KILMEADE: KILL THE HOMELESS. AND THE WORST ATTACKS ON KIRK? BY FUENTES AND LOOMER - 9.15.25

SEASON 4 EPISODE 13: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

Fraud News Channel morning anchor Brian Kilmeade "apologizes" FOUR DAYS LATER for saying America’s 771,000 homeless (that'd include 33,000 Homeless Veterans and 140,000 Homeless Kids should be killed. By “involuntary lethal injection. Or something. Just kill them.” His co-host Lawrence Jones agreed with him.

Fox did nothing about it. They planned to get away with it, and would have, but for Media Matters saving the original clip from last Wednesday and Aaron Rupar re-posting it Saturday morning. I had seen the clip and thought it was fake. It's that bad. And finally Sunday Kilmeade issued a wallet-felt apology.

We are in such a place in this country – thanks to Trump, thanks to MAGA, thanks to the late Charlie Kirk, thanks to the Tea Party, thanks to Bush, thanks to… the list continues backwards almost indefinitely and infinitely – that this horrific vision, which in its essence is mass murder of the homeless (the most widely accepted high-end estimate of homelessness in this country is 771-thousand) – and no Kilmeade didn’t say let’s submit 771-thousand people to quote “involuntary lethal injection” – he didn’t have to. Is 771 people somehow less horrific? 77? What’s your threshold to be enraged at the prospect of simply pulling SOME homeless people off the street and lethally injecting them? Seven? One?

We know what you are Kilmeade. We are just arguing about the price...to be spent on lethal injections.

Fire him now.

SHOCK: TRUMP HELPS PUTIN AGAIN as he escalates his attempt to rebuild the Soviet Union. Now it's test drones at the Poland border (again) and the Romanian border (new). Waiting to see if Trump blinked. He blinked so much he could've been sending Morse Code.

St. CHARLIE OF KIRK: So, as Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters summarized it: Kirk "was a champion of free speech and if you disagree youre under arrest” The Trojan Horse phony bi-partisan governor of Utah is now down to insisting the family says the shooter had been indoctrinated with left wing ideology. What kind of left wing ideology? That he said he was "not a fan" of Kirk.

Funny, the most venomous, most threatening criticism of Kirk in the last 60 days was Nick Fuentes saying Kirk could no longer call himself a Christian and his college events should be interrupted and he should be shouted down, and Laura Loomer insist Kirk "stabs Trump in the back." Hmmm. If harsh words killed Charlie Kirk, is that leftist ideology Fuentes and Loomer were spouting, or right wing guilt?

B-Block (37:04) MORE ON CHARLIE KIRK: There are bigger issues in play. It is clear now that there were two different public Charlie Kirks. On the left we saw a slick but rather run-of-the-mill hate monger who mocked Democratic victims of political violence and wanted to see public executions. On the right, they literally never saw those videos. They only saw a "beautiful man, armed only with a bible" preaching family values. How? Different social media feeds. The other big issue with the right's collective mania and desire to punish the left for Kirk's death when it still looks like the far right did as much or more? All of those right wing influencers just assumed God was on their side and was protecting them like he "protected" Trump last year. Oops.

C-Block (1:00:20) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: This is the longest all-new episode ever but always time for worsts. Ezra Klein last week? "Charlie Kirk Practiced Politics The Right Way." So, Ezra Klein next week? "Brian Kilmeade Practiced Television The Right Way?" Ken Paxton is screwing around again? Does he have a wandering eye oh right. And when MSNBC fired Matt Dowd for, you know, telling the truth about the death of Kirk, where were Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Lawrence O'Donnell, risking a dollar or two to defend accurate commentary? I mean they whiffed so badly that they made the anchor who was on with Dowd look perfect by contrast: Katy Tur.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Brian

(00:25):
Kilmead must be fired even by Fox even today, fired now.
The co host of the Fox News Morning program called
for America's homeless to be killed by quote involuntary, lethal
injection or something. Just kill them un quote. Kill the homeless,

(00:47):
including America's thirty three thousand homeless veterans. He did not
exclude them. He called for this, and he got away
with it. Last Wednesday. He said this last Wednesday. Kill
the homeless, veterans, Kill the homeless children, Kill the six
hundred thousand homeless who are not veterans or children, lethal

(01:08):
injection or something. Just kill them. Fox News Rupert Murdoch,
same company as The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post.
Murdering the homeless, mass murdering the homeless took him four
days to apologize. Took Brian Killmead four days to apologize.

(01:29):
Four days. He apologized only because he got caught. Fraud
apology fraud host, FNC, fraud News Channel. He said what
he said because it's in his heart, and he got
away with it because it is in the hearts of
the people who run fraud News Channel, and they got
away with it because it is in the heart of

(01:51):
the monster who has run that place and ruined this world,
Rupert Murdoch. Nothing has happened to Brian Killmead, nothing but
a couple of x Republicans who have a soft spot
for him personally and who are understandably shocked that anybody
at fraud NewsChannel would apologize for anything kind of complimented him.

(02:20):
Complimented him because while he got caught and then weekly
and briefly and fraudulently apologized, Brian Kilmead apologized, he said
calling for the homeless, or as he referred to them,
them to die by involuntary lethal injection or something, just
kill them, that was callous on his part. It went

(02:43):
out on their propaganda channel last Wednesday morning, hours before
Charlie Kirk was murdered, and the orgy of right wing
bullshit began that the left, and only the left, uses
or threatens violence, and kill Mead, who has been the
often literally unintelligible co host of the Fox News Morning
Show since nineteen ninety eight, agreed with another host that

(03:05):
homeless people who refuse treatment programs should be institutionalized or
locked up in jail. The other guy said, and then
kill mead added quote, or involuntary lethal injection. The other speaker,
a man named Lawrence Jones, said yeah, and then kill
mead finished this thought or something just kill them end quote.

(03:29):
The third host, who was reportedly Sean Hannity's girlfriend, swerved
away from this, probably accidentally, to give kill Mead to
do what Fox always does, the opportunity to turn everything
into an illegal campaign contribution. This time, he segued from
killing the homeless to advocating for Republican candidates in North Carolina,

(03:51):
the homeless should face arrest or institutionalization or quoting Brian killmead,
in voluntary lethal injection or something, just kill them mass
murder owing this nodding Lawrence Jones, who agreed with kill
me Not even a fraud apology from him, nothing from

(04:11):
Fox about him either. Nothing. We are in such a
place in this country, thanks to Trump, thanks to MAGA,
thanks to the late Charlie Kirk, thanks to the Tea Party,
thanks to Bush, thanks to Rush Limbaugh, thanks to the
list continues backwards almost indefinitely and infinitely, We're in such
a place in this country that this horrific vision, which

(04:33):
in its essence is mass murder of the homeless. The
most widely accepted high end estimate of homelessness in this
country is seven hundred and seventy one thousand people a night.
And no kill Me did not say, let's submit seven
hundred and seventy one thousand people to quote involuntary lethal injection.

(04:53):
It didn't have to. If he meant seven hundred and
seventy one people, is that somehow less horrific? Have you
meant seventy seven? What is your threshold to be enraged
at the prospect of the government simply pulling some homeless
people off the street and lethally injecting them? Seven is one?

