November 2, 2022 • 45 mins
EPISODE 68: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:45) "He was completely caught up in the fantasy. He really believed in the whole MAGA, stolen election. If you go to Fox News, if you look at QAnon - you know." David DePape's employer of six years makes it Case Closed: the would-be assassin of Nancy Pelosi was energized stochastically by every weapon the GOP can muster (2:24) And it appears that DePape's defense will be a claim of "vulnerability" to the MAGA/Fox News/Trump misinformation machine (3:24) Yet the GOP continues in full denial, to the extent that a Washington Examiner columnist insists the assassination attempt never happened (5:04) How does the GOP maintain this astonishing and apparently heartfelt hypocrisy? Their party DEPENDS on it. Let me review a couple dozen Herschel Walker/Peter Navarro/Samuel Alito cases (10:30) And finally we have the explanation of "Every Republican Accusation Is A Confession" from a psychology professional: it's not projection, it's not compensation.
B-Block (20:04) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Hex, in Devore CA (21:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Graham has to testify, Wisconsin fascist gubernatorial candidate says the quiet fascist part out loud, and Elon Musk's tries to make selling Verification into a populist issue when he's really just blackmailing the blue checks: pay me $96/year or I'll shadow-ban you, and maybe sell your identity to somebody else. Plus late word that the Treasury Department isn't happy with all those Saudi, Qatari, and Chinese investors and may try to hold up his purchase! (26:16) IN SPORTS: Even MORE home runs, yet another A's franchise shift, and the NBA screws up the Kyrie Irving disaster yet again (29:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLDS: Mehmet Oz, Jim "Yes MASA" Jordan and Andrea "Bothsidesism" Mitchell compete for the honors.
C-Block (34:02) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: You know how I know CNN is trying to swing to the right to protect its profits in case the country goes fascist? Because MSNBC tried it in 2003. The harrowing story of the day they tried to make me run a commentary by Michael Savage - literally dressed as a brownshirt - in the middle of Countdown and what I had to do to stop them.
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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 I Heart Radio.
He was completely caught up in the fantasy, in the
(00:27):
Maga fantasy, because he really believed in the whole Maga
Pizza Gates stolen election. If you go to Fox News,
if you go on the Internet and you look at
Q and on, you know he had all these theories.
End quote David de Papi's employer of six years, Frank Cecerelli,
to the New York Times. The man who wanted to
(00:48):
torture and assassinate Nancy Pelosi and did attack Paul Pelosi
was ardently maga. He thought reporters who would not confirm
that the election had been stolen should be killed. He
was convinced about Pizza Gate. And he will apparently defend
himself by blaminga q and on Fox News, the Internet,
and Trump and claiming vulnerability to conspiracy theories and misinformation.
(01:12):
In fact, he will confess to being inspired to do
what he did stochastically by all the forces at the
back and call of the Republican Party. The exact argument
we have been making here since the attack, the exact
arguments the Republicans have been dismissing in such a desperate
(01:32):
and obvious effort to evade culpability when somebody finally did
what they so wanted somebody to do. That they had
paid two hundred and twenty seven million dollars over the
last four years for TV advertisements showing Pelosi being hunted,
shot and burned MAGA, Fox News Q and on Pizza Gate.
(01:53):
Trump case closed. If that is his defense, the Republicans
will have to do better then their simple blanket denial.
They will have to find somebody's smarter than the r
n C chair RONA McDaniel, who insists, quote, I think
it's unfair. You can't see people saying let's fire Pelosi
(02:13):
or let's take back the house is saying go do violence.
It's just unfair. Senator John Cornyn brought up to Pappy's
immigration status. Tucker Carlson continued to push the same kind
of conspiracy theories that sent David to Pappy into Nancy
Pelosi's home where the hammer and zip ties byron Yorke
(02:34):
of The Washington Examiner, who is what passes for a
deep thinker in conservative circles, said checking lefty media, there
are numerous references to the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi.
Not sure what that means. There wasn't an attempted assassination
of Nancy Pelosi. The thing that happened never happened, Byron
(02:55):
York says to this day. The Washington Examiner of Byron
York insists that the man who called police to come
get him a block away from Justice Brett Avanaugh's home
before he did something bad was guilty of Kavanaughs quote
attempted assassination. The RAND Think Tank reported that in the
(03:15):
first eight months of its most recent period of study,
domestic terrorism broke down leslie from the far left, six
from the far right. Domestic terrorism political violence is an
almost exclusively right wing phenomenon. Yet right wingers don't just
contest this, don't just dismiss this, don't just mock this.
