December 16, 2024 • 63 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 79: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is now revealed that at a Thanksgiving-eve dinner on a patio at the Mar-a-Lago Crapshack, Trump had his minions play a recording of the national anthem sung by the January 6th Terrorists. Some of them at Trump’s table put their hands over their hearts as the people who stormed our capitol intending to take over our government sang words, the actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per The Wall Street Journal, one of those who put his hand over his heart during this travesty was… Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg leads the parade of pathetic billionaires also including Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman, who just happen to be donating a million dollars to Trump's inauguration committee. Except for ABC News, which is donating FIFTEEN million to Trump's presidential museum (which may be in an empty warehouse or a sinkhole somewhere) to settle his frivolous and easily winnable defamation case against George Stephanopoulos.
On March 22nd, 1979, I was ushered into the small office of a Vice President at the ABC television series “The Wide World of Sports.” His wife had been an assignment editor at the local New York TV station I had interned at the previous summer – though we were not there simultaneously. He and the Mrs. and my friends from the local station all warned me this gentleman would not have a job for me nor even any job leads, just advice.
His name was Robert Iger. “Call me Bob,” he insisted. Within fifteen years he was president of ABC and thus the boss of all my bosses at ESPN and he was my boss there three times and for two further years at ABC and he gave me brilliant advice I've repeated a thousand times: if you want to be on the air, don't take an off-air job. It has truly changed lives.
And now, after 45-and-a-half years I’d like to repay Bob Iger and give him MY advice: Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the future of news and the future of journalism and the future of this country because you guys at Disney ain’t it any more.
What do you think you bought for yourself here, Bob? Trump’s gratitude? Him somehow remembering you fondly the NEXT time ABC News does something he doesn’t like, like, say, accurately report how many people show up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons, or how many people die during the migrant round-ups into the migrant concentration camps?
Even if Trump CAN still remember do you think he WILL remember? Or all the mini-Trumps? What you have done is merely become part of the process by which freedom of the press, and freedom in the nation, dissolve. My advice, offered again in gratitude for YOUR advice in 1979: sell ABC News to somebody who cares.
B-Block (27:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Did Trump demand the end of Daylight Savings Time but think he was demanding the end of STANDARD Time? Van Jones plus Chris Cillizza equals Extra Large Stupid. And the New York radio station that is quite literally running a bulletin "sound" for "DRONE WATCH 2024." (39:27) SPORTSBALLCENTER: I have actually solved baseball's playoff crisis, the one in which in three of the last four years the team with the best record has been eliminated in its first playoff round and 14 of the 24 division winners have, too. It's actually a really really good idea.
C-Block (52:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Offended by this CNN crapfest every night where Abby Phillip lets this jackass Scott Jennings insult everyone and everything good about America, in front of an ever-shrinking audience? We tried this at MSNBC long ago only the clown was Michael Savage. It didn't end well for us and it ain't gonna end well for CNN.
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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. Here's
the latest worldwide bribe news. It is now revealed that
(00:29):
at a Thanksgiving Eve dinner on a patio at the
Marilago Crapshack, Trump had his minions play the recording of
the national anthem as sung by the January sixth terrorists.
His dinner companions and remember, dinner companions, always keep your
hands away from Trump's mouth stood at attention. Some of
them at Trump's table put their hands over their hearts
(00:53):
as the people who stormed our capital intending to take
over our government and kill our leaders, saying words the
actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per the
Wall Street Journal, one of those who stood up and
put his hand over his heart during this travesty was
Mark Zuckerberg. Presumably this was the visit during which Zuckerberg
(01:19):
in part helped to provide the answer to the question
where has all your money gone? The answer is it
has gone to Trump's inaugural committee. Zuckerberg, the Facebook clown,
gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Jeff Bezos, that's blackmail
me once. I'll fight you. Blackmail me a second time.
I'll do whatever you want. Jeff Bezos. He gave Trump's
(01:42):
committee one million dollars. On Friday. Sam Altman of Open
AI was almost did us the favor of killing off
artificial intelligence gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Bank of
America has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
In twenty seventeen, that amount was one million dollars. Goldman
(02:04):
Sachs has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
Google's Sundar Peacheye dined with trumpet Mari Lago. I wonder
what Trump called him. PITCHI bought Sergey Brinn's influence with him.
Sergei Brinn is why this idiot Nicole Shanahan has money.
She's his ex. She became RFK Junior's running mate political
(02:27):
running mate, as opposed to his FaceTime masturbation mate or
his actual spousal mate. The next day, Tim Cook of
Apple or has Trump in his dotage has called him
Tim Apple went to the same patio at which Zuckerberg
put his hand over his heart during the sedition. Anthem
and Tim Cook dined with Trump last Friday. No word
(02:49):
of donations, but the New York Times reports that Trump
and Tim iPhone Boy discussed fighting the fine with which
European regulators have hit Tim FaceTime. The fine is two
billion dollars. And now ABC News has settled with True
because George Stephanoppolis said on air that judges and Juries
had quoting George found him Trump liable for rape unquote
(03:12):
when literally the judge said, the verdict did not mean
that Egen Carroll quote failed to prove that Trump raped her,
as many people commonly understned the word rape unquote, and
Trump sued A million in Trump's legal expenses and a
fifteen million dollar donation from ABC to Trump's presidential foundation
(03:35):
and museum. I expect the Trump Presidential Museum will feature
a life sized model of Trump's ego. It will thus
be twice the size of the sphere in Las Vegas.
And of course, in the saddest and most egregious of these,
the saddest of these from Mark Bennioff, chief executive of
(03:56):
a company called Sales Force. He gave Trump Times Person
of the Year award. Benyoff also owns Time Magazine. He
posted the cover of Time magazine and wrote of quote,
a time of great promise for our nation and prosperity
for everyone with Trump getting the award, and he did
(04:18):
not write that the Time magazine Person of the Year
award is your annual reminder that owner Benioff has yet
defined a sports gambling website willing to buy the magazine's
useless brand name from them. In any other world, these
would be bribes. These, whatever you call them, are not
(04:39):
necessarily illegal, certainly aren't unprecedented. There certainly is no evidence
that similar or at least parallel ones have not been
made to democratic presidents elect, nor to presidents elect in
the twentieth century, nor even in the nineteenth. But these
are slightly different. These come with unspoken promises from these worthless, greedy,
(05:02):
voracious billionaires to not lift a finger nor make a
sound as Trump prepares to pillage this country morally, financially,
culturally in the next four years or however much time
he has left in his worthless, greedy, voracious life. As
I mentioned previously in this series, the point of corporations
(05:23):
is to absolve a moral people of any criminal or
ethical responsibility for the worst of human actions, so that
investors can get more money and not have to worry
about what laws they or others might be breaking doing it,
But this parade of the pathetic to mar Lago, this
succession of ninth rate alfreed Krupps to kiss the ring
(05:46):
of a tenth rate fewer. This is as much about
symbolism and acquiescence and reassuring him that the necessary financial
component of fascism, including the financial component of media fascism
at the Washington Post, on Facebook, even at ABC, that
it will all be ready to salute whenever he decides
to pull the switch. It's like Romney having dinner last
(06:10):
time to beg to become Secretary of State. It cannot
be erased, and it must not be forgotten. Mark Zuckerberg,
Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Sergei Brynn, Sundar Piche
and the Bush leaguer who actually bought what used to
be Time magazine. Remember them, and simply deny them your
(06:34):
dollars wherever you can. Boycotts are impossible and ineffective, and
inconvenience you way more than they inconvenience these men, for
whom the acquisition of unnecessary wealth has replaced in importance
actual human life. But every time you do not give
them your money, you will be protesting this nauseating subservience,
(06:56):
even if you are the only one who knows you
have done so. Two caveats here. You will notice I
have not even mentioned Elon Musk and as The Wall
Street Journal made a point of noting when they played
the January sixth insurrectionist choir version of the National Anthem
and everybody stood and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly put his hand
(07:19):
over where his heart should be. They didn't tell Zuckerberg
in advance that it was the January sixth insurrectionist choir version.
On the other hand, I wonder why anybody thinks it
would have made any goddamn difference. Let me revisit the
(07:57):
ABC News News. On March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
I was ushered into the small office of a vice
president at the ABC television series The Wide World of Sports.
This man was the product of Ithac College, and so
as a senior at Cornell, I had a vague connection
to him. We at least knew similar bits of geography.
(08:20):
He had started life as a sportscaster who actually did
on air work on a couple of Upstate New York
TV newscasts. And then there was the real reason I
was actually in there with him. His wife had been
an assignment editor at the local New York TV station
I had interned at the previous summer, though we were
not there Simultaneously, he and the missus and my friends
(08:40):
from the local station all warned me this gentleman would
not have a job for me, nor even any job leads,
just advice.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
His name was.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Robert Eiger. Call me Bob, he insisted, you may recognize Bob.
Within fifteen years of our visit, he had become president
of the ABC Television network, then COO of its parent company,
cap Cities ABC before Disney bought it, then President of Disney,
then CEO of Disney. Then he retired in twenty twenty
(09:13):
and then he did a jay leno and unretired in
twenty twenty two, and guy rid of the guy who
had succeeded him, and he's CEO of Disney again, and
he made about thirty one million a year ago. And
on three separate occasions he has been my boss and
all of my boss's boss. And oh, by the way,
he divorced the wife I knew, and married the model
and sportscaster and newscaster will Obey but that's another story.
(09:37):
And Bob now is the boss of all the bosses
at ABC News, which just settled an apparently winnable case
against Trump because they were offered the fig leaf of
not paying Trump damages per se, but making a quote
donation to his presidential museum, which could easily just be
an empty warehouse or perhaps a sinkhole somewhere. And on
(10:04):
March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, bobb Iger, whose unique
experience on air and with economics was already evident he
was in charge of budgeting for Wide World of Sports,
did give me great advice, the greatest advice I have
ever received, which I have repeated a thousand times over.
In brief, Bob said, if you want to be on
(10:25):
the air, be on the air. Do not do He
said what I did. I was offered a job as
a sportscaster in Syracuse for ten thousand dollars a year,
and I was also offered a job as a production
assistant here at Wide World of Sports for ten five
hundred dollars a year. And I figured I could live
at home with my folks and stay in the city
(10:46):
and move laterally at work, And now I make one
hundred thousand dollars a year, and I still want to
be a sportscaster, and to do that, I now have
to quit this job and move me and my wife
and my kids to Syracuse where they are now paying
eleven thousand dollars a year for sports casters, and I
have priced myself out of my dream. If you want
to be on the air, Keith, be on the air,
(11:09):
take the job in Syracuse and suck it up. Brilliant advice, truly,
And now, after forty five and a half years, I
would like to repay Bob Eiger and give him my advice.
Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the
(11:32):
future of news and the future of journalism and the
future of this country. Because you guys at Disney ain't
it anymore? What do you think you bought for yourself here?
Bob Trump's gratitude? Trump somehow remembering you fondly or at
(11:53):
least neutrally the next time ABC News does something he
doesn't like, like say, accurately reporting how many people show
up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons,
or how many people died during the migrant roundups into
the migrant concentration camps. Even if Trump can still remember,
(12:13):
you think he will remember, or that all the mini
Trumps will. The New York Times now reports based on
four sources at the magazines in question and email evidence,
that the lawyer for Pete Hegseth made litigation threats before
The New Yorker and Vanity Fair published articles about his
(12:34):
conduct after an appearance on MSNBC in which she called
Cash Patel a quote delusional liar unquote. Former Trump staffer
Olivia Troy was threatened with a suit by Patel's lawyer.
No word if MSNBC was threatened. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson
of North Carolina and Nude Africa Fame actually sued CNN. Trump,
(13:00):
of course, sues as frequently as he overeats. He has
a lawsuit going against c News about a Kamala Harris
interview nothing to do with him. He has a live
threat for suits against The New York Times. He has
a libel suit pending against the board that gives out
Pulitzer Prizes it honored work that criticized him. Trump's complain
(13:23):
about law fair and weaponizing government against enemies is to me,
not about the morals or legalities or appropriateness of any
of that. It's that he wants to be the only
one allowed to do any of that, and so in
this environment, ABC News just handed him a win. The
headline on this isn't the donation to some campaign or
(13:47):
possibly museum. It's Trump awarded fifteen million dollars from ABC
after lawsuit. That's the way it's playing around the world.
I don't know that my old acquaintance, Bob, asked.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Them to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I also know Bob literally since I was twenty years
and one month old, and I know they damned well
didn't do it without telling him first. The saddest part
is media law experts believe that even now, even on
the eve of a Trump reducts, his case against ABC,
(14:23):
did not stand a flipping chance. Trump is not only
a public figure, but according to no less an authority
than himself, he is the public figure, and thus the
bar for damaging his reputation is higher than it is
for anybody else in the world. Also, how do you
damage his reputation? The Media Law Resource Center reported a
(14:52):
few years ago. Now, Trump and his companies have been
involved in at least four thousand lawsuits dating back to
nineteen eighty four at least, and the media law RESORTCE Centers.
Susan E. Sager concluded that Trump quote and his companies
have never won a single speech related case filed in
(15:14):
a public courtot He or his extensions have sued for libel.
The architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune have sued for libel.
An author who wrote Trump Wasn't a billionaire have sued
a former Trump University student, Une Vision, because it wouldn't
carry one of his shows after he called Mexican's rapists.
(15:34):
He sued Bill Maher over a joke wait, Bill Martell's jokes.
He sued unions organizing against him. So ABC News gave in.
And unless there's a secret rider in this in which
Trump has sworn never to file another suit against ABC
(15:57):
nor harassed the company, all this will mean to him
is next time he wants to threaten ABC News or
any part of Disney, it will fold. And then there
is the chilling effect at ABC News, at all the
ABC stations around the country, at all the newsrooms associated
(16:19):
with ABC, at ESPN, at every company ABC and Disney own,
but specifically at ABC News I worked there, wants to
do a special one off report for Nightline. I worked
two and a half years there as a commentator on
radio and as Paul Harvey's backup. I am grateful that
(16:41):
I am doing this podcast now rather than either of
those ABC series, and that dark gratitude and the fear
your people, Bob have created inside their own newsrooms is
part of the process by which freedom of the press
(17:01):
and freedom in the nation dissolve. My advice offered again
in gratitude for your advice in nineteen seventy nine, Bob
Sell ABC News to somebody who still cares onto the
(17:31):
subject of the Batman. Special guest villains, or if you preferred,
Trump's cabinet nominees. They were all at the Army Navy
football game Saturday, along with Daniel Penny the quote Subway
good Samaritan unquote, and Russell Brand check his ticket, Dave
(17:52):
Portnoy from Barstool Sports, Darry to look me in the eye, Dave,
and Joe Mansion was there. I'll let you rank them specifically.
Cash Patel has new problems. Cash Pateel insists he had
a key role in the Department of Justice investigation into
(18:14):
the Benghazi mess. In twenty twelve, that, quoting him on
a podcast, I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for
Benghazi for a while. The New York Times reports sadly no,
it says Patel quote has both exaggerated his own importance
and misleadingly distorted the department's broader effort. According to public
(18:34):
documents and interviews with several current and former law enforcement
officials familiar with the matter, Politico described Patel's job on
the Benghazi case as quote grunt work. Quote turns out
the lawyer helping RFK Junior staff out the Department of
Health and Human Services once petitioned the government to revoke
(18:54):
its approval of the polio vaccine. You're probably not, but
I am old enough to have been in the first
grade with a kid who had a leg brace from
having gotten polio. There is a sitting Senator and a
sitting congressman right now who contracted polio as children. Polio
(19:19):
is not gone. It is waiting for someone, someone evil
like Robert F. Kennedy Junior. May he burn in hell.
There are new problems for Hegseeth, for whom this is
turning into hell on Earth. Besides the drinky assaulty problems.
CNN notes that in a book he wrote, they wrote
(19:39):
this year, heg Seth said the repeal of Don't Ask,
Don't Tell was a quote gateway and a quote camouflage
as part of a quote Marxist unquote agenda to deprioritize
combat readiness. Heg Seth insists he did not and does
not oppose the repeal and all this is quote false reporting, which,
(20:01):
if he really believes that, raises far more important questions
like or not Pete Hegseth can remember what he did
earlier this year, and if not, why not. But Trump
likes his hair. We just don't know if there's anything
under his hair. Tulsey Gabbard. Meanwhile, maybe soon finding out.
(20:24):
As my old Sports Center colleague Larry Beale used to say,
Aloha means goodbye. The Hill reports that would be Director
of National Intelligence is taking on water at her meetings
with Republican senators, quoting one of two senate Republicans and
other sources, quote, she was proving to be a little shallow,
(20:47):
like a house member talking at a hearing, and not
someone who needs to provide the president's daily intelligence briefing.
And from a separate source to this publication, a Senator,
they say, quote, I've heard that she's not very well prepared.
I've heard not great things, Senate GOP members said, describing
them as bs sessions. The Hill also quotes a GOP
(21:10):
aid she's got some work to do if she wants
the job. The more she meets with serious people, the
more they'll see there's a competency deficit.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Unquote, thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Nancy Faust, a second senator cited by the Hill in
its report on Telsea Gabbard's flailing, says anonymously and deliciously
that there have been a lot of.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Irolls. Mahallow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Also of interest here, Van Jones plus Chris Salisa equals
extra large stupid with a double order of stupid toppings
to go, speaking of which there's Abby Phillip and Scott
Jennings and CNN. And when we tried this same nonsense
at MSNBC twenty years ago, it was Michael Savage and
(22:32):
I have solved the baseball playoff crisis. This is not hyperbole.
I have actually solved the baseball playoff crisis where all
the good teams lose early. I alone can fix it.
On the other hand, I'll do it for free. That's Next,
This is countdown.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
This is countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Still ahead. I have solved Baseball's crisis. Yes, I know
it's not baseball season. It's probably, at least symbolically the
furthest point from baseball season. I've soured on baseball. I
hate the management structure and they're not fond of me either.
And no, by baseball crisis, I do not mean the
recent spectacle of New York Yankees fans hating on Juan
(23:24):
Soto for signing with the New York Mets and claiming
he showed no loyalty and just went where the money was,
as if that had not been the creed of the
New York Yankees since the year nineteen twenty. I mean
baseball's playoff crisis coming up. I will tell you this
full story. The other night, as I was falling asleep,
it came to me, this crazy playoff structure, in which
the best team in the game has been eliminated in
(23:45):
three of the last four years in the first round,
is broken and I alone can fix it. I am
giving away for free the way for baseball to get
out of its el stinko playoffs structure. Next in the countdown,
(24:07):
Sportsball Report.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
First.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
After that interminable tease, believe it or not, there's still
more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's other worst persons in the world, the brons, worse
ladies and gentlemen. For years, for decades, there has been
(24:53):
a push to stop the annual switchback from daylight savings
to standard time in October or November. So, as you're
probably aware, Trump has posted the republic Look Party will
use its best efforts to eliminate daylight Saving time, which
has a small but strong constituency. But shouldn't exclamation point
(25:16):
daylight saving time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.
First off, it's savings ufing idiot daylight savings time. Yes,
eliminate daylight savings time, so it starts getting light at
like four am in June and there will never be
(25:37):
another sunset later than about eight pm, exactly what everybody
in the country wants. And when I say everybody, I
mean nobody. There are a couple of theories here. One
is he posted this just to divert attention from his
truth leak in which one day last week he claimed
(25:58):
he won the election based on the word groceries, which
he invented, and the promise to reduce the cost of
growth series, and then one other day last week he
made an admission that he has actually no idea how
to reduce the cost of groceries, which he invented. The
likelier explanation is that Trump is too stupid and has
(26:18):
deteriorated too far to realize that he is calling for
the end of daylight savings when he actually wanted to
call for the end of standard time. The problem now,
of course, is that he will now have to admit
he got it wrong or changed his mind, and he
cannot do that because his brain is broken and he
is infallible. So we might wind up eliminating all daylight
(26:43):
savings time because this guy is crazy. By the way,
I have hated that day that we go back to
standard time since I was a kid. But I was
a kid so long ago that I was there standing
outside waiting for my school bus at seven forty am,
in the middle of the energy crisis. Winner of nineteen
(27:05):
seventy three seventy four, when it was pitch black at
seven forty am. It was not only the most depressing
thing I ever experienced, certainly to that point, way more
depressing than getting dark at four pm. And by the way,
it starts getting dark later. As of what this is
the sixteenth, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty Saturday of this week,
(27:29):
this is the worst week of the year. Then it
starts getting darker later. Anyway, it was way more depressing
when we went on daylight savings time in the winter.