(05:15):
How about none? But a guy who's been a face
of Fox News for twenty seven years simply proposing it.
We are in such a place in this country that,
hours after kill Me, Lethally injected his idea into the
psyche of this damaged, disintegrating nation. Charlie Kirk was killed itself.
Something horrific, something indefensible. And for four days that's almost

(05:40):
all there has been. Trump's criminal negligence of Putin's attack
on Poland. No, I mean the one last week, not
the new one Saturday, nor the one on Romania Saturday
that could not break through the ceaseless canonization of this
rather typical maga threatener, nor the ceaseless attempts, even as

(06:01):
the facts piled up against it of Trump's attempt and
the rights attempt to turn it into what fascist influencer
literally called, quote our Reichstag fire, but don't you dare
call us Nazis. And by the way, he did not
mean Reichstang fire in a negative or an informed way.

(06:24):
In the middle of this, a humanoid fraud news channel
host with a twenty seven year record of saying remarkably
stupid and indefensible and sub human things, even for Fox,
who also has one of the few remaining national television platforms,
said that when all else failed, the solution to the
homeless issue in this country, the uh, if I may

(06:44):
call it, this final solution is quote involuntary lethal injection
or something just kill them. And initially, only Media Matters
for America it self targeted for a metaphorical lethal injection
by the Trump dictatorship. Only Media Matters for America gave
this story any real attention in real time. Last Wednesday,

(07:08):
I'll confess I saw the video maybe Thursday, maybe early Friday.
I literally thought it was a fabrication, a cut and
paste job. Even Ai, this could not be real, Not
even kill Mead would say that. I searched for the SoundBite,
I found it, I heard it. I still didn't grasp

(07:30):
the implications of it. I fell victim to all the
potholes of the Internet, where you can be distracted from
the real horrors of America twenty twenty five, like Brian Killmead,
because of the sheer volume of attention to the fake
horrors of America twenty twenty five, and so until one
of the genuine, invaluable components of social media, Aaron Rupar,

(07:53):
clipped the kill Mead involuntary lethal injection segment and put
it out Saturday morning on social media. This grotesque idea
straight from the pages of every country, from Pauls Cambodia
to Hitler's Germany, every country that has ever turned to
ethnic cleansing or purging, or concentration camps or the mass
murder of the other. It slipped out of sight, like

(08:18):
Trump ignoring Putin sending drones into Polish airspace for the
second time in Romania for the first, like Trump establishing
a series of impossible tasks for other countries to effect
before he will act against Putin. Like Trump being asked
about mourning his friend Charlie Kirk and basically saying yeah,
and then changing the topic immediately to the building of

(08:39):
his white house gold plated outhouse. I will cover each
of these things in depth. It will be a long podcast,
and it is all new because Trump's criminal negligence truly
is beginning to take on the shape of Europe and America,
ignoring Hitler and many of its leaders here working on

(09:01):
behalf of Hitler in the thirties. Look it at you
in Hell, Charles Lindberg. The Kirk story not only reveals
the reality that he infuriated huge swaths of a far
right even crazier than he was, and their leaders influenced
his murderer, the reverence for Kirk by even some milk

(09:22):
toast liberals and the panic by every last damned MAGA
indicates that they have for the first time realized, with
mounting fear and even terror, that the old Monty Python
joke with Eric idel as the army private asking his
commander to let him leave the army contains great truth
in it. Idyl says, quote, it's dangerous. There are people
with guns out there, real guns, sir, not toy guns,

(09:45):
proper guns, sir. And so I'd like to leave the
army now before I get killed. There's lots to talk
about on all of these subjects, but first let me
finish off this Brian Kilmead story. The Fox defense, although
really their primary defense had been to hope it would
just go away, and hell it did go away for
four days. Was it kill me just slipped and Lawrence

(10:09):
Jones just slipped, And they were only talking about one
homeless person, the murderer of the Ukrainian immigrant woman on
the light rail line in Charlotte, North Carolina, the first time, incidentally,
that Fox and Maga have actually been worried about are
concerned about the death of any Ukrainian. It was just
a slip. He didn't mean seven hundred and seventy thousand

(10:33):
homeless people should be euthanized. He just meant the one
in advance, which is patently untruth. The quote, again is
Jones talking about wasting billions on trying to treat homelessness.
So lock them up or put them in institutions, and
kill Mead adding or involuntary lethal injection, and Jones saying yeah,
and kill me then adding quote or something, just kill them.

(10:55):
There's no reference to the one victim in those quotes.
They'd stopped talking about her a minute earlier. Jones says
the word them three times, and kill Mead's final words
are not about her. His final words are just kill them.
Kill needs four days late apology quote, I'm obviously aware

(11:18):
that not all mentally ill homeless people act as the
perpetrator did in North Carolina, and that so many mentally
ill homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion. Unquote. Well,
there's a clear inference in that for which kill meat
should also be fired, fire him, hire him again, and
fire him another time. A clear inference in that quote

(11:39):
that many homeless people do not deserve our empathy or
our compassion they deserve per Brian kill Mead per Fox News,
per the Murdoch psychopathic viewpoint, lethal injection. But even if
kill Mead was not issuing a fraud apology, a deeply

(11:59):
wallet felt apology because he got caught. Let me circle
back to my earlier point at what number does giving
the homeless involuntary lethal injections constitute extra judicial murder of
Americans buy America, mass murder by the government. What number

(12:20):
all seven hundred and seventy one thousand homeless people, one
thousand people, two people, one person? If somebody, and let
me state here, I am opposed to this with all
of my heart. And I know Brian kill Mead. I'm
opposed to this about him or anybody else. But if
somebody from the Trump dictatorship walked up to Brian kill
Mead and gave him a quote involuntary lethal injection, would

(12:42):
that be murder? Your goddamn right, it would be murder.
Would you object to it as I do? Or if
Brian kill me didn't realize that the victim here was
Brian kill Mead, would he object I don't think he would.
He just proposed this as a solution to an American problem.

(13:04):
So how many more victims would be required before it
was mass murder? Brian? Because to twist an old phrase,
I think we can agree on who you are, Brian Killmead.
We are now just arguing about the price in the
total number of lethal injections you would pay for and
the apology for which even today many are saying he

(13:25):
deserves credit for This remarkably similar to Brian Killmead's apology
in two thousand and nine after he said Americans shouldn't
marry people from other cultures like the Swedes don't, and
thus the Swedes have quote pure genes, when he had
to apologize for being pro eugenics. And it's remarkably similar

(13:46):
to Brian Killmead's apology in twenty ten when he said,
quote not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are
Muslim And remarkably similar to Brian killmeads apology from twenty
eighteen when Trump was separating immigrant children from their parents,
when kill Meads said, quote, aren't our kids show them compassion?