(03:39):
They seem to genuinely believe they are both right and
not hypocritical. How how can they do this? Conservatism, wrote
a classical music composer named Frank Wilhoit four years ago,
consists of exactly one proposition, to wit, there must be
in groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
(04:01):
alongside out groups whom the law binds but does not
protect that's it. It is the political catch twenty two.
When I do it, it's my right. When you do it,
it's a crime. The anti abortion Republicans who paid for
their girlfriends abortions. Marjorie Taylor Green lecturing on patriotism when
(04:21):
she tried to overthrow the government and threatened the life
of the Speaker of the House, and of course Trump
his entire life. It is the Conservatives universal solvent, their
magic bullet, the all you can eat Forever buffet. When
Peter Navarro was arrested for contempt of Congress, he was
(04:42):
outraged that they actually took him to jail. Quote. I
served in the Trump White House for four years, he
told the judge. I saved millions of lives. When Navara
was arrested, the lame duck, lame brain Congressman Louis Gombert
of Texas said, if you are a Republican, you can't
even lie to Congress, or lie to an FBI agent
(05:04):
or coming after you. When Justice Alito wrote the Leak
decision overturning Roe v. Wade because he believes it is
the state killing people, he quoted Sir Matthew Hale, a
seventeenth century British jurist who literally presided at a witch
hunt trial that literally resulted in the state killing people
(05:26):
two women when a jury laughed John Durham out of
the courtroom in the Sessman case, William Barr insisted Durham
had one because he brought out the truth about Hillary Clinton.
Black lives matters. Protesters are terrorists and rioters, but the
January six rioters who preached the capital during the literal
(05:46):
peaceful transition of power were just tourist patriots. The gun
obsessed punk Rittenhouse was simply defending and endangered used car
lot in a different state. Another observer pointed out that
the essence of the twenty one century Republican Party is simple.
You can't tell us what to do masks during COVID No,
(06:07):
you can't tell us what to do. Vaccines now, you
can't tell us what to do obeying the laws. You
can't tell us what to do. We tell you what
to do. Life is simple when the law exists to
protect you and expose them. Consider the internet memes starring
the Dunning Krueger dropout Stephen Crowder sitting outdoors at a
(06:31):
card table at Texas Christian University smugly raising a coffee
mug to his lips, a sign draped over the table
in front of him, reading male privilege is a myth,
Change my mind, as if there were a mind to change.
The photo is four years old, and it made Crowder famous,
or it might have if it had not been such
(06:53):
an invitation to the rest of the world to photoshop
the image and he'll just rewrite it on their iPhone
app so that you erase the male privilege is a
myth part and right in its place anything anything at all,
but you make sure you leave the part about change
my mind. Most people have simply gone with something like
every Republican accusation is a confession, and then you leave
(07:15):
the second line, so you have this Crowder clown sitting
behind a table at TCU, smugly lifting his coffee mug
while the sign reads every Republican accusation is a confession.
Change my mind. And it works, of course, because nearly
every Republican accusation is a confession, as we are seeing
again in the reactions to David de Pappi Maga and
(07:36):
the Pelosi's why who does this? Who accuses people of
things they do themselves? If you normal non conservative person
have a skeleton in your closet, or even no, you
just have a closet without skeletons, where you keep your own,
boring personal life. That's nobody's business. You do not spend
(07:58):
the rest of the time accusing people of doing what
you've actually done, let alone accusing people of doing what
you've we done and demonizing it and maybe running for
office on a promise to make it illegal or give
life sentences to people who do it, or to execute them,
or or or this happens every week. Republicans overturning Roe v. Wade,
(08:20):
and they have left a trail of wives and girlfriends
and mistresses who they pressured to get abortions. In this world,
in this area, Herschel Walker is like his own industry.
But he's not alone. The GOP nominee in the Oregon
six Mike Rickson, alleged to have driven his ex girlfriend
to an a t M withdrawn three hundred bucks and
then taking her to a clinic to get an abortion.
(08:42):
We now call his doing a herschel. Tim Murphy the
quote pro life Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, resigned from Congress
in two thousand seventeen after his mistress half his age
and married, revealed he had demanded she get an abortion.