We stayed on it that winter in a well meaning
but ultimately disastrous attempt to cut back on energy costs
(27:49):
during an energy crisis. While I was standing at that
bus stop, literally dozens of other kids were getting killed
walking to school in pitch black darkness or waiting for
their school buses. Half a century of reflection on this
and the answer to what to do about daylight savings
time and the terrible month ending December twenty first, and
(28:14):
the depression and the danger of too much darkness too
early in the day, the answer of what to do
about this has come to me, and it is leave
it exactly the way it is now. Yes, for this month,
it's really bad, and it gets worse every day. On
the other hand. In the summer, when almost everybody can
(28:35):
enjoy being outside after work for up to four hours,
it is glorious to have light so late. And unless
you've waited outside for a bus at seven forty am
in utter darkness, you will never know. How imperfect as
it is, the current system is the best option. Don't
(28:55):
change it either way. We live with it. It does
get dark earlier in the United States, and it will
get dark earlier no matter what time we call it.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
You could call it eleventy billion o'clock and he'll still
get dark early. It's winter.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The sun is in a different position relative to us.
I know you couldn't explain this to most Trump voters,
but it's true. And by the way, if you missed it,
somebody joked that Trump's unexpected sudden, defensive, permanent Standard Time.
That must mean that Standard Time had donated a million
dollars to his inauguration committee. The runner up worser. Maybe
(29:34):
it was this idiot Van Jones. You know Van Jones.
For a decade on CNN, Van Jones has been saying earnestly,
with deep conviction and the most sincere performance of fake
sincerity imaginable. He's been saying the stupidest things pretty much
started with although this was not the first example, but
his first all star announcement came early in twenty seventeen
(29:58):
that Trump, in a speech to Congress, a kind of
first State of the Union address, trump had just truly
become president. I guess Van said this because Trump had
not shot a guy during it or messed his diapers
while saying it. These statements continued unobated through the assassination attempt,
when Van Jones cried on the air and told Democrats
(30:21):
to embrace Republicans to show we were all Americans, while
Trump was already figuring out how to exploit the event
by demanding that American owed him now and everybody should
drop all criminal cases against him, even though he was
a trader, and then he was fund raising off of it,
used it to get elected again. But Van Jones wanted
me to hug him, hug this fan and now more
(30:45):
from Van Jones. There are a few more cynical, more dishonest,
a few more ugly in their soul speakers than Sarah
Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, just as her soul as
father was governor of Arkansas. Later Trump's most virulent and angry,
dyspeptic press sect Terry. She looked always like she just
(31:07):
swallowed a mouse hole. She spoke at the Republican National
Committee and made a tasteless ageist joke comparing her four
year old son huck to President Biden, and Van Jones
said after the speech on CNN, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she
was incredibly compelling to me. She told personal stories that landed.
(31:28):
It was moving, and it was powerful. She gave the
speech of the night unquote. And now Van Jones has
gone on a podcast and eliminated all doubt, the podcast
in which Van Jones praises the smartest man in the
world Trump.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The problem is you have a framework in your mind
that how could Donald Trump? Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump? Guys,
can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an
idiot Donald Trump. Let me just be very clear. Donald
Trump is smarter than me, you and Paul critics. While
I know because he has the White House, the Senate,
(32:09):
the House totally agree for the popular vote. He has
a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream, built around
him and for him, and a religiously religious fervor in
a political movement around him, and he is best Buddy
is the richest person in the history of the world,
and the most relevant Kennedy is with him. This dude
(32:31):
is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on
earth and in our lifetime. And we're still saying, well,
how was this card?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
We look like idiots? You first, pal Man is using
the royal us there, Van, He's made you look like
an idiot. By the way, the podcast Van Jones was on,
well it was the Crystali is a podcast, so one
assumes it is mandatory if you go on the Crystal
is a podcast to say something as idiotic as Crystal
is a Van Jones certainly fulfilled the terms. And you
(33:03):
thought Sali with Chuck Todd was bad enough, I think
they should do a roundtable. I think Chuck Todd and
Solissa and Van Jones should do a podcast every day
just to give me more material. Even after that, still
not the worst persons in the world. Our winners for
that honor. Today wis ten ten Wins Radio here in
(33:28):
Fun City. You may recall it is New York City's
last surviving all news radio station after owners Odyssey inexplicably
shuttered the good one WCBS in late summer. WIS now
bills itself as New York's top news station, which is
inarguably true since they killed off the other one. It
(33:50):
has also used such new and laugh out loud funny
IDs as the most important station for the most important
listeners in the universe, or something like that. But WIONS
has not made this list for any of that nonsense.
In the last week, as you've probably heard, drones may
or may not have been spotted over New Jersey and
(34:11):
other areas vaguely considered part of the metropolitan New York area.
I guess drones in New Jersey, how redundant any who
buy New Jersey listeners. WIS has interrupted its regular programming,
which is thirty five percent commercials, thirty five percent traffic
reports all by the same person, twenty five percent news
(34:34):
about Arianda Grande and other pop stars, and five percent
actual news. It has interrupted that wheel to introduce what
it actually bills as Drone Watch twenty twenty four. I
cannot reduce this sounder as we call it in the business,
for copyright reasons. Also, I have a reputation for actual
(34:55):
news that I have to protect, so I will not
reproduce what they are playing Onions, but there's music, and
there is an announcer saying, with this combination of authority
and dread in his voice, Drone Watch twenty twenty four,
Drone Watch twenty twenty four. It's like something out of
The Daily Show. I was actually listening for ten minutes
(35:17):
to WIONS yesterday and they played this sounder twice. There
is no indication that WIONS has adopted this ironically or
self mockingly, in which case it would actually be cool.
They are leaning into drone Watch twenty twenty four, the
way they and every other station radio television in this
(35:38):
country trot out storm Watch twenty twenty four whenever it
you know, rains, Drizzle Watch twenty twenty four. The most
disturbing part of this, perhaps is that it is just
two weeks until New Year's Day, and I'm thinking these
drone sightings more likely two percent drones and ninety eight
(36:01):
percent aircraft landings as seen by people who actually have
chosen to live in towns with names like Nutley, New Jersey.
These will continue into the New Year, at which point
they will have to send their guy back into the
Wins studio. Wins Radio in New York where the drone
watch never stops. That's go Watch twenty twenty five, two
(36:26):
days other worst. What'side?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
This is Sports Center? Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Aulberman in sports from the sports Balls Central Center News Desk, Tonight, Dateline,
New York. Okay, I figured out how to fix baseball's
broken playoff system. I understand it's it's the middle of winter.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But this literally came to me as I was falling asleep,
and it works. It's absolutely the solution. You're welcome. Not
only that, not only have I figured out how to
fix baseball's broken playoff system, but my fix, if they
do it right, gives Major League Baseball Incorporated at least
(37:45):
four more playoff games to sell to a cable network
or a streaming service or pay per view, or just
to passers by on the street. You got a dollar,
here's a ballgame. In the four years since the COVID
shortened season of twenty twenty, baseball has had twenty four
(38:06):
division winners. There are six divisions. There's six division winners
a year. It's been four years. Winning your division is
supposed to be the point of the regular baseball season,
and it's supposed to mean a lot going into the playoffs.
These are the teams that have worked all year, and
they are supposed to be given a leg up, an advantage.
(38:29):
It gives you home field advantage in the playoffs. It
gives you time to rest your pitchers, particularly after the
incredibly grueling one hundred and sixty two game regular season.
You have to run through the tape to win your division,
so you should be at the top of your game,
and you have to do that so you don't get
stuck with the dreaded wild card games, in which now
(38:51):
you may not play a home game in the wildcard round.
You have to go to the better teams stadium and
play all your playoff games. There twenty four division winners
in the four years since COVID, and fourteen of them
have lost in their first playoff round. That's fourteen have
lost and only ten have won. With the supposed advantage
(39:16):
of all advantages going into the playoffs, I think we
have a big enough sample size here. They've screwed this up.
You are literally better off not winning your division than
winning your division, and whatever you do, do not become
the team with the best record in baseball in the
(39:36):
regular season, we've had four of those. Three of them,
including the twenty twenty two Dodgers, who had one hundred
and eleven wins out of one hundred and sixty two
games played, tied for fourth most wins in any season
all time. The three of the four best record teams
in baseball in the last four years have been wiped
(39:57):
out in the first round. The playoffs now prove only
one thing. Season means almost nothing, especially if you've won
the division. Now why is this the case, Well, principally,
the theory goes, it's because Baseball has rewarded the division
(40:18):
winners by giving them four or usually five days off
between the end of their regular season and the start
of their playoffs. The wild card teams and the worst
of the division winners, the one with the worst record
of the three division winners in each league, they have
to play like with one day off, and then, of course,
that means the pitchers are rested and ready to go
(40:41):
after five days rest. Turns out that's not the case.
Pitchers get rusty in five days, they get out of rhythms.
They have to now plan to pitch not in five days,
but in perhaps nine days or ten days. The hitters.
If a hitter is hot, he's not going to stay
hot with five days off, And there's no way to
(41:01):
have a practice or a simulated game that can keep
you sharp in that time off. You can't. If you
could guess what, more than ten of the twenty four
division winners wouldn't have lost in their first playoff round.
So it's not working. And yet this is the only
thing Baseball has been able to figure out how to
reward its divisional champions. And again a little aside here
(41:26):
for the history of the game. It used to be
that the regular season determined the two teams in the
only playoff round, the World Series, from the eighteen eighties
when they first experimented with this and did it spottily
up to the year eighteen ninety, and then when it
was resumed in nineteen oh three and became official in
nineteen oh five. You won the American League Championship, that
(41:48):
was the regular season, You went to the World Series,
and you faced the winner of the National League Championship.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
By nineteen sixty nine, when they had gotten around to
having twelve teams in each league, that presented this problem.
Somebody would win the American League or the National League
and somebody would finish twelfth. This would discourage people from
spending money on the teams that finished tenth, eleventh, and twelve.
Baseball had gone through the sixties where there were ten
(42:14):
teams in each league, and even finishing ninth or tenth
meant that the final few games of your home season
might be attended by as few as five hundred fans.