(14:07):
But it's not like he's doing this to the people
of Idaho or Texas. These are people from another country.
These quotations are not a series of aberrations. Brian Kilmeade
is scum who called for the murder by the government
by lethal injection, by involuntary lethal injection of god knows

(14:30):
how many homeless children and veterans and just plain old
homeless Americans and apologized four days late because he got caught,
only because he got caught, Like when he endorsed eugenics,
or said all terrorists you're Muslim, or insisted migrant children

(14:52):
could be separated because they're from another country. The statements
of hate are not the aberration. The apologies are the aberration.
Fire Brian Kilmead Today and in our fourth story on

(15:37):
the Countdown, the President of the United States continues to
help Vladimir Putin begin to subjugate Eastern Europe. I mean
seriously traitorous behavior by Trump again to Putin's benefit again,
and the poor, mindless, delusional bastard Trump can't even be
the lead story. You're slipping don At midday Saturday, Russian

(16:02):
drones skirted the borders with Poland and Romania for Poland
second time in a week, painting them. We used to
call it in a different context. And Trump did what
he is supposed to do in such situations, provide cover
for Putin and Russia, provide stalling tactics for Putin and Russia.
Shift the responsibility for Putin and for stopping Putin. Shift

(16:26):
that responsibility to the victims. Blame Zelenski, presumably, start blaming
Poland's Donald Tusk. The Russians cobbled together junk drones I
mean literally pieces of debris wood, extra room for extra fuel,
so these drones could get near Poland that's an old

(16:46):
North Korean trick to show they could do it to
see if Trump would blink. It's blinking so much he
might as well be sending morse code. Trump's response, he'll
put sanctions on Russia. He's ready to do it. Don't
make him come up there this time. He means at

(17:07):
this time, the three thousandth time, he'll do it. Incidentally,
Trump has now made more promises to stop Putin than
Brian kill mea. It has had to make apologies. A
letter sent by President Donald J. Trump, the J is
for jerkhead to all NATO nations and the world. I

(17:27):
thought you were sending it to Neptune asshole quote. I
am ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all
NATO nations have agreed and started to do the same thing,
and when all NATO nations stopped buying oil from Russia.
As you know, NATO's commitment to win has been far
less than one hundred percent, and the perch wait a minute,
NATO's commitment to win has been less than one hundred percent.

(17:51):
Putin's commitment to win is one hundred percent. NATO's commitment
to win is one hundred percent. Trump's commitment to win
is minus one hundred and seventy three percent. Howard the loser,
the p word here, the here kitty kitty guy is Trump.

(18:11):
But the GISTs of this is, as he goes on
to blame Zelenski ridiculous war drum, this is not Trump's
ward are the usual bullshit. The gist of it is
he will now impose sanctions when NATO stops buying Russian oil,

(18:31):
And it sounds almost plausible. It's the first non totally
insane thing superficially anyway, that he has said since I
was going to say December before the election twenty fifteen.
I'm settling on nineteen forty seven, the first semi saying

(18:52):
thing he said since nineteen forty seven. Yeah, he's right,
What good are sanctions against Russian oil if actual NATO
member countries keep buying Russian oil? Except this plausibility is
just another pre arranged way to make sure the push
for sanctions can never succeed because two of the NATO
countries still buying Russian oil are Slovakia, a fascist state

(19:14):
run by a fascist and Hungary an even more fascist
state run by an even fatter fascist. They aren't opposed
to Putin, They depend on Putin. Trump might as well
have said he will impose one hundred percent sanctions on
Russia and quadruple military aid to Ukraine and block Russian

(19:35):
ports once everyone in America signs a notarized statement saying
that he won the twenty twenty election. History may judge
that Trump was not on the Russian payroll, or that
Trump was not being blackmailed by Russia, or that Trump
was not being run by Russia. It may judge that
something far worse was going on, that he was doing

(19:57):
this by choice, that Trump's work for Russia was voluntary.
The latest stall is a stall, another one while Putin
keeps testing the West. One week it's Poland, the next

(20:20):
week it's Poland and Romania, and soon, rather than late,
it'll be Poland and Romania and Germany. As Winston Churchill
said when England bent over for Hitler, our people quote
should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war,
the consequences of which will travel far with us along

(20:42):
our road. They should know that we have passed an
awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of
Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have
for the time been pronounced against the Western democracies. Thou
Art weighed in the balance and found wanting, and do

(21:05):
not suppose Churchill concluded that this is the end. This
is only the beginning of the reckoning. And now to
Saint Charlie of Kirk, I am beginning to suspect that

(21:28):
the Governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, also trying to be
saint bipartisan Spencer of Cox, is actually a trojan horse.
The latest is he's insisting Kirk's shooter was indoctrinated and
has expressed leftist ideology. To its credit, CNN had him
on and actually pressed him question did investigators just use

(21:51):
the term leftist ideology or did they give some specifics.
Governor Cox said, quote, there are conversations that were discussed
specifically about Charlie Kirk. I don't have a dog in
this fight. I'm sure he fought back tears at this point.
If this was MAGA and a radicalized MAGA person, I
would be sharing that as well. I believe that when

(22:15):
when you do it, gov, family discussions parents. This is
what they're saying, question, do you have specifics on what
he was saying about Charlie Kirk to his family? Governor Cox,
just not a fan, That's all I can say, unquote.

(22:36):
Waiting on the deats. Gov. Molly White of Citation Needed
News summed up the undercurrent of those deats that have
in turn each collapsed under well reality. Quoting her arrow right.
The shooter is trans, arrow right, Okay, the bullets were trans,

(22:59):
arrow right, Okay. The roommate is trans, Cash Patel sweating profusely.
Is anyone nearby trans? Now it's the supposed girlfriend who
was supposed trans. And yes, it is possible that somebody
saw it recently and they're just repurposing the plot from
the Pacino film Dog Day Afternoon. The only indoctrination we

(23:25):
have any confirmation of here is the universal agreement that
he was raised by an all right wing family and
had giant guns in his house when he was a toddler.
All MAGA, all the time, all Trump voters. Then, somewhere
along the line he criticized Charlie Kirk, and criticizing Charlie
Kirk must be leftist ideology and indoctrination. Right, Huh When

(23:49):
did this happen? When was he indoctrinated by the left?
When did he start criticizing Charlie Kirk, which is against
the law, isn't it? When did he start hitting Kirk?
Because this next thing was from last month. This appeared
to have been August twenty sixth. I think that's the date.
I couldn't verify that it's around August twenty sixth. That

(24:11):
would be carry the one twenty days ago. And the
speaker criticizing Curly Kirk is Nick Fuente's.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Charlie Kirk cannot call himself a Christian anymore. Sorry, you
forfeited that I do not want to hear. And you
cannot allow Charlie Kirk to go to one more public event,
one more question and answer, one more ask me anything
without being protested, without being shouted down, without being interrogated

(24:44):
about this. This guy goes around from campus to campus
in the most artificial and phony and fake way, talking about,
Oh God, God made me very blessed that I control
five hundred million dollars. Oh I'm so blessed, I'm so rich,
and I'm so blessed to know God's been so good
to me.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Nick Fuentes August twenty sixth, saying that Charlie Kirk is
not actually a Christian, saying something about Charlie Kirk worse
than any Democrat or liberal commentator ever said about Charlie Kirk,
though to be fair, maybe not worse than what was
written sixty days ago by Laura Loomer quote, I don't

