, it would be Larry Now
(46:53):
King Wally from Sportsphone. Now he's the PA announcer for
the Knicks, right, so he's got a larger audience every night. Wait,
I got it. Gail King, King Charles get it? Isn't
that clever? I would watch that no matter what network
goes on, so it couldn't be worse. Actually I'm wrong
(47:13):
about that. The show could have been called King Charles,
and it could have had three hosts, Gail King, Charles
Barkley and King Charles of Great Britain. Okay, so Jeff
(47:40):
Shell's gone, Chris Lick closer to his end. I have
done all the damage I could do here, well almost.
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of
the music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray
and John Phillip Shanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle, guitars Bassed
(48:02):
and drums by Brian Ray, produced by ITK Overrops. Other
Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No Horns Aloud.
The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
and it was written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtisy of ESPN, INC.
Musical comments by Nancy Fauss, the best baseball stadium organist ever,
and our announcer today was John Dean. Everything else pretty
(48:23):
much my fault. So that's countdown for this the eight
hundred and thirty ninth days since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Don't forget. Keep arresting him while we still can. The
next scheduled countdown is tomorrow, and until then, I'm Keith Olderman.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Right ot for talk on our sarm in about Tapton
drunken Sam Dinzo.
Speaker 7 (49:16):
Be Don feed bast Moack got a man and fell
down Froyd Dot Boe, sunt Free.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Duncan and Faust. Countdown with Keith Olreman is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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