This is in my lifetime. I was at Yankee Stadium
in I guess it was nineteen sixty eight. Then they
were in the middle of the pack. I think they
finished fifth or sixth, and I could hear the players
(42:37):
talking in the dugout from my seats in the stands.
In any event, they then went to a series of divisions.
First it was two divisions, East and West in each league,
and their champions, having played most of their games against
the other teams in their division, their champions met for
the National League pennant National League East versus National League West,
(43:00):
and then that team advanced to the World Series. I
never was a fan of this, but the all alternative
of having twelve plays teams that was far worse. So
you had a final fourth essentially in baseball, and almost
always the worst thing that could happen was the fourth
best team in baseball won the World Series. As baseball
has expanded from sixteen teams to twenty teams, to twenty
(43:22):
four teams, to twenty six teams, to twenty eight teams,
finally to thirty teams, we have the situation we have
now where we have to figure out how to work
three divisions and a bunch of wild card teams together
in the playoffs and give the advantage that winning the
division is supposed to impart. Baseball doesn't have it. That's
(43:44):
why most of them have lost after winning the division.
And this is where my solution comes in. The reward
for a team that wins its division should not be
time off in which to get rusty. It should be
a win in the postseason. What I am suggesting is,
(44:06):
if you win the American League East in your first
playoff round, you go into it having already been credited
with a win before the first game is played. I'll
say that again. You win the division on the day off,
you are credited with a win. You then play what
amounts to a best of six series against whichever team
(44:31):
you're paired whichever wildcard team you're playing, or other division winner,
or however you want to work it out. But if
you've won a division, you should get an actual, tangible,
big ticket bonus for winning the division. So you're playing
essentially a best of seven series against a wild card team.
(44:55):
You start before the first pitch is thrown, leading this
series one to nothing. You only have to win three
more games to advance. The other the wildcard team, the
one that didn't win the division, the one that gets
effectively punished for not winning the division, they have to
win four. It's literally like a racing handicap. You put
(45:18):
it against the team that didn't do as well. So
if you won your division, you are, say the New
York Mets, and you are going to face the Philadelphia Phillies,
a wild card team. You start the series and hopefully
that series starts with maybe two days off after the
regular season, not five. You start that series leading one
(45:43):
to nothing. Then they can play six games. But the
Phillies to win have to win four games because they
have none going in. They haven't been given a credit
for one they didn't win their division. The Mets only
have to win three. So here we now eliminate the
chances of a divisional winner being blown out because they've
(46:03):
lost three games. You have to beat the divisional winner
by beating them four times in the first round. And
right now, the first round most of the first rounds
are best of five, not best of seven. You eliminate
that entirely. You make it best of essentially six, and
(46:26):
baseball has an additional playoff game to sell to the
advertise here some in the networks, you're welcome. Will baseball
do this? I don't know. Does it solve all of
baseball's postseason problems and my many, many, many, many, many
decades worth of complaints.
Speaker 5 (46:44):
No.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Does it increase the chances that the best teams from
the regular season, which is the point of the regular
season to figure out who the best teams are. Does
it increase the chances that they will go to the
World Series, the championship of the sport. Yes, it does,
because right now they're dropping like flies are the best
team in the regular season, and you get eliminated in
(47:07):
the first round three years out of four, there's something
wrong with the first round. So there it is. You
win the division that counts as a win in one
game in your first round of the playoffs. There will
be no additional charge for this genius idea to the
(47:35):
number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I promised not to tell, And hoo boy,
they're all still at it in cable news. Huh, still
hoping they'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be two thousand
and five again, and everybody watches one of the channels,
and hundreds of millions of dollars are just waiting to
be made, and our industry.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Is not dying. It's not, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I'll repeat my point about the desperate attempts at CNN
and NBC and the minor ones to court right wing viewers.
I mean, once again, i'll mention the name Abby Philip.
This is no voting accident. Virtually every mainstream media organization
(48:19):
in this country, as I have said time and time again,
has already had the same meeting. Let's now discuss how
if Trump seizes power again and America goes fully fascist
in twenty twenty five, how can we do the most
important thing that journalism demands. How can we still protect
this company's profits. I say this not merely because I
(48:43):
know most of the people running the mainstream media organizations.
But because these conversations have already happened, and they happened
long ago, largely because the first not white guy president
was elected just seven years and two months after nine
to eleven, we forget how seriously and terrifyingly we already
have teetered on the edge of full fledged fascism here
(49:06):
after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Nine to eleven happened between my two tenures at MSNBC,
but I returned a year and a half after it happened,
and by then the place I went back to work
had already hired a sort of Alex Jones prototype radio
host named Michael Savage, and it was slowly trying to
(49:26):
build him into the host of a weeknight show. Savage
was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot. His real
name was Michael Wiener, and all you need to know
about him is that he was a Wiener who pretended
he was a Savage. What happened to him when they
tried to stick him into primetime and what he said
that led to his firing and the blowing up of
the lets out Fox Fox News plan of the then
(49:49):
NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright is a great story.
I will relish telling you in a moment, but first
a little context to this. MSNBC and Fox Nudes launched
within weeks of each other in nineteen ninety sive and
for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in
December nineteen ninety eight, we were ahead of Fox in
(50:12):
many time periods, though CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended,
then came nine to eleven, and then Bob Wright thought
he saw his opportunity. All you need to know about
him is that after he left the position of running NBC,
he became a contributor to Fox Business. At MSNBC, Wright
(50:33):
gave Oliver North his own show and Laura Ingram her
own show. He had given a program to Alan Keyes,
a Republican who somehow managed to lose Senate races in
two different states and washed out three different times in
Republican presidential primaries. His MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches.
Though he was alone in a studio with no audience.
(50:55):
Alan Keys could not break himself up his habit of
spraying the room with his eyes. The viewer at home
would see him looking off camera to his left, then
looking at the camera, then looking off camera to the right.
He went back and forth like a sprinkler. I remember
once looking at him and yelling at the TV, hey,
hell over here, I'm the one in the middle. Bob
(51:17):
Wright also brought in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew
how to disguise much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired
Phil Donahue, although to be fair, that was really more
about money than it was about politics. But he replaced
Dona Hughes's show with what was supposed to be a
high speed, slightly right laning newscast produced by a Fox
News refugee. It was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and
(51:42):
needless to say, the right leaning idea went horribly horribly
wrong after they changed it to Countdown with Keith Olverman.
MSNBC's lineup was remarkably unstable at that time. I had
hosted its eight pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven,
through the beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then
I left to go back to sports and baseball at Fox.
(52:05):
Then the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hockenberry
for three months then Ali North got his shot a
month later. They started having rotating liberals co host with
Ali North in April nineteen ninety nine and it became
North and Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months.
In May they cut North and Begala to half an hour.
In June they canceled them and replaced them with a
(52:27):
half hour Ann Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry
was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry
was replaced by Lorie Doo. In August two thousand, they
started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September,
they cut that show to four days a week and
launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually
(52:48):
called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after
one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on.
Then they canceled that a month lay to make room
for a newscast with Forrest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty
of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision
two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one,
they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(53:11):
for the third different time. Then in July they moved
The News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm.
Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and
instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot.
Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue.
They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(53:33):
anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to
host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith Olruman. That's twenty different
shows or formats in four years and four months. So
Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him
this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and
(53:56):
virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next
set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing
the News at eight, then Score Barborough at nine, then
Jesse Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character.
They began this plot by giving Savage his own show
an hour every Saturday afternoon. On March eighth, two thousand
(54:16):
and three, everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage
sounded kind of threatening, I guess, a kind of red
meat fascist. But on TV taking calls from viewers in
a tiny, little cramp looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area,
he looked small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was
(54:38):
wearing a bad tupei and a suit that was far
worse than that. When I was negotiating my return to
MSNBC in two thousand and three, I got the executive
in charge of Primetime to put it in my contract
that Michael Savage would never appear on my newscast in
any form unless it was an obituary, open and shut.
(54:59):
But then on Friday, April twenty fifth, two thousand and three,
I came into work. We were about a month into
the show, and there in the computer rundown of my
newscast was a pre recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon
as he saw I was in the office, the executive
producer they had hired from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker
named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office and said,
(55:19):
we have to run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also
a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins.
So don't think you can call Phil to get it dropped.
He's not in New York. He's not reachable, and he left.
I called my agent. I told her the story, and
I'm matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it,
I have to walk out, don't I mind you? She
had just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.
(55:45):
She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out,
but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving.
Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them.
It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing
and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier
if you have the high moral ground. So I called
Griff's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and
(56:07):
meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you
should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a
car to take me home because my contract says you
can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody
just did nice working with you all. And tell Phil
to give me a call. Sometime sometime was three minutes later, Griffin,
who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You would
(56:29):
really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in the contract.
I was putting my pens and books in a box
as we spoke. I told him he was repeating himself. Finally,
he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can you look at
the commentary and find me a reason, a reason that
isn't about politics why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean,
(56:51):
like video quality, or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's
voice brightened. Yeah, good, racist language or something that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
Call me back.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
The execution. A producer and I went to the video
edit suite, where a guy named Brendan o'melia was cutting
out the time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording
this nonsense. First of all, I said to the X
Fox guy who was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing
a brown shirt and a brown tie on top of
his brown shirt. He is literally dressed like a Hitler
(57:26):
brown shirt. The editor Omelia played the whole video for me,
and as I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing.
I said, even for racist homophobic crap. This thing makes
no sense. He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right,
because George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small
and whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe
in a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a
(57:48):
SoundBite in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and
he's dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough.
Phil Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I
think they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm.
In fact, I think I might be wrong. They ran
two or three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know
(58:10):
they intended to God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily,
this was about the time Michael Savage ended his own
TV career. On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three,
show fifteen out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen,
Michael Savage was on the air live on MSNBC when
(58:31):
a caller baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so
you're one of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, Oh,
you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote. You should
only get aids and die, you pig. How's that? Why
don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you
got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage.
You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a
(58:52):
sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noses. End
quote And Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote
that I just read that was way better than the
commentary i'd him record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday,
Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president
(59:12):
of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to
be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson,
for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news
and who consulted on my show on Current TV as
recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because
he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he
fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced,
(59:35):
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent,
and Sorenson said he answered, yes, I literally had to.