(25:29):
ever want to hear Charlie Kirk claim he is pro
Trump ever again after this weekend, I'd say he's revealed
himself as political opportunitist. And I have had a front
row seat to witness the mental gymnastics of these last
ten years. Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a Charlatan,
claiming to be pro Trump one day while he stabs
Trump in the back the next as an aside, isn't

(25:53):
that violent? Isn't that if he stabbed Trump in the back,
wouldn't you wouldn't you have to call the Free Speech
Hall Monitor on this. TPUSA was only able to thrive
thanks to the generosity of President Trump on a donation
from the Chubb Group. On the one year anniversary of

(26:15):
the assassination attempt on Trump's life, Charlie hosted Dave Smith
Dave Smith was able to speak to a bunch of
conservative youth at an organization that claims to be pro Trump.
Three weeks ago, Dave Smith called for President Trump to
be impeached and removed from office over his decision to
blow up Iran's nuclear facilities. Charlie played both sides of
the Iran issue on his show, as we all saw,

(26:37):
because he wants to play to both sides of the isle.
The honorable thing to do is have a position and
actually defend it to the death, said Laura Loomer, instead
of flip flopping. Smith said all of MAGA quotes should
turn on Trump and abandon him. Well, that's it. Indict
all of MAGA now. He said this three weeks ago

(27:00):
see the clip below. TPUSA is definitely not pro Trump.
If they were, they certainly aren't anymore. Out of all
the incredible pro Trump voices out there who support the president,
Charlie Kirk decided to host Dave Smith. It really is
shameful and I am honestly just disgusted by the NonStop
flip flopping on the right. So it was the left

(27:21):
to turn this Robinson guy against Charlie Kirk, not Laura
Loomer or Nick Fuentes, leftist ideology or right wing doc
trinyl hyphen ethnic cleansing, and then right wing guilt. But

(27:46):
the snowball had already started down the hill, and they
are all helping it. The fascists have decided to use
this as an opening to close down criticism. If you
ever called out one of the fascists for threatening violence,
if you noted Trump's stochastic terrorism, if you accurately compared
him to Hitler and the means Hitler used to gain

(28:08):
power and the things Hitler did once he gained power,
You're finished. A conservative named Hannania Hannanya Richard Hannania noted
only two prominent politicians have ever called Trump Hitler. J. D.
Vance and Robert F. Kennedy Junior. They're going over the

(28:29):
side of the boat too. No, why not? Stephen Miller's
wife got off of her broom for a moment to
warn that you called us Hitler, and others repeated you
called us Nazis, and therefore the left is responsible for
Kirk's death, which will be news to Michael Savage, who
compared Obama to Hitler, and will be news to the

(28:53):
Roman Catholic Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, who compared Obama to Hitler,
and Lance wall Noow, the mystic who compared all liberals
to Hitler, and Marjorie Taylor Green who compared Joe Biden
to Hitler, and Glenn Beck, who compared Al Gore to Hitler,
or to Rush Limbaugh, who, from the early nineteen nineties

(29:15):
until the minute he finally died, called everybody feminazis. Elon
Musk who wants promised to pay all the legal fees
for anybody who lost their jobs due to having posted
or liked something on Twitter. X has now retweeted one
of the hit lists Conservatives are now accumulating of those

(29:39):
they hoped to get fired because they would not praise
Charlie Kirk after his death, or they had had the
nerve to say that in America without Kirk's venom was
a better place. People are losing jobs because they are
not hiling. Then there is the disgraced ex cop now
Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins, the clown who gives plausibility to

(30:02):
the cliche of the inbred Southerner, to say nothing of
the guy who explained away January sixth with what he
called goat buff says, which turned out in English to
be ghost buses, although we never found out from Clay
what they were either Higgins after Kirk's death, I'm gonna

(30:23):
use congression thought. I'm sorry, you'll never understand it. If
I read it, he would. I'm going to use congressional
authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate
immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that
belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk. If they ran their
mouth with their smart ass hatred celebrating the heinous murder
of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life

(30:47):
to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal
enclave universities armed only with a Bible and a microphone
and a constitution. Those profiles must come down. So I'm
going to lean forward in this fight, demanding the big
tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the
user to be banned from all platforms in the real

(31:09):
world that we dream of. At that point, Clay higgins
account would have disappeared. I'm also going after their business
licenses and permitting their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively. They
should be kicked from every school, and their driver's licenses
should be revoked. I'm basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice.

(31:31):
Guy had a gun once he thinks he thinks he's Eastwood.
I'm going to cancel with extreme prejudice and Bronson. These evil,
sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk's assassination, I'm starting that today.
That is all. That's the same Clay Higgins, a sitting
congressman who responded to the terrorist attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband,

(31:52):
which was supposed to be an attack on her that
involved torture and then murder. Clay Higgins responded to that
by insisting the attack involved male prostitution. If Clay Higgins
is inbred inbread with oysters, sorry oysters. As Andrew Lawrence
of Media Matters succincly concluded, Charlie Kirk quote was a

(32:14):
champion of free speech, and if you disagree, you are
under arrest now unexpectedly. There is something useful in all
of this bullshit, in the Clay Higgins bullshit in that quote,
that beautiful young man armed only with a bible. I

(32:38):
don't get startled a lot. There was a startling post
on Facebook, which may hint at why the right is
so enraged, so it seems as genuine as they can get.
Genuinely enraged. Huge swaths of the right, as implied in
this Facebook post, saw only the Bible parts, the non

(33:05):
stop Charlie Kirk video machine, not the let's force kids
to watch public executions, let's kill Trump's adversaries parts. Literally
they had. They have no idea that Charlie Kirk marketed
to two different audiences. The reason they keep invoking Martin,
Luther King and Jesus with Charlie Kirk is because they

(33:28):
did not see the entire Charlie Kirk. They literally literally
never saw it. I'll explain that plus a little secret
on the right. The right wing influencers, like all terrorists,
had thought they were again literally untouchable, that God would
never let anything bad happen to Trump, not after last year.

(33:49):
We're cool now, and he wouldn't let anything bad happen
to Charlie Kirk, or or wait, wouldn't let anything bad
happen to themselves. Second segment today on Charlie Kirk and
the parallel universe in which he was just a sweet
Bible thumper. Next on this all new edition of Countdown.

(34:19):
Now to the meta stuff, the implications of the death
of Charlie Kirk that may linger even as his story
gets pushed further and further off the page, And no
matter what your impression may be right now, it will
only epstein lingers. You doubt this. Anybody remember Andrew Breitbart? Quick?