Two thousand thirteen, Republican Representative Scott Deserli of Tennessee abortion
for the mistress, two abortions for the ex wife, one
(09:04):
for the previous mistress, who was also his patient. That's right,
he was her doctor. And we know all this detail
because he taped himself talking her into getting the abortion.
Which one which her? I read the story two seven times,
I still can't tell which one. Elliott Broidy, Deputy financial
chairman of the Republican National Committee, Trump backer gets a
(09:28):
playboy playmate pregnant, has crazy Trump's old lawyer Michael Cohen
pay for the abortion, or maybe it was Trump or
somebody else, and Broidy just took the fall, which is
dumb because we already know Trump wanted his second wife
to get an abortion, because Trump said so. Trump's head
of Refugee Resettlement prevented immigrants who needed abortions from getting them,
(09:52):
including a seventeen year old rape victim. That guy once
drove his own girlfriend of the clinic for her abortion,
and on and on and on, and I'm not even
emphasizing herschel Walker, and this hypocrisy is not just about abortions,
Tucker Carlson fighting against trans athletes, praising the Hungarian dictator
(10:15):
or Bond's attempts to repress gaze, still insisting the Republican
inspired murderous attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband had to be
some people doing gay something. And in his college year book,
Carlson claimed to have been a member of a society
named after the man who assassinated the gay political icon
Harvey Milk and the mayor of San Francisco in and
(10:39):
Carlson's published a video online that he says is about
declining masculinity, and it's nothing but shirtless guys wrestling, shooting
jugs of canola oil with a machine gun, and chopping wood.
And one guy has shown naked arms triumphantly outstretched above
his head, airing out his privates in front of what
(11:02):
is either an infrared lamp or charging station for an
electric car. As the prominent gay activist and terrific Star
Trek actor George Takay wrote in retweeting that video, quote
this is so gay. Unquote. I know I'm going to
take heat for this next statement. I know it is
going to harm me professionally, and know your confidence in
(11:24):
my judgment may be shaken by it. Nevertheless, I believe
that Tucker Carlson and the other conservatives and fascists have
been giving us mixed messages. There, I said it, mixed messages.
But why? Why is every Republican accusation a confession? Why
(11:46):
all known Crowder photoshop meme? Finally I turned to my
friend of twenty five years, a therapist, doctor. Why do
these people who get abortions for their mistresses or higher
gay hookers, or do coke in the bathroom? Why are
they the ones who are the most loud, the most angry,
the most vindictive, about trying to criminalize abortion, about trying
(12:07):
to punish homosexuality, about trying to send people to jail
for life for doing drugs. Why? And her answer was
not what I expected. I had studied some of this
stuff in college, and I assumed, is maybe you still
assume that it was projection or compensation, or a desire
maybe to get caught, maybe even to get help or
(12:29):
anything else that was psych speak for every Republican accusation
is a confession. Nope, Nope, not at all. Call it
the scoreboard theory of personal behavior. As she put it
to me, say, you have been taught since childhood that
sex out of wedlock is wrong and abortion is wrong.
And you've had sex out of wedlock like fifty times,
(12:54):
and there have been half a dozen pregnancies, and you've
talked the women into and paid for half a dozen abortions.
And you're a conservative congressman or a conservative running for
the Senate, and your constituents are every day getting a
little lighter on that forgiveness of the Lord's stuff, but
a little heavier on the wrath of God's stuff. And
(13:14):
to make it worse for your sanity, maybe you really
believe sex out of wedlock is wrong and abortion is wrong.
And yet here you are the neighborhood distributor of sex
out of wedlock and of abortions in your own congressional district.
You're unconscious. My shrink explains hits on an ingenious solution.
(13:34):
You have three and fifty sexes out of wedlock and
six abortions on your scoreboard. Well, you can make that
number irrelevant. You can virtually wipe it away, make it
look like nothing. Simply act and talk and legislate three
thousand anti abortion things, persecute the doctors, encourage the neighbors
(13:55):
to run out people who help women in need, accuse
the other side of killing viable infants after birth, or
take it to the final step, accused them of pedophilia
and eating babies, and run for office on a platform
of exposing those secret baby torture chambers in the basements
of the pizza restaurants that not only don't have torture chambers,
(14:15):
but they don't even have basements. And David de Pappi
still believes this crap. Me, I can't be an adulterer
and an abortionist. Maybe once or twice or three fifty
six times I made a simple human error that God
long ago forgave me for. But look, I've closed a
thousand abortion clinics, and I forced a thousand women to
(14:38):
give birth, and I've accused a thousand liberals of eating babies.