I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his
contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use
(59:56):
on the show. It literally says, if you say any
of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired
for cause and get no money. Remember what number four
on that list is. Number four is quote, I hope
you get AIDS and die unquote. And then he said,
I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob, I literally
had to fire him. I had to fire him. It's
(01:00:20):
in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a
long pause on the other end of the phone, and
then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that we
have seen in television news since all the meetings about
what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and NBC
and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to protect
(01:00:41):
their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract, Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you.
Speaker 5 (01:00:56):
Have to fire him?
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
But did you have to fire him, my God, and
we're cycling through it yet again. Scott Jennings of the
Los Angeles Times Editorial Board. By the way, because nothing
gets scared faster than a billion dollars or a guy
from South Africa who owns newspapers in the United States.
(01:01:34):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced
by tk Obras. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The
(01:01:56):
sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else
was as ever my fault. Countdown Watch twenty twenty four.
(01:02:18):
That's countdown for today, just ninety seven days until the
scheduled end of the Lane Duck presidency.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Of Trump.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Probably the next scheduled countdown is now. This is a change.
It's going to be Wensday this week, not Thursday. This
week Wednesday Countdown drop Watch twenty twenty four. The next
countdown is Wednesday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants
(01:02:47):
till the next one Wednesday. I'm Keith Olrimman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(01:03:16):
Olderman 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. Here's
the latest worldwide bribe news. It is now revealed that
(00:29):
at a Thanksgiving Eve dinner on a patio at the
Marilago Crapshack, Trump had his minions play the recording of
the national anthem as sung by the January sixth terrorists.
His dinner companions and remember, dinner companions, always keep your
hands away from Trump's mouth stood at attention. Some of
them at Trump's table put their hands over their hearts
(00:53):
as the people who stormed our capital intending to take
over our government and kill our leaders, saying words the
actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per the
Wall Street Journal, one of those who stood up and
put his hand over his heart during this travesty was
Mark Zuckerberg. Presumably this was the visit during which Zuckerberg
(01:19):
in part helped to provide the answer to the question
where has all your money gone? The answer is it
has gone to Trump's inaugural committee. Zuckerberg, the Facebook clown,
gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Jeff Bezos, that's blackmail
me once. I'll fight you. Blackmail me a second time.
I'll do whatever you want. Jeff Bezos. He gave Trump's
(01:42):
committee one million dollars. On Friday. Sam Altman of Open
AI was almost did us the favor of killing off
artificial intelligence gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Bank of
America has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
In twenty seventeen, that amount was one million dollars. Goldman
(02:04):
Sachs has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
Google's Sundar Peacheye dined with trumpet Mari Lago. I wonder
what Trump called him. PITCHI bought Sergey Brinn's influence with him.
Sergei Brinn is why this idiot Nicole Shanahan has money.
She's his ex. She became RFK Junior's running mate political
(02:27):
running mate, as opposed to his FaceTime masturbation mate or
his actual spousal mate. The next day, Tim Cook of
Apple or has Trump in his dotage has called him
Tim Apple went to the same patio at which Zuckerberg
put his hand over his heart during the sedition. Anthem
and Tim Cook dined with Trump last Friday. No word
(02:49):
of donations, but the New York Times reports that Trump
and Tim iPhone Boy discussed fighting the fine with which
European regulators have hit Tim FaceTime. The fine is two
billion dollars. And now ABC News has settled with True
because George Stephanoppolis said on air that judges and Juries
had quoting George found him Trump liable for rape unquote
(03:12):
when literally the judge said, the verdict did not mean
that Egen Carroll quote failed to prove that Trump raped her,
as many people commonly understned the word rape unquote, and
Trump sued A million in Trump's legal expenses and a
fifteen million dollar donation from ABC to Trump's presidential foundation
(03:35):
and museum. I expect the Trump Presidential Museum will feature
a life sized model of Trump's ego. It will thus
be twice the size of the sphere in Las Vegas.
And of course, in the saddest and most egregious of these,
the saddest of these from Mark Bennioff, chief executive of
(03:56):
a company called Sales Force. He gave Trump Times Person
of the Year award. Benyoff also owns Time Magazine. He
posted the cover of Time magazine and wrote of quote,
a time of great promise for our nation and prosperity
for everyone with Trump getting the award, and he did
(04:18):
not write that the Time magazine Person of the Year
award is your annual reminder that owner Benioff has yet
defined a sports gambling website willing to buy the magazine's
useless brand name from them. In any other world, these
would be bribes. These, whatever you call them, are not
(04:39):
necessarily illegal, certainly aren't unprecedented. There certainly is no evidence
that similar or at least parallel ones have not been
made to democratic presidents elect, nor to presidents elect in
the twentieth century, nor even in the nineteenth. But these
are slightly different. These come with unspoken promises from these worthless, greedy,
(05:02):
voracious billionaires to not lift a finger nor make a
sound as Trump prepares to pillage this country morally, financially,
culturally in the next four years or however much time
he has left in his worthless, greedy, voracious life. As
I mentioned previously in this series, the point of corporations
(05:23):
is to absolve a moral people of any criminal or
ethical responsibility for the worst of human actions, so that
investors can get more money and not have to worry
about what laws they or others might be breaking doing it,
But this parade of the pathetic to mar Lago, this
succession of ninth rate alfreed Krupps to kiss the ring
(05:46):
of a tenth rate fewer. This is as much about
symbolism and acquiescence and reassuring him that the necessary financial
component of fascism, including the financial component of media fascism
at the Washington Post, on Facebook, even at ABC, that
it will all be ready to salute whenever he decides
to pull the switch. It's like Romney having dinner last
(06:10):
time to beg to become Secretary of State. It cannot
be erased, and it must not be forgotten. Mark Zuckerberg,
Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Sergei Brynn, Sundar Piche
and the Bush leaguer who actually bought what used to
be Time magazine. Remember them, and simply deny them your
(06:34):
dollars wherever you can. Boycotts are impossible and ineffective, and
inconvenience you way more than they inconvenience these men, for
whom the acquisition of unnecessary wealth has replaced in importance
actual human life. But every time you do not give
them your money, you will be protesting this nauseating subservience,
(06:56):
even if you are the only one who knows you
have done so. Two caveats here. You will notice I
have not even mentioned Elon Musk and as The Wall
Street Journal made a point of noting when they played
the January sixth insurrectionist choir version of the National Anthem
and everybody stood and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly put his hand
(07:19):
over where his heart should be. They didn't tell Zuckerberg
in advance that it was the January sixth insurrectionist choir version.
On the other hand, I wonder why anybody thinks it
would have made any goddamn difference. Let me revisit the
(07:57):
ABC News News. On March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
I was ushered into the small office of a vice
president at the ABC television series The Wide World of Sports.
This man was the product of Ithac College, and so
as a senior at Cornell, I had a vague connection
to him. We at least knew similar bits of geography.
(08:20):
He had started life as a sportscaster who actually did
on air work on a couple of Upstate New York
TV newscasts. And then there was the real reason I
was actually in there with him. His wife had been
an assignment editor at the local New York TV station
I had interned at the previous summer, though we were
not there Simultaneously, he and the missus and my friends
(08:40):
from the local station all warned me this gentleman would
not have a job for me, nor even any job leads,
just advice.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
His name was.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Robert Eiger. Call me Bob, he insisted, you may recognize Bob.
Within fifteen years of our visit, he had become president
of the ABC Television network, then COO of its parent company,
cap Cities ABC before Disney bought it, then President of Disney,
then CEO of Disney. Then he retired in twenty twenty
(09:13):
and then he did a jay leno and unretired in
twenty twenty two, and guy rid of the guy who
had succeeded him, and he's CEO of Disney again, and
he made about thirty one million a year ago. And
on three separate occasions he has been my boss and
all of my boss's boss. And oh, by the way,
he divorced the wife I knew, and married the model
and sportscaster and newscaster will Obey but that's another story.
(09:37):
And Bob now is the boss of all the bosses
at ABC News, which just settled an apparently winnable case
against Trump because they were offered the fig leaf of
not paying Trump damages per se, but making a quote
donation to his presidential museum, which could easily just be
an empty warehouse or perhaps a sinkhole somewhere. And on
(10:04):
March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, bobb Iger, whose unique
experience on air and with economics was already evident he
was in charge of budgeting for Wide World of Sports,
did give me great advice, the greatest advice I have
ever received, which I have repeated a thousand times over.
In brief, Bob said, if you want to be on
(10:25):
the air, be on the air. Do not do He
said what I did. I was offered a job as
a sportscaster in Syracuse for ten thousand dollars a year,
and I was also offered a job as a production
assistant here at Wide World of Sports for ten five
hundred dollars a year. And I figured I could live
at home with my folks and stay in the city
(10:46):
and move laterally at work, And now I make one
hundred thousand dollars a year, and I still want to
be a sportscaster, and to do that, I now have
to quit this job and move me and my wife
and my kids to Syracuse where they are now paying
eleven thousand dollars a year for sports casters, and I
have priced myself out of my dream. If you want
to be on the air, Keith, be on the air,
(11:09):
take the job in Syracuse and suck it up. Brilliant advice, truly,
And now, after forty five and a half years, I
would like to repay Bob Eiger and give him my advice.
Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the
(11:32):
future of news and the future of journalism and the
future of this country. Because you guys at Disney ain't
it anymore? What do you think you bought for yourself here?
Bob Trump's gratitude? Trump somehow remembering you fondly or at
(11:53):
least neutrally the next time ABC News does something he
doesn't like, like say, accurately reporting how many people show
up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons,
or how many people died during the migrant roundups into
the migrant concentration camps. Even if Trump can still remember,
(12:13):
you think he will remember, or that all the mini
Trumps will. The New York Times now reports based on
four sources at the magazines in question and email evidence,
that the lawyer for Pete Hegseth made litigation threats before
The New Yorker and Vanity Fair published articles about his
(12:34):
conduct after an appearance on MSNBC in which she called
Cash Patel a quote delusional liar unquote. Former Trump staffer
Olivia Troy was threatened with a suit by Patel's lawyer.