(34:40):
What did he look like? I mean, his news outlet
is fading into obscurity a little more every week. Andrew
Breitbart was twenty five Charlie Kirk's. Well, the meta stuff
is there are additional factors here to the Kirk story.
I'm not sure anybody's really registered. Firstly, I'll confess it

(35:03):
was evident to me that was an important conservative propagandist
and a tough guy, with the constant references to God's
will and killing people and why women like Taylor Swift
needed to submit to their husbands. But I will confess
now I had no clue they revered him to this degree.
I am not certain that I would have put him

(35:25):
in the top one hundred fascists list. And yet as
you see, he's now Saint Charlie of Kirk. Someone explained
that there was a widespread, seldom spoken belief that Kirk
would be president of the United States. The authoritarian movement
in this country is well aware that no matter the

(35:46):
absolute stone cold imbecility of JD. Vance, he's no Trump.
He does a nice job swearing online, but once you
get past two or at most three short sentences from him,
it's time for a quick nap. He's like the sidekick
from the Larry sand Your Show. Kind of funny. Then

(36:11):
is there anybody else around here we can get to
do the job. When you think of the dictatorial depth
chart in this country, the fascists know they have nobody
to lead the movement once Trump is gone, whether God
means deceased or jailed or incapable or whatever. His adult
sons are both imbeciles. One of them has such a
ham fist that in the middle of the Maudlin post

(36:33):
mortems about Charlie Kirk, this guy started to pitch his
new book. I mean not even his father tried that.
And then there's one of them who might have trouble
passing a drug screen and is so gone that he
tweeted quote one of our heroes was assinated. Oh, I'll

(36:56):
be damned if I'm going to psychoanalyze that aassinated ass
I NATed where's your spell check?

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Now?

Speaker 1 (37:15):
That famous daughter checked out? The other daughter is unrecognizable.
The youngest son is the smartest of the group. He's
never said a word in public. It is quite possible
that Eric Trump's wife, the one with the lip implants,
is afterly the second most recognizable one in the family.
And she's awkward and insincere, and I mean in contrast
to Trump, she's awkward and insincere. They tried to get

(37:37):
another active politician to replace Trump after twenty twenty one,
and none of them withstood the first strong breeze. DeSantis, Haley,
Ramaswami Bergham, Tim Scott, No who then RFK Junior, Well,
did you hey, You're gonna elect RFK Junior. He's gonna

(37:59):
give the State of the Union to dress shirtless. Stephen Miller.
Stephen Miller and the twenty four to seven vibe he
gives of a flaccid penis, Stephen Bannon and the twenty
four to seven vibe he gives of a refrigerator repair
man with his butt crack exposed. So the more you

(38:20):
analyze it, the more you can understand this. Kirk was
not just a smoother Ben Shapiro or a better Stephen Crowder.
If he was not next, he was soon he could
have been President of the United States or whatever they'll
call the dictator in those days. And they thought this because,

(38:44):
as I mentioned before the break, huge parts of Kirk's
world never saw the hate, literally never saw it. The
videos never came up on their feeds. This sounds insane,
but there it is Rick Pearlstein, history and the author
of Nixon Land, which I read to my father on
his deathbed. So maybe you should read it if you
have not. Rick pearl Elstein posted this Saturday night. I

(39:07):
found it comes from Facebook, but I am a Luddite,
so to this day I have not had the patience
to try to find the author who wrote it on Facebook.
But it's amazing. I'm going to assume it's real. I
may be falling victim to an Internet hoax, but I
don't think so. I'd say the odds are only one
in one hundred.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
One thing that has become really clear is that we
live in at least two different realities. Talking to a
friend who only knew Charlie as a Christian motivational speaker
because that's all that ever came across her feed. Showed
me videos I've never seen before of him saying perfectly
reasonable and empowering things. I showed her videos she'd never

(39:52):
seen before of his racism, misogyny, homophobia, advocating for violence
against specific groups of people. She was horrified by his
remarks about Pelosi's husband's attacker being bailed out and celebrated
for his violent act. She was horrified by a number
of things that he said, but she had never seen
or heard them before, the same as I had never

(40:14):
seen or heard the generalized clips of him sounding like
a perfectly nice, loving man and father. Neither of us
had a whole picture of this man. I mentioned he
was a known white supremacist, and she thought I was joking.
She talked about him giving a speech about finding your
purpose and doing good in the world, and I thought

(40:34):
she was joking. Oh, and my friend had never heard
and God helped me. I don't know how she escaped
the news, but she had never heard of the Minnesota
legislators who were shot in June. The husband and wife
and dog who were killed, one after throwing themselves over
their child to protect the child. The other couple who
somehow survived politically motivated attacks, specifically because they were Democrats.

(40:58):
She learned about those shootings that happened months ago because
I showed her Charlie Kirk's comments about them, The kidnapping
plot against a female Midwestern Democratic governor, the assassination attempt
against Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, all things Charlie had plenty
to say about while supporting the Second Amendment and bashing
the Democratic Party. She didn't know about any of it

(41:23):
because we are all living in two different worlds. And
the quote supplied by Rick Pearlstein, Facebook author unknown, it
boils down to this. In short, God knows how many
of Charlie Kirk's mourners and those planning, plotting, exacting revenge

(41:44):
right now never ever have heard him say this.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
I want to watch that execution. That'll make my day better.
I want to see him on a public block and
get him be publicly executed. And I think that would
be justice. You think children should have, you should see it.
What is the age? What age should you start to
see public execution? Sixteen?

Speaker 1 (42:06):
I think I think you could do it earlier.

Speaker 3 (42:08):
I think you maybe at age twelve.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Whenever it's great or so.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Kirk describes King as quote a bad guy. It's true,
and Kirk's self described very very radical view that the
country made a mistake when it passed the Civil Rights
Act also true.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
As we note in.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
The piece, Kirk has previously described Kirk as a hero
and a civil rights icon. It's true, I used to
be wrong. What inspired Kirk to shift his view on MLK?
Why does Kirk think that MLK is a bad guy?
When Kirk says that MLKA says quote one good thing,
he didn't believe, what does he mean by that? Why
does Kirk believe passing the Civil Rights Act was a mistake?
Now Again, apparently they don't listen to the show, because

(42:45):
we do it at least once a week, right, once
a week we talked about why the Civil Rights Act
was a mistake.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
The second thing I think is in play that explains
the overreaction, the threats, the docks, and the promises of
vengeance unspoken because they're all King leering this. They'll threaten
you now and then figure out what they're threatening with later.
The right wing is suddenly and for the first time
in at least a decade, scared. I mean since Obama

(43:10):
chose not to prosecute or even expose anybody in the
Bush administration for an orchestrated campaign of torture and an
orchestrated campaign of manipulation of terror threats to use them
against the American public. The right wing, especially the unstable
end of the right wing, has known it will get
no blowback from the Democrats none. As I said the

(43:32):
night before Obama was inaugurated, if a president or those
working for him commit crimes and you specifically choose not
to prosecute him and them, the next president knows in
advance that those laws do not apply to him and them.
That was Trump's glideway. Biden, of course, made it worse,
assuming not just that the country was elastic and would

(43:55):
snap back to shape as soon as Trump was out,
but that he would be harming its recovery if he
puts somebody at justice who was willing to prosecute Trump.
As of twelve h one on January twenty twenty one,
Merrick Garland will go down in history if there isn't
a history near James Buchanan for criminal negligence in public office. Sadly,

(44:17):
I suspect now Joe Biden will go with him, so
against that backdrop. Even during Trump's time as the crazed,
exiled dictator, his bonaparte days, the increasingly despotic rite has
pretty much gotten away with everything since Trump came down
that escalator, and the damn thing didn't open up and
swallow him in roote. I mean, Trump was even shot