That's three thousand, three d fifty six see on the scoreboard.
I am so anti abortion. It is as if those
abortions I paid for never happened. Three thousand to just
three fifty six. And that my shrink said is the
(15:00):
gist of it. So when we go back to the
denial of the possibility that decades of demonizing Nancy Pelosi
and showing TV commercials in which she has chased, shot
and burned could possibly be the reason that somebody went
to her house to try to torture and kill her.
And we go back to every Republican accusation is a confession,
change my mind. We are in fact wrong in one respect,
(15:23):
only every Republican accusation is more like one hundred confessions.
(15:43):
Still ahead, Lindsey Graham has to testify in Georgia. And
there is more to Elon Musk's bid to monetize Twitter verification.
In fact, it is effectively blackmail. The Republican running for
governor Wisconsin comes out and says it if he wins,
no Republican will ever lose another race there. I guess
how he intends to do that. How do he af
fix basketball's Kyrie Irving anti semitism problem where all by
(16:07):
changing his team's coach naturally, and the continuing prostitution of
CNN by the right wingers running it now looks so
familiar to me because I saw it attempted at MSNBC
in two thousand three. I'll tell you the story of
the day I quit Countdown and called the car to
take me home after they tried to force me to
(16:28):
run a commentary by the infamous Michael Savage. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith Overman still
(16:50):
ahead on Countdown, the NBA has the perfect response to
the Kyrie Irving anti Semitism disaster fire. His team's coach
looks like the Oakland A's are moving and you know
who should be moving. Andrea Mitchell All MSNBC worst Person's
ahead first. In each edition of Countdown, we feature a
dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has
(17:11):
its day. Hex is a gorgeous one year old German
shepherd with big ears even for a shepherd. She is
on death row at DeVore, California, because she did not
like a dog she encountered in the pound, yet she
had gotten along fine with the strange dog she was
kindled with. We can save her with pledges to help
defray the costs of a rescue pulling her out. She
(17:33):
could also use a family in California willing to foster her.
If you can help, Hex will be the pinned tweet
on my account for dogs in need. Tom Jumbo Grumbo
Your pledge big or small to get her out will
be gratefully welcomed. If you can't foster, that would be
even better. Still, your retweet of Hex's story will also
be of immeasurable help. Thank you for that help. O
(18:10):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some inside, some snark,
and now we are adding some predictions. Dateline, Washington. Supreme
Court actually rules against Senator Lindsey Graham. He does have
to testify to the Fulton County grand jury investigating Trump's
attempt to falsify the election results in Georgia. He is
scheduled to testify November. Plus. Trump chief of staff Mark
(18:33):
Meadows was pinning his hopes on not testifying on a
decision in Graham's favor, so out that goes prediction. Graham
now appeals the Supreme Court verdict to the United Federation
of Planets. Dateline Madison, Wisconsin. Ever since the Scott Walker days,
Wisconsin has been ground zero for Republican efforts to maintain
(18:54):
permanent control of a state and then a nation by
jerrymandering districts and overruling any executive they disagreed with by
means of special legislation. While now their Republican gubernatorial candidate
in Wisconsin, Tim Michaels has said that Quiet part out
loud in audio obtained and provided by the liberal group
American Bridge. Michaels said it at a campaign stop Monday.
(19:19):
Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I'm
elected governor. No context, we don't really need one. Michaels
has insisted, if elected, he may try to decertify the
presidential vote just to please l Douche himself. Let me
hear Tim Michael's one more time. Republicans will never lose
another election in Wisconsin after I'm elected governor, because there'll
(19:41):
never be another election in Wisconsin after he's elected governor.
Dateline Washington, lish Cheney says the January six Committee is
discussing how it wants Trump to testify. Quote. We have
not made determinations about format, but it will be done
under oath. It will be done over multiple days. Prediction.
Trump is not going to testify even if the Democrats
(20:02):
keep the House. He will dare the Department of just
just to prosecute him. Dateline Soul, South Korea. The latest
number of fatalities in the Halloween crushed their Saturday night
is a hundred and fifty three. The BBC is reporting
that the first calls to police warning of dangerous overcrowding
in the narrow streets where the celebration was taking place,
(20:22):
came four hours before the Nightmare unfolded, and there were
eleven calls made and essentially ignored and dateline San Francisco first,
Elon Musk decided to demand twenty dollars a month for
account verification blue checks, as they're known. Then the author
Stephen King roasted him, and Musk actually asked if King
(20:43):
would instead pay eight dollars a month. We all know
what you are. We're now just haggling over the price.