No word if MSNBC was threatened. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson
of North Carolina and Nude Africa Fame actually sued CNN. Trump,
(13:00):
of course, sues as frequently as he overeats. He has
a lawsuit going against c News about a Kamala Harris
interview nothing to do with him. He has a live
threat for suits against The New York Times. He has
a libel suit pending against the board that gives out
Pulitzer Prizes it honored work that criticized him. Trump's complain
(13:23):
about law fair and weaponizing government against enemies is to me,
not about the morals or legalities or appropriateness of any
of that. It's that he wants to be the only
one allowed to do any of that, and so in
this environment, ABC News just handed him a win. The
headline on this isn't the donation to some campaign or
(13:47):
possibly museum. It's Trump awarded fifteen million dollars from ABC
after lawsuit. That's the way it's playing around the world.
I don't know that my old acquaintance, Bob, asked.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Them to do this.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
I also know Bob literally since I was twenty years
and one month old, and I know they damned well
didn't do it without telling him first. The saddest part
is media law experts believe that even now, even on
the eve of a Trump reducts, his case against ABC,
(14:23):
did not stand a flipping chance. Trump is not only
a public figure, but according to no less an authority
than himself, he is the public figure, and thus the
bar for damaging his reputation is higher than it is
for anybody else in the world. Also, how do you
damage his reputation? The Media Law Resource Center reported a
(14:52):
few years ago. Now, Trump and his companies have been
involved in at least four thousand lawsuits dating back to
nineteen eighty four at least, and the media law RESORTCE Centers.
Susan E. Sager concluded that Trump quote and his companies
have never won a single speech related case filed in
(15:14):
a public courtot He or his extensions have sued for libel.
The architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune have sued for libel.
An author who wrote Trump Wasn't a billionaire have sued
a former Trump University student, Une Vision, because it wouldn't
carry one of his shows after he called Mexican's rapists.
(15:34):
He sued Bill Maher over a joke wait, Bill Martell's jokes.
He sued unions organizing against him. So ABC News gave in.
And unless there's a secret rider in this in which
Trump has sworn never to file another suit against ABC
(15:57):
nor harassed the company, all this will mean to him
is next time he wants to threaten ABC News or
any part of Disney, it will fold. And then there
is the chilling effect at ABC News, at all the
ABC stations around the country, at all the newsrooms associated
(16:19):
with ABC, at ESPN, at every company ABC and Disney own,
but specifically at ABC News I worked there, wants to
do a special one off report for Nightline. I worked
two and a half years there as a commentator on
radio and as Paul Harvey's backup. I am grateful that
(16:41):
I am doing this podcast now rather than either of
those ABC series, and that dark gratitude and the fear
your people, Bob have created inside their own newsrooms is
part of the process by which freedom of the press
(17:01):
and freedom in the nation dissolve. My advice offered again
in gratitude for your advice in nineteen seventy nine, Bob
Sell ABC News to somebody who still cares onto the
(17:31):
subject of the Batman. Special guest villains, or if you preferred,
Trump's cabinet nominees. They were all at the Army Navy
football game Saturday, along with Daniel Penny the quote Subway
good Samaritan unquote, and Russell Brand check his ticket, Dave
(17:52):
Portnoy from Barstool Sports, Darry to look me in the eye, Dave,
and Joe Mansion was there. I'll let you rank them specifically.
Cash Patel has new problems. Cash Pateel insists he had
a key role in the Department of Justice investigation into
(18:14):
the Benghazi mess. In twenty twelve, that, quoting him on
a podcast, I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for
Benghazi for a while. The New York Times reports sadly no,
it says Patel quote has both exaggerated his own importance
and misleadingly distorted the department's broader effort. According to public
(18:34):
documents and interviews with several current and former law enforcement
officials familiar with the matter, Politico described Patel's job on
the Benghazi case as quote grunt work. Quote turns out
the lawyer helping RFK Junior staff out the Department of
Health and Human Services once petitioned the government to revoke
(18:54):
its approval of the polio vaccine. You're probably not, but
I am old enough to have been in the first
grade with a kid who had a leg brace from
having gotten polio. There is a sitting Senator and a
sitting congressman right now who contracted polio as children. Polio
(19:19):
is not gone. It is waiting for someone, someone evil
like Robert F. Kennedy Junior. May he burn in hell.
There are new problems for Hegseeth, for whom this is
turning into hell on Earth. Besides the drinky assaulty problems.
CNN notes that in a book he wrote, they wrote
(19:39):
this year, heg Seth said the repeal of Don't Ask,
Don't Tell was a quote gateway and a quote camouflage
as part of a quote Marxist unquote agenda to deprioritize
combat readiness. Heg Seth insists he did not and does
not oppose the repeal and all this is quote false reporting, which,
(20:01):
if he really believes that, raises far more important questions
like or not Pete Hegseth can remember what he did
earlier this year, and if not, why not. But Trump
likes his hair. We just don't know if there's anything
under his hair. Tulsey Gabbard. Meanwhile, maybe soon finding out.
(20:24):
As my old Sports Center colleague Larry Beale used to say,
Aloha means goodbye. The Hill reports that would be Director
of National Intelligence is taking on water at her meetings
with Republican senators, quoting one of two senate Republicans and
other sources, quote, she was proving to be a little shallow,
(20:47):
like a house member talking at a hearing, and not
someone who needs to provide the president's daily intelligence briefing.
And from a separate source to this publication, a Senator,
they say, quote, I've heard that she's not very well prepared.
I've heard not great things, Senate GOP members said, describing
them as bs sessions. The Hill also quotes a GOP
(21:10):
aid she's got some work to do if she wants
the job. The more she meets with serious people, the
more they'll see there's a competency deficit.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Unquote, thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Nancy Faust, a second senator cited by the Hill in
its report on Telsea Gabbard's flailing, says anonymously and deliciously
that there have been a lot of.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Irolls. Mahallow.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Also of interest here, Van Jones plus Chris Salisa equals
extra large stupid with a double order of stupid toppings
to go, speaking of which there's Abby Phillip and Scott
Jennings and CNN. And when we tried this same nonsense
at MSNBC twenty years ago, it was Michael Savage and
(22:32):
I have solved the baseball playoff crisis. This is not hyperbole.
I have actually solved the baseball playoff crisis where all
the good teams lose early. I alone can fix it.
On the other hand, I'll do it for free. That's Next,
This is countdown.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
This is countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Still ahead. I have solved Baseball's crisis. Yes, I know
it's not baseball season. It's probably, at least symbolically the
furthest point from baseball season. I've soured on baseball. I
hate the management structure and they're not fond of me either.
And no, by baseball crisis, I do not mean the
recent spectacle of New York Yankees fans hating on Juan
(23:24):
Soto for signing with the New York Mets and claiming
he showed no loyalty and just went where the money was,
as if that had not been the creed of the
New York Yankees since the year nineteen twenty. I mean
baseball's playoff crisis coming up. I will tell you this
full story. The other night, as I was falling asleep,
it came to me, this crazy playoff structure, in which
the best team in the game has been eliminated in
(23:45):
three of the last four years in the first round,
is broken and I alone can fix it. I am
giving away for free the way for baseball to get
out of its el stinko playoffs structure. Next in the countdown,
(24:07):
Sportsball Report.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
First.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
After that interminable tease, believe it or not, there's still
more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
today's other worst persons in the world, the brons, worse
ladies and gentlemen. For years, for decades, there has been
(24:53):
a push to stop the annual switchback from daylight savings
to standard time in October or November. So, as you're
probably aware, Trump has posted the republic Look Party will
use its best efforts to eliminate daylight Saving time, which
has a small but strong constituency. But shouldn't exclamation point
(25:16):
daylight saving time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.
First off, it's savings ufing idiot daylight savings time. Yes,
eliminate daylight savings time, so it starts getting light at
like four am in June and there will never be
(25:37):
another sunset later than about eight pm, exactly what everybody
in the country wants. And when I say everybody, I
mean nobody. There are a couple of theories here. One
is he posted this just to divert attention from his
truth leak in which one day last week he claimed
(25:58):
he won the election based on the word groceries, which
he invented, and the promise to reduce the cost of
growth series, and then one other day last week he
made an admission that he has actually no idea how
to reduce the cost of groceries, which he invented. The
likelier explanation is that Trump is too stupid and has
(26:18):
deteriorated too far to realize that he is calling for
the end of daylight savings when he actually wanted to
call for the end of standard time. The problem now,
of course, is that he will now have to admit
he got it wrong or changed his mind, and he
cannot do that because his brain is broken and he
is infallible. So we might wind up eliminating all daylight
(26:43):
savings time because this guy is crazy. By the way,
I have hated that day that we go back to
standard time since I was a kid. But I was
a kid so long ago that I was there standing
outside waiting for my school bus at seven forty am,
in the middle of the energy crisis. Winner of nineteen
(27:05):
seventy three seventy four, when it was pitch black at
seven forty am. It was not only the most depressing
thing I ever experienced, certainly to that point, way more
depressing than getting dark at four pm. And by the way,
it starts getting dark later. As of what this is
the sixteenth, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty Saturday of this week,
(27:29):
this is the worst week of the year. Then it
starts getting darker later. Anyway, it was way more depressing
when we went on daylight savings time in the winter.
We stayed on it that winter in a well meaning
but ultimately disastrous attempt to cut back on energy costs
(27:49):
during an energy crisis. While I was standing at that
bus stop, literally dozens of other kids were getting killed
walking to school in pitch black darkness or waiting for
their school buses. Half a century of reflection on this
and the answer to what to do about daylight savings
time and the terrible month ending December twenty first, and
(28:14):
the depression and the danger of too much darkness too
early in the day, the answer of what to do
about this has come to me, and it is leave
it exactly the way it is now. Yes, for this month,
it's really bad, and it gets worse every day. On
the other hand. In the summer, when almost everybody can
(28:35):
enjoy being outside after work for up to four hours,
it is glorious to have light so late. And unless
you've waited outside for a bus at seven forty am
in utter darkness, you will never know. How imperfect as
it is, the current system is the best option. Don't
(28:55):
change it either way. We live with it. It does
get dark earlier in the United States, and it will
get dark earlier no matter what time we call it.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
You could call it eleventy billion o'clock and he'll still
get dark early. It's winter.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
The sun is in a different position relative to us.
I know you couldn't explain this to most Trump voters,
but it's true. And by the way, if you missed it,
somebody joked that Trump's unexpected sudden, defensive, permanent Standard Time.
That must mean that Standard Time had donated a million
dollars to his inauguration committee. The runner up worser. Maybe
(29:34):
it was this idiot Van Jones. You know Van Jones.