(44:38):
and stalked with surprising and terrifying success. I will confess
I believe for quite a while that his involuntary ear
piercing was from glass shards and not bullets. But I
never doubted he was the victim of an assassination attempt.
The second one, the one at the golf course, was

(44:58):
far less serious, but still that guy got stunningly close
to doing something genuinely threatening. The religious lunatic wing of
the proverbial basket of deplorables quickly turned those episodes into
God preserving Trump, and once Trump saw the campaign value

(45:21):
of that, I have God's endorsement, to say nothing of
the license it gave him to complain about something else
all the damn time, all the goddamned time, he began
to adopt it too, And if you can remember back
to last month, he was still campaigning off this phony
religious awakening thing. When he went MIA and he put

(45:42):
out these I want to try to get to Heaven
fundraising email blasts. I'll say it again, don't let us
stop your pal. The problem with religious fervor and the
belief that you are ordained or imbued or protected or
something is that you soon begin to treat it as
an endless salad bowl. As the counter terrorism experts used

(46:03):
to tell me when the micro phones were off, we
have one hidden advantage over the terrorists that we don't
like to emphasize, just in case they're watching and they realize, hey,
they're right. A terrorist who mixes in belief in divine
protection and intervention and I'm doing God's plan or whoever's plan,
that person tends to put together the most meticulous and

(46:25):
intricate plan for the first eighty five to ninety percent
of the attack. The last ten percent, God will take
care of us. He's on our side. What do you
mean you didn't get an escape car. As a quick reminder,
I also don't think there has ever been a war, conventional,
guerrilla or terror based, in which the losing side was

(46:46):
not actually stunned when they lost, because wait, wait, wait,
did the Lord take the day off? He said we
were going to win? I heard him, What do you
mean that was a tumor? So Maga and the rest
have been operating all this time, not just convinced of
political invincibility, but of actual invincs ability, actual immortality until

(47:08):
last Wednesday. I am unafraid to say this. I don't
think it costs me credibility. I am against shooting political commentators,
mostly because I'm a political commentator. I am against shooting
people in general. But the commentator part is, you know personal.

(47:33):
Can you say that on the right and not get
thrown out of the macho or female macho club? And
if you can't say it, you not only have in
your mind that video of Charlie Kirk in an almost
exact frame for frame match of the assassination of the
fictional Senator John Yerki's Iceland from the Manchurian candidate, but
you naturally can envision that being you, and you can't

(47:55):
say that terrifies you, even though saying that terrifies me.
That would be the most human things most of these
Yaho's had done in the last decade. So for many
of the other mag assholes, who this time last week
were criticizing Charlie Kirk, or scheming behind his back to
take his online audience away from him, or trying to
get pasted him to Trump. Laura Lumer Kough cough the

(48:19):
current rage and vengeance tour is in part a cover
for their own fear. A British conservative columnist said he's
now for the first time in his life afraid. The
Times had six fascists write blurbs about why they were
running away. Peter McHugh, editor of a conservative student rag

(48:40):
at the University of Virginia, says, I'm out quote. Even
those committed to many of the things mister Kirk encouraged
conversation political engagement are questioning if it's worth the risk.
This morning, another writer at The Jefferson Independent confided that
they would never again attend a university sponsored political event.
The fear that controversial speech can provoke genuine violence is

(49:02):
no longer theoretical for students but real translation appropriate to Virginia.
When I quoted Patrick Henry saying give me liberty or
give me death, I meant your death. And I think
there's even a second level to this fear, as the

(49:22):
reverence for Kirk inside the authoritarian plot was a surprise
to most of us out here in the real world.
So too was what is now obviously a deep and
pervasive hatred of his influence and ubiquity. What if it's
true in Kirk really was oft by words from his

(49:42):
own side. Now they all have to worry about that.
It is part and parcel of all authoritarian movements, that
the bloodlust doesn't just emanate outwards, can't find an enemy
to destroy, try an ally, like the Loomer quote I
read and the Fuentes clip I played before the break

(50:04):
and the you know, the whole French Revolution, so long
before the rest of us found out about the groper
war against Kirk and the bitterness towards him within MAGA,
there was far more resentment of him, far more schism
than we could have possibly known or cared about. Frankly,
which head of the hydra is the worst? Who cares?

(50:25):
Just cut it off? Well they care. And then there's
the tertiary level of this fear, the one that combines
the realization that no God is protecting them and that
the call may be coming from inside the house since
Kirk's murder, through all the twists and roller coasters, and

(50:46):
trumpest lies and Ezra Kleine, inanities and assumptions and presumptions.
I have kept coming back to three words, the exact
relevance of which has not been immediately clear to me,
but which I was certain had some relevance. The three
words are Lee Harvey Oswald. I do not want to
make false equivalencies here. I'll repeat this. I am opposed

(51:09):
to shooting political commentators. I appreciate my main reason for
my opposition may seem self centered to you. I think
it's justifiable. I'm opposed to shooting political commentators because I'm
a political commentator. I am opposed to shooting anybody. I'm
opposed to shooting presidents, but that requires a longer explanation.

(51:30):
Invoking Oswald does not mean I am, for a moment,
equating Charlie Kirk and President Kennedy. I am, in the
most preliminary way possible, equating this suspect Tyler Robinson to Oswald. Obviously,
the shot itself continues to inspire disbelief. On the other hand,
if people could not hit a target at such distance,
guns would be far less of a threat, wouldn't they.

(51:53):
Guns make idiots? Into agents of historical change, and guns
make cowards into legends. But more importantly, the further you
dig down into Robinson, the more you discover it's just
one leg level of nihilism. It was hiding another level
of nihilism. One high school classmate summed up what he

(52:14):
knew of Robinson and said, he probably just shot Kirk
just to impress his friends. And if it is the
Groper thing, what do they believe in anyway? Nominally they
are ultra fascists, ultra white supremacists, ultra arians, and they're
led by a guy named Fuentes, who, by definition is
viewed by a large percentage of the less murderous MAGA

(52:34):
as not being uh totally white. The groper belief system
is less we hate them than it is you over there,
we hate you. It is an excuse to bond with
other people who want to threaten or shoot or kill,
but need to believe they're doing it for a reason,
which is where there is cause to consider this Tyler

(52:56):
Robinson a possible twenty first century version of Oswalt. Even
at the time, and I was old enough then to
remember it vaguely, even at the time of the shooting,
this was out there? What the hell happened here? I
was old enough to see the first public showings of

(53:16):
the Supruder film in school in nineteen seventy. I was
old enough to see the tail end of the first
backlash to the war and commission, and of course the
one hundred backlashes since, and even at the time, One
of the most confounding and panic inducing parts of the
assassination of President Kennedy was why which group was behind this?
Even if it really was a lone gunman, which group's

(53:39):
beliefs was he turning into such horrible action? Having studied
and analyzed and contemplated this for more than sixty years now,
I think the correct answer is Lee Harvey Oswald believed
in nothing except in his murderous rage that he was
not famous for something. Yet the confusion after the assassination