Elon eventually Musk tried to position this is some sort
of populist message. Quote Twitter's current Lords and Peasants system
for who has or doesn't have a blue check mark
is bs power to the people blue For eight dollars
(21:03):
a month, you also get priority in replies, mentions, and search,
an ability to post long video and audio. In other words,
pay a me eight dollars a month, or will not
only take away your blue check, but we will shadow
ban you. It's blackmail and it could get worse. Musk
could easily threatened to take somebody's ARCT verification away and
(21:24):
sell that verification to somebody else. Musk also applauded a
tweet from somebody named Brent Winton, who seems to misunderstand
why those of us with the blue checks value them,
quoting lords who have been knighted by the Twitter verification
wand are upset that the proles will be able to
buy status. Has nothing to do with status. It's about
(21:44):
other people impersonating you and writing anything and putting your
name on it. If people like this Winton are jealous
of a verification mark, that's their emotional problem. There are
several even more stupid elements to this. Elon Musk explained
to Stephen King that he can't rely on advertisers alone
to pay the Twitter bills. There are about three hundred
(22:06):
thousand verified Twitter users. If ten of them pay that
eight dollars a month, that will earn Twitter almost three
million dollars a year. Even if they all paid, that
would be thirty million a year. Relying on advertising, Twitter
is currently taking in revenue of five billion a year,
and the response to the chaos IPG Marketing, which advises
(22:27):
major companies like American Express, Spotify, and Johnson and Johnson
has advised all of its clients to pause all advertising
on Twitter, and Musk's reliance on investment from Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and China has, according to The Washington Post, led
the U. S. Treasury Department to look into whether it
(22:48):
has the right to investigate and maybe hold up the
purchase because that purchase might give foreign nationals access to
the personal info of users in this country. Nice work, Elmo.
(23:14):
This is Sports Center. Wait check that, not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith in Sports. World Series resumed in
Philly last night. Once again. Home runs, nothing but home runs. Literally,
We've crossed one thousand World Series home runs now, not
(23:36):
just this year. I gave up after Lance mccolors of
the Astros became the first pitcher ever to give up
five homers in a series game, or in fact, any
postseason game, and Astro's manager Dusty Baker, who is beloved
universally but who has been since n a notoriously mediocre
in game manager, left mccolors in to face the Phillies
(23:57):
for a third time through the batting order. I think
the final score it was Phillies seventy three astros just watching,
I know will get tired of people being tired of
too many home runs. I first complained about it circa seven.
The great writer Ring Lardner was driven away from baseball
because he thought there were too many home runs in
ninety But it's just so boring and repetitive. And don't
(24:22):
tell me. Oh, that kid in right fielder dropped Brandon
Marsha's homer last night. That was such a human moment.
And then the Phillies gave him the ball. If the
kid ty Coner just waits long enough, they'll be like
three more homers hit to him the other Baseball, in
another tradition as old as time itself, looks like the
Oakland A's will be moving and moving to Las Vegas,
Commissioner Manfred telling interviewers a new ballpark in Oakland quote
(24:44):
just doesn't look like it's going to happen, And more importantly,
says baseball's owners would waive a relocation fee if the
A's were to move to Nevada. Such a move would
eliminate Vegas as a place for an expansion team and
the two billion dollars it would net the other owners.
The A's moved from Philadelphia where they started, to Kansas
City in nineteen fifty five, to Oakland in ninety eight,
(25:06):
and to Denver in nineteen seventy seven seventy seventy nine,
only to have those last three moves blocked by the
other owners. And how has the NBA responded to Brooklyn
Nets star Kyrie Irving and his implied threat of anti
Semitic violence after he was challenged for having endorsed an
anti Semitic book and movie and the protesters showed up
(25:27):
wearing fight anti Semitism shirts sitting right behind the Brooklyn bench.
What did the NBA do about it? The Nets yesterday
parted ways with their coach, Steve Nash. Kyrie Irving then
went out with the new coach and missed all six
three pointers he tried. He scored a total of four points.
The Nets lost to the Chicago Bulls ninety nine. Nets
(25:47):
general manager Shawn Marks then informed media that Kyrie Irving
would not be available for interviews after the game. Quote,
we don't want to cause more fuss right now. Let's
let him simmer down