For a decade on CNN, Van Jones has been saying earnestly,
with deep conviction and the most sincere performance of fake
sincerity imaginable. He's been saying the stupidest things pretty much
started with although this was not the first example, but
his first all star announcement came early in twenty seventeen
(29:58):
that Trump, in a speech to Congress, a kind of
first State of the Union address, trump had just truly
become president. I guess Van said this because Trump had
not shot a guy during it or messed his diapers
while saying it. These statements continued unobated through the assassination attempt,
when Van Jones cried on the air and told Democrats
(30:21):
to embrace Republicans to show we were all Americans, while
Trump was already figuring out how to exploit the event
by demanding that American owed him now and everybody should
drop all criminal cases against him, even though he was
a trader, and then he was fund raising off of it,
used it to get elected again. But Van Jones wanted
me to hug him, hug this fan and now more
(30:45):
from Van Jones. There are a few more cynical, more dishonest,
a few more ugly in their soul speakers than Sarah
Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, just as her soul as
father was governor of Arkansas. Later Trump's most virulent and angry,
dyspeptic press sect Terry. She looked always like she just
(31:07):
swallowed a mouse hole. She spoke at the Republican National
Committee and made a tasteless ageist joke comparing her four
year old son huck to President Biden, and Van Jones
said after the speech on CNN, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she
was incredibly compelling to me. She told personal stories that landed.
(31:28):
It was moving, and it was powerful. She gave the
speech of the night unquote. And now Van Jones has
gone on a podcast and eliminated all doubt, the podcast
in which Van Jones praises the smartest man in the
world Trump.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
The problem is you have a framework in your mind
that how could Donald Trump? Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump? Guys,
can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an
idiot Donald Trump. Let me just be very clear. Donald
Trump is smarter than me, you and Paul critics. While
I know because he has the White House, the Senate,
(32:09):
the House totally agree for the popular vote. He has
a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream, built around
him and for him, and a religiously religious fervor in
a political movement around him, and he is best Buddy
is the richest person in the history of the world,
and the most relevant Kennedy is with him. This dude
(32:31):
is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on
earth and in our lifetime. And we're still saying, well,
how was this card?
Speaker 1 (32:40):
We look like idiots? You first, pal Man is using
the royal us there, Van, He's made you look like
an idiot. By the way, the podcast Van Jones was on,
well it was the Crystali is a podcast, so one
assumes it is mandatory if you go on the Crystal
is a podcast to say something as idiotic as Crystal
is a Van Jones certainly fulfilled the terms. And you
(33:03):
thought Sali with Chuck Todd was bad enough, I think
they should do a roundtable. I think Chuck Todd and
Solissa and Van Jones should do a podcast every day
just to give me more material. Even after that, still
not the worst persons in the world. Our winners for
that honor. Today wis ten ten Wins Radio here in
(33:28):
Fun City. You may recall it is New York City's
last surviving all news radio station after owners Odyssey inexplicably
shuttered the good one WCBS in late summer. WIS now
bills itself as New York's top news station, which is
inarguably true since they killed off the other one. It
(33:50):
has also used such new and laugh out loud funny
IDs as the most important station for the most important
listeners in the universe, or something like that. But WIONS
has not made this list for any of that nonsense.
In the last week, as you've probably heard, drones may
or may not have been spotted over New Jersey and
(34:11):
other areas vaguely considered part of the metropolitan New York area.
I guess drones in New Jersey, how redundant any who
buy New Jersey listeners. WIS has interrupted its regular programming,
which is thirty five percent commercials, thirty five percent traffic
reports all by the same person, twenty five percent news
(34:34):
about Arianda Grande and other pop stars, and five percent
actual news. It has interrupted that wheel to introduce what
it actually bills as Drone Watch twenty twenty four. I
cannot reduce this sounder as we call it in the business,
for copyright reasons. Also, I have a reputation for actual
(34:55):
news that I have to protect, so I will not
reproduce what they are playing Onions, but there's music, and
there is an announcer saying, with this combination of authority
and dread in his voice, Drone Watch twenty twenty four,
Drone Watch twenty twenty four. It's like something out of
The Daily Show. I was actually listening for ten minutes
(35:17):
to WIONS yesterday and they played this sounder twice. There
is no indication that WIONS has adopted this ironically or
self mockingly, in which case it would actually be cool.
They are leaning into drone Watch twenty twenty four, the
way they and every other station radio television in this
(35:38):
country trot out storm Watch twenty twenty four whenever it
you know, rains, Drizzle Watch twenty twenty four. The most
disturbing part of this, perhaps is that it is just
two weeks until New Year's Day, and I'm thinking these
drone sightings more likely two percent drones and ninety eight
(36:01):
percent aircraft landings as seen by people who actually have
chosen to live in towns with names like Nutley, New Jersey.
These will continue into the New Year, at which point
they will have to send their guy back into the
Wins studio. Wins Radio in New York where the drone
watch never stops. That's go Watch twenty twenty five, two
(36:26):
days other worst. What'side?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
This is Sports Center? Wait, check that not anymore. This
is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
Aulberman in sports from the sports Balls Central Center News Desk, Tonight, Dateline,
New York. Okay, I figured out how to fix baseball's
broken playoff system. I understand it's it's the middle of winter.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I know that.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But this literally came to me as I was falling asleep,
and it works. It's absolutely the solution. You're welcome. Not
only that, not only have I figured out how to
fix baseball's broken playoff system, but my fix, if they
do it right, gives Major League Baseball Incorporated at least
(37:45):
four more playoff games to sell to a cable network
or a streaming service or pay per view, or just
to passers by on the street. You got a dollar,
here's a ballgame. In the four years since the COVID
shortened season of twenty twenty, baseball has had twenty four
(38:06):
division winners. There are six divisions. There's six division winners
a year. It's been four years. Winning your division is
supposed to be the point of the regular baseball season,
and it's supposed to mean a lot going into the playoffs.
These are the teams that have worked all year, and
they are supposed to be given a leg up, an advantage.
(38:29):
It gives you home field advantage in the playoffs. It
gives you time to rest your pitchers, particularly after the
incredibly grueling one hundred and sixty two game regular season.
You have to run through the tape to win your division,
so you should be at the top of your game,
and you have to do that so you don't get
stuck with the dreaded wild card games, in which now
(38:51):
you may not play a home game in the wildcard round.
You have to go to the better teams stadium and
play all your playoff games. There twenty four division winners
in the four years since COVID, and fourteen of them
have lost in their first playoff round. That's fourteen have
lost and only ten have won. With the supposed advantage
(39:16):
of all advantages going into the playoffs, I think we
have a big enough sample size here. They've screwed this up.
You are literally better off not winning your division than
winning your division, and whatever you do, do not become
the team with the best record in baseball in the
(39:36):
regular season, we've had four of those. Three of them,
including the twenty twenty two Dodgers, who had one hundred
and eleven wins out of one hundred and sixty two
games played, tied for fourth most wins in any season
all time. The three of the four best record teams
in baseball in the last four years have been wiped
(39:57):
out in the first round. The playoffs now prove only
one thing. Season means almost nothing, especially if you've won
the division. Now why is this the case, Well, principally,
the theory goes, it's because Baseball has rewarded the division
(40:18):
winners by giving them four or usually five days off
between the end of their regular season and the start
of their playoffs. The wild card teams and the worst
of the division winners, the one with the worst record
of the three division winners in each league, they have
to play like with one day off, and then, of course,
that means the pitchers are rested and ready to go
(40:41):
after five days rest. Turns out that's not the case.
Pitchers get rusty in five days, they get out of rhythms.
They have to now plan to pitch not in five days,
but in perhaps nine days or ten days. The hitters.
If a hitter is hot, he's not going to stay
hot with five days off, And there's no way to
(41:01):
have a practice or a simulated game that can keep
you sharp in that time off. You can't. If you
could guess what, more than ten of the twenty four
division winners wouldn't have lost in their first playoff round.
So it's not working. And yet this is the only
thing Baseball has been able to figure out how to
reward its divisional champions. And again a little aside here
(41:26):
for the history of the game. It used to be
that the regular season determined the two teams in the
only playoff round, the World Series, from the eighteen eighties
when they first experimented with this and did it spottily
up to the year eighteen ninety, and then when it
was resumed in nineteen oh three and became official in
nineteen oh five. You won the American League Championship, that
(41:48):
was the regular season, You went to the World Series,
and you faced the winner of the National League Championship.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
By nineteen sixty nine, when they had gotten around to
having twelve teams in each league, that presented this problem.
Somebody would win the American League or the National League
and somebody would finish twelfth. This would discourage people from
spending money on the teams that finished tenth, eleventh, and twelve.
Baseball had gone through the sixties where there were ten
(42:14):
teams in each league, and even finishing ninth or tenth
meant that the final few games of your home season
might be attended by as few as five hundred fans.
This is in my lifetime. I was at Yankee Stadium
in I guess it was nineteen sixty eight. Then they
were in the middle of the pack. I think they
finished fifth or sixth, and I could hear the players
(42:37):
talking in the dugout from my seats in the stands.
In any event, they then went to a series of divisions.
First it was two divisions, East and West in each league,
and their champions, having played most of their games against
the other teams in their division, their champions met for
the National League pennant National League East versus National League West,
(43:00):
and then that team advanced to the World Series. I
never was a fan of this, but the all alternative
of having twelve plays teams that was far worse. So
you had a final fourth essentially in baseball, and almost
always the worst thing that could happen was the fourth
best team in baseball won the World Series. As baseball
has expanded from sixteen teams to twenty teams, to twenty
(43:22):
four teams, to twenty six teams, to twenty eight teams,
finally to thirty teams, we have the situation we have
now where we have to figure out how to work
three divisions and a bunch of wild card teams together
in the playoffs and give the advantage that winning the
division is supposed to impart. Baseball doesn't have it. That's
(43:44):
why most of them have lost after winning the division.
And this is where my solution comes in. The reward
for a team that wins its division should not be
time off in which to get rusty. It should be
a win in the postseason. What I am suggesting is,
(44:06):
if you win the American League East in your first
playoff round, you go into it having already been credited
with a win before the first game is played. I'll
say that again. You win the division on the day off,
you are credited with a win. You then play what
amounts to a best of six series against whichever team
(44:31):
you're paired whichever wildcard team you're playing, or other division winner,
or however you want to work it out. But if
you've won a division, you should get an actual, tangible,
big ticket bonus for winning the division. So you're playing
essentially a best of seven series against a wild card team.
(44:55):
You start before the first pitch is thrown, leading this
series one to nothing. You only have to win three
more games to advance. The other the wildcard team, the
one that didn't win the division, the one that gets
effectively punished for not winning the division, they have to
win four. It's literally like a racing handicap. You put
(45:18):
it against the team that didn't do as well. So
if you won your division, you are, say the New
York Mets, and you are going to face the Philadelphia Phillies,
a wild card team. You start the series and hopefully
that series starts with maybe two days off after the
regular season, not five. You start that series leading one
(45:43):
to nothing. Then they can play six games. But the
Phillies to win have to win four games because they
have none going in. They haven't been given a credit
for one they didn't win their division. The Mets only
have to win three. So here we now eliminate the
chances of a divisional winner being blown out because they've
(46:03):
lost three games. You have to beat the divisional winner
by beating them four times in the first round. And
right now, the first round most of the first rounds
are best of five, not best of seven. You eliminate
that entirely. You make it best of essentially six, and
(46:26):
baseball has an additional playoff game to sell to the
advertise here some in the networks, you're welcome. Will baseball
do this? I don't know. Does it solve all of
baseball's postseason problems and my many, many, many, many, many
decades worth of complaints.
Speaker 5 (46:44):
No.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Does it increase the chances that the best teams from
the regular season, which is the point of the regular
season to figure out who the best teams are. Does
it increase the chances that they will go to the
World Series, the championship of the sport. Yes, it does,
because right now they're dropping like flies are the best
team in the regular season, and you get eliminated in
(47:07):
the first round three years out of four, there's something
wrong with the first round. So there it is. You
win the division that counts as a win in one
game in your first round of the playoffs. There will
be no additional charge for this genius idea to the
(47:35):
number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I promised not to tell, And hoo boy,
they're all still at it in cable news. Huh, still
hoping they'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be two thousand
and five again, and everybody watches one of the channels,
and hundreds of millions of dollars are just waiting to
be made, and our industry.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Is not dying. It's not, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
I'll repeat my point about the desperate attempts at CNN
and NBC and the minor ones to court right wing viewers.
I mean, once again, i'll mention the name Abby Philip.
This is no voting accident. Virtually every mainstream media organization
(48:19):
in this country, as I have said time and time again,
has already had the same meeting. Let's now discuss how
if Trump seizes power again and America goes fully fascist
in twenty twenty five, how can we do the most
important thing that journalism demands. How can we still protect
this company's profits. I say this not merely because I
(48:43):
know most of the people running the mainstream media organizations.
But because these conversations have already happened, and they happened
long ago, largely because the first not white guy president
was elected just seven years and two months after nine
to eleven, we forget how seriously and terrifyingly we already
have teetered on the edge of full fledged fascism here
(49:06):
after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Nine to eleven happened between my two tenures at MSNBC,
but I returned a year and a half after it happened,
and by then the place I went back to work
had already hired a sort of Alex Jones prototype radio
host named Michael Savage, and it was slowly trying to
(49:26):
build him into the host of a weeknight show. Savage
was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot. His real
name was Michael Wiener, and all you need to know
about him is that he was a Wiener who pretended
he was a Savage. What happened to him when they
tried to stick him into primetime and what he said
that led to his firing and the blowing up of
the lets out Fox Fox News plan of the then
(49:49):
NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright is a great story.
I will relish telling you in a moment, but first
a little context to this. MSNBC and Fox Nudes launched
within weeks of each other in nineteen ninety sive and
for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in
December nineteen ninety eight, we were ahead of Fox in
(50:12):
many time periods, though CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended,
then came nine to eleven, and then Bob Wright thought
he saw his opportunity. All you need to know about
him is that after he left the position of running NBC,
he became a contributor to Fox Business. At MSNBC, Wright
(50:33):
gave Oliver North his own show and Laura Ingram her
own show. He had given a program to Alan Keyes,
a Republican who somehow managed to lose Senate races in
two different states and washed out three different times in
Republican presidential primaries. His MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches.
Though he was alone in a studio with no audience.
(50:55):
Alan Keys could not break himself up his habit of
spraying the room with his eyes. The viewer at home
would see him looking off camera to his left, then
looking at the camera, then looking off camera to the right.
He went back and forth like a sprinkler. I remember
once looking at him and yelling at the TV, hey,
hell over here, I'm the one in the middle. Bob
(51:17):
Wright also brought in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew
how to disguise much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired
Phil Donahue, although to be fair, that was really more
about money than it was about politics. But he replaced
Dona Hughes's show with what was supposed to be a
high speed, slightly right laning newscast produced by a Fox
News refugee. It was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and
(51:42):
needless to say, the right leaning idea went horribly horribly
wrong after they changed it to Countdown with Keith Olverman.
MSNBC's lineup was remarkably unstable at that time. I had
hosted its eight pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven,
through the beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then
I left to go back to sports and baseball at Fox.
(52:05):
Then the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hockenberry
for three months then Ali North got his shot a
month later. They started having rotating liberals co host with
Ali North in April nineteen ninety nine and it became
North and Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months.
In May they cut North and Begala to half an hour.
In June they canceled them and replaced them with a
(52:27):
half hour Ann Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry
was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry
was replaced by Lorie Doo. In August two thousand, they
started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September,
they cut that show to four days a week and
launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually
(52:48):
called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after
one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on.
Then they canceled that a month lay to make room
for a newscast with Forrest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty
of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision
two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one,
they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(53:11):
for the third different time. Then in July they moved
The News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm.
Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and
instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot.
Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue.
They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(53:33):
anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to
host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith Olruman. That's twenty different
shows or formats in four years and four months. So
Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him
this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and
(53:56):
virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next
set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing
the News at eight, then Score Barborough at nine, then
Jesse Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character.
They began this plot by giving Savage his own show
an hour every Saturday afternoon. On March eighth, two thousand
(54:16):
and three, everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage
sounded kind of threatening, I guess, a kind of red
meat fascist. But on TV taking calls from viewers in
a tiny, little cramp looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area,
he looked small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was
(54:38):
wearing a bad tupei and a suit that was far
worse than that. When I was negotiating my return to
MSNBC in two thousand and three, I got the executive
in charge of Primetime to put it in my contract
that Michael Savage would never appear on my newscast in
any form unless it was an obituary, open and shut.
(54:59):
But then on Friday, April twenty fifth, two thousand and three,
I came into work. We were about a month into
the show, and there in the computer rundown of my
newscast was a pre recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon
as he saw I was in the office, the executive
producer they had hired from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker
named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office and said,
(55:19):
we have to run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also
a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins.
So don't think you can call Phil to get it dropped.
He's not in New York. He's not reachable, and he left.
I called my agent. I told her the story, and
I'm matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it,
I have to walk out, don't I mind you? She
had just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.
(55:45):
She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out,
but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving.
Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them.
It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing
and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier
if you have the high moral ground. So I called
Griff's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and
(56:07):
meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you
should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a
car to take me home because my contract says you
can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody
just did nice working with you all. And tell Phil
to give me a call. Sometime sometime was three minutes later, Griffin,
who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You would
(56:29):
really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in the contract.
I was putting my pens and books in a box
as we spoke. I told him he was repeating himself. Finally,
he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can you look at
the commentary and find me a reason, a reason that
isn't about politics why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean,
(56:51):
like video quality, or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's
voice brightened. Yeah, good, racist language or something that'd be great.
Speaker 2 (57:02):
Call me back.
Speaker 1 (57:04):
The execution. A producer and I went to the video
edit suite, where a guy named Brendan o'melia was cutting
out the time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording
this nonsense. First of all, I said to the X
Fox guy who was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing
a brown shirt and a brown tie on top of
his brown shirt. He is literally dressed like a Hitler
(57:26):
brown shirt. The editor Omelia played the whole video for me,
and as I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing.
I said, even for racist homophobic crap. This thing makes
no sense. He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right,
because George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small
and whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe
in a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a
(57:48):
SoundBite in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and
he's dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough.
Phil Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I
think they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm.
In fact, I think I might be wrong. They ran
two or three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know
(58:10):
they intended to God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily,
this was about the time Michael Savage ended his own
TV career. On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three,
show fifteen out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen,
Michael Savage was on the air live on MSNBC when
(58:31):
a caller baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so
you're one of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, Oh,
you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote. You should
only get aids and die, you pig. How's that? Why
don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you
got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage.
You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a
(58:52):
sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noses. End
quote And Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote
that I just read that was way better than the
commentary i'd him record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday,
Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president
(59:12):
of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to
be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson,
for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news
and who consulted on my show on Current TV as
recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because
he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he
fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced,
(59:35):
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent,
and Sorenson said he answered, yes, I literally had to.
I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his
contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use
(59:56):
on the show. It literally says, if you say any
of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired
for cause and get no money. Remember what number four
on that list is. Number four is quote, I hope
you get AIDS and die unquote. And then he said,
I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob, I literally
had to fire him. I had to fire him. It's
(01:00:20):
in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a
long pause on the other end of the phone, and
then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that we
have seen in television news since all the meetings about
what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and NBC
and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to protect
(01:00:41):
their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract, Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you.
Speaker 5 (01:00:56):
Have to fire him?
Speaker 1 (01:01:11):
But did you have to fire him, my God, and
we're cycling through it yet again. Scott Jennings of the
Los Angeles Times Editorial Board. By the way, because nothing
gets scared faster than a billion dollars or a guy
from South Africa who owns newspapers in the United States.
(01:01:34):
I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of
our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced
by tk Obras. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The
(01:01:56):
sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written
by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else
was as ever my fault. Countdown Watch twenty twenty four.
(01:02:18):
That's countdown for today, just ninety seven days until the
scheduled end of the Lane Duck presidency.
Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Of Trump.
Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Probably the next scheduled countdown is now. This is a change.
It's going to be Wensday this week, not Thursday. This
week Wednesday Countdown drop Watch twenty twenty four. The next
countdown is Wednesday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants
(01:02:47):
till the next one Wednesday. I'm Keith Olrimman. Good morning,
good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
(01:03:16):
Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
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Host
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