(53:59):
only grew as we learned about what he had done
in life. He'd been in the Marines, a military dictatorship.
Then he moved to the Soviet Union. Who did that
in the fifties? Oh, no, I know, it's the Communist
Besides defactors and spies, he had expected to be a
king there. An American convert to Communism. Instead, he got
a wife who he didn't really like that much and

(54:20):
a crap job in a crap country, and he moved
back and renounced Russia and communism. Okay, so now he's
some sort of Russian plant. And in the same year
that he shot Kennedy, and yeah, he shoined Kennedy. In
April of nineteen sixty three, tried to kill the rabid
right wing racist army General Edwin Walker in Dallas. Then

(54:42):
in August nineteen sixty three, he was on the streets
of New Orleans handing out leaflets defending the Castro communist
dictatorship in Cuba. Pick a side if you want to
do some amateur psychoanalysis. By this point, all politics was
just one thing to him. He wanted to become famous
by shooting somebody else famous. You can construct a more

(55:09):
complicated explanation for all of that. You can construct a
thousand of them, men, Lord knows, in the last six days,
six decades. In each case, we have constructed all the
complicated explanations for the Kennedy and kirk assassinations. But they
all hit at least one immovable factual problem or another.
In the Kennedy case, and they all fail to leap

(55:30):
over Akham's razor. A guy in a gun filled society fails,
fails again, fails again, repeats, retraces, keeps failing, goes nuts,
is given an opportunity and a gun and a nightmare ensues.
That's Oswald parts of it right now, that's Robinson. That's

(55:52):
the worst. That's the most destabilizing fear of them all.
The realizingization that no, it's not not them the other side. No,
you're not divinely protected. To know nothing is permanent, nothing
in Saane is safe, that it's all to some degree

(56:14):
from partly to totally, that it's all, including the cliched
bullet with your name on it, that it is all random.
Worst persons. Next, this is countdown with Keith Olberman. Believe

(56:59):
it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about.
The roundup of the miscreants, morons and uning Kruger effects
specimens who constitute today's other worst persons.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
In the world.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
The Bronze Worse Ezra Kleine. You've heard about this already.
Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way. Next week,
Brian Kilmead was practicing television the right way. You can
dislike much of what Kirk believed, and the following statement

(57:37):
is still true. Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the
right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking
with anyone who would talk to him. He was one
of the era's most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the
Left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of
college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and

(57:58):
again to break it, slowly, then all at once. He did.
You know how he did it? He never bothered to
worry about telling the truth. It's like Fox News. How
could they possibly produce that much garbage all the time.
It's lies. It's lies for an audience that never asks,

(58:19):
is this lies? Never asks how come these lies don't
match last week's lies. Charlie Kirk was a gifted bullshit artist.
I'll give him proper credit for that. As they all are.
They are sophists, They are perpetrators of circular logic, and

(58:42):
they have an audience that just wants to have their
own prejudices and beliefs reinforced. They never criticize their own people.
Oh that's right, they do. There was that little problem
with Charlie and everybody farther to the right than him.
In any event, that's not the point. The point here

(59:03):
is Ezra Kleine. You know, when they told me Ezra
Kline had been hired as a columnist by The New
York Times, I thought it was a gag. Now I'm
just gagging. Years ago, one of our segment producers who
once pitched us on a segment that she had read
a story about She wanted to do this segment about
how you lost two IQ points for every child you had.

(59:27):
And I didn't have time to vet every one of
the guest segments. In the early days of Countdown, when
it wasn't just a political show, I said, Okay, I
don't have children. I guess it's true. We got Carl Reiner,
mel Brooks comedic partner father of Rob, to come on
as the guest, and in the middle of my interview

(59:49):
with Carl Reiner, he said, Keith, I love the show,
but I don't think this is a real story. And
you know what it wasn't. The producer had not noticed
she had been reading this story on a satirical site.
Then she had two more pet projects. He kept pushing people.
She wanted on as guests. They'll improve the show so
much you have to put them on. The first one

(01:00:11):
was Ezra Kleine, so we did. I forget where he
was working. Then he was so boring. His insights were
so superficial that I actually ended the interview early and
I said off camera, never again. Then they booked her
second grade idea. That was Ryan Liza. He was so
used car salesman ish. I actually ended that interview early

(01:00:33):
and I said never again. And I said to my
show producers about the segment producer, maybe she needs to
work elsewhere. She then went to work for Glenn Beck.
I'm hoping she works with Ezra Kleine. Now. The enconiums
for Charlie Kirk in the New York Times, somebody said,

(01:00:56):
well he's dead, we better say something nice about him.
Who can we say something nice about? Who's good at
writing nonsensical things that don't hold together in praise of
stupid thing. Oh that's why we hired Ezra Kline. Runner
up worser Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Uh, here we

(01:01:17):
go from Britain's Daily Mail headline quote, Texas Attorney General's
caught in shocking sex scandal as details of secret affair
with married Christian influencer mom of seven are exposed, define
shocking Texas's controversial attorney general the story began, has been

(01:01:42):
caught in a shocking sex scandal less than two years
after cheating on his wife with his mistress. The Daily
Mail can exclusively reveal Ken Paxton, sixty two, was secretly
seeing a married Christian influencer behind the backs of both
their partners. Sounds entertaining, at least behind the backs. Multiple
sources confirm mother of seven, Tracy Douhan fifty seven, who

(01:02:06):
is also an author, is the reason the politician's relationship
crumbled earlier this summer. Texas State Senator Angela Paxton announced
in July their thirty eight year old marriage was over
in a stinging tweet, citing biblical grounds. She hit him
in the nuts for the Bible. It is not the

(01:02:28):
first time Ken Paxton has been rocked by scandal, having
been caught cheating on Angela in twenty twenty three with
his former mistress Laura Olsen. Oh no, what a shock,
Ken Paxton screwing around? Ken's trying to become the senator
from Texas. I'm sure he'll win. I mean, after all,

(01:02:49):
Texas have all known for a long time that Ken
Paxton has a wandering eye, so to speak. But the
worst Rachel Madow, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O'Donnell, and Everybo nobody
else at MSNBC with any sway or heft there except

(01:03:09):
in an irony. I would call it an irony except
Katie term. Katie actually comes out at the top of
this list in the correct behavior. I was never a
Matthew Dowd fan. Matt presented himself as the reasonable Republican.
On the other hand, he was a key perpetrator in
Bush's two thousand and four re election campaign. He was

(01:03:31):
one of them who pretended the swift voting of John Kerry,
or the sudden release of the bin Laden video the
weekend before the election, or the other terror manipulations were
not really part of the campaign. He and I I did,
I think, did one panel together later on this week
with George Stephanopolis one Sunday morning on ABC. I would

(01:03:54):
not have put him on a list of the one
hundred worst Conservatives, but I wouldn't have put him on
a list of the one hundred best either. Until last
week in the hours after Charlie Kirk shot. He said
some tough truth. He said it somberly, he said it solemnly,
And to Katie Ur's credit, she didn't back away from him.
She didn't tut him, she didn't tell the principle on him.

(01:04:17):
To Doud, it did not matter what was presumed about
the shooter. It mattered to that Charlie Kirk trafficked in
hate and violence and political threat and intimidation and an
effort to undermine our democracy. It needed to be said.
Katie asked him about the overall environment in which indefensible
events like his assassination happened, and Matt Dowd told the

(01:04:39):
truth quote, He's been one of the most divisive, especially
divisive younger figures in this who was constantly sort of
pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed
at certain groups. And I always go back to hateful
thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.
And I think that is the environment we are in.
You can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you

(01:05:00):
have and then saying these awful words and not expect
awful actions to take place. And that's the unfortunate environment
we are in. Unquote that's true, not cheering the assassination
nor ignoring the shock. It wasn't too soon, it wasn't unfair.
It didn't blame Charlie Kirk for his own shooting. It

(01:05:22):
did not say it was justified. It did not say
shooting was justified. It was saying that eventually, if you
play with a gun, your odds of shooting yourself do
increase metaphorically speaking. And MSNBC fired him before the day
was over. The right wingers who now own and run
MSNBC or whatever they're calling it this week, the Comcast CEO,

(01:05:46):
a cowardly money monkey named Brian Roberts, somebody named Mike
Cabanaugh who assumed power after they had to fire Jeff
Shell for lying, and the chairman of the new company
they created to put distance between NBC and Comcast and MSNBC.
This thing versan't Spinco is a better name, Mark Lazarus.

(01:06:08):
They then warned the staff of MSNBC about dialogue with
respect and we need to do better, and the usual
language of executives who were worried about losing three dollars
who have lost already all sense that they're not laying
cable anymore for a living. But they are handling journalism
in a time when democracy is under threat and journalism

(01:06:31):
is one of the last weapons we have to protect it,
including their ability to make money off of it, including
their ability to make money without tithing Donald Trump, including
their freedoms, not just the freedoms of the people out
on the front lines. Dowd later explained what happened that day,
quoting him, the right wing media mob ginned up, went

(01:06:52):
after me on a plethora of platforms, and MSNBC reacted
to that mob, even though most at MSNBC knew my
words were being misconstrued, the timing of my words forgotten.
Remember I said this for anyone knew was a target,
and then I apologized for any miscommunication on my part.
I was terminated by the end of the day. Ordinarily

(01:07:14):
I would make a big deal about the irony. Here
a former member of what twenty years ago we thought
was the worst right wing media mob imaginable being taken
down by what turns out to be truly the worst
right wing media mob imaginable, including agents inside MSNBC's own house,
like Joe Scarborough and his wife, the one who used

(01:07:34):
to be somebody else's wife. But my point here is,
once again, MSNBC still makes a lot of money, and
its primetime stars make lots of money, and they've all
been on their jobs since their shows were spun off
from mine. And the most recent of those spin offs
was Hayes. And now that's like fourteen years ago. And

(01:07:55):
I have to tell you this simply as somebody who
stopped making that kind of money thirteen years ago. If
Madow and O'Donnell and hay do not now have enough
money by now to cover them and the next six
or seven generations of their families for the rest of
their lives, they have really left up so exactly, why

(01:08:19):
would they not say something anything about Matt Dowd being
thrown overboard when he was right, But even if he
wasn't right or could have been better timed, even if
the new MSNBC is supposed to be about dialogue at worst,
they should have suspended him if that much. Why haven't
they said anything about this? Why haven't they defended the

(01:08:43):
freedom of speech they are now complaining the far right
is trying to cancel. We are living in a time
in which there is a president who says he is
going to stop free speech because of Charlie Kirk. He
is going to stop it. He is going to use
the weapons of government against you and me and Rachel

(01:09:04):
Maddow and MSNBC and Chris Hayes and O'Donnell and the
place that O'Donnell and Hayes and Mattow and the rest
of them, the place they work obeys in advance. In fact,
MSNBC was the first place, the first place to punish
an employee for not being sufficiently phony about the death

(01:09:28):
of Charlie Kirk, the first By Friday, it had turned out,
of course that in the black and white world that
scumbags like Brian Roberts and Mike Kavanaugh and Mark Lazarus
live in, that Kirk had been shot, if not directly
by his own side, then certainly under the influence of
somebody who was under the influence of their own side.

(01:09:50):
And MSNBC helped legitimize the entire clamp down on criticism
of Charlie Kirk by firing Matt Dowd, and Mattow and
Hayes and O'Donnell helped legitimize out's firing by their cowardice.
Rachel Meadow is a coward. Chris Hayes is a coward.

(01:10:12):
Lawrence O'Donnell is in fact two or three cowards. Their
cowardice in not speaking up in some way, shape or form.
Because what would Rachel Meadow do without another twenty five
million dollars this year? I used to look for opportunities
to reveal management hypocrisy or malpractice. I used to look

(01:10:36):
at ESPN, at KCBS in La, at my college radio station.
I used to look for executives who really screwed up,
or who really were doing bad things. I like to
try to humiliate them in some way, or at least
let people know what they were doing. He used to
look for this. It's a dangerous hobby, but one I

(01:10:57):
thought was part of my duty my career. I was
paid back with a reputation as a troublemaker. You bet
your ass, I'm a troublemaker. Rachel Maddow a fake troublemaker.
Chris Hayes, who once refused to go on Countdown as

(01:11:18):
the host because MSNBC had breached my contract by suspending me.
They asked him to anchor in my place, and he went, no,
you're wrong, I'm not going to do it, and he
was making I don't know fifty thousand dollars a year
from MSNBC at that point, if that much, and risked
all of it and everything he could ever possibly make,

(01:11:38):
including all the money he has made. He risked all that.
Then he wouldn't risk something now And then O'Donnell well,
and he was a fake in twenty eleven. He's a
fake today. Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Laurence O'Donnell silent as
they were when MSNBC fired Mehdi Hassan, and when MSNBC

(01:11:59):
fired Joy Read, and when MSNBC fired Katie Fang, and
when m SNBC fired Melissa Harris Perry, and when MSNBC
fired Tiffany Cross. Oh, and when MSNBC fired all of
Rachel meadows staff silent Now sure why not? I mean
they still get their money, right, Today's other worst persons

(01:12:25):
in the world. I've done all the damage I can

(01:13:04):
do here. Thank you for listening. Most of our Countdown
music was arranged, produced and performed by Brian Range, John
Phillip Schaneil. Our musical directors of Countdown was produced by
Tko Brothers. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums.
Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Our satirical and pithy
musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever,
Nancy Faust. The Old Woman theme from ESPN two, written

(01:13:27):
by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Is our
sports music. Other music arranged and performed by the group
No Horns Allowed. My announcer today was my friend Larry David.
Everything else was, as always my fault. That's countdown for today,
Day two hundred and forty of America held hostage, just

(01:13:48):
two hundred and thirty three days until the scheduled end
of his lame duck and lame brain term unless he
is removed sooner by Maga, Jeffrey Epstein, or the pavement
on his hand, or hey, anybody notice he's been silent
again recently. The next scheduled countdown is Thursday. Until then,

(01:14:08):
I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
wait for it, good luck. Countdown with Keith Olberman is

(01:14:40):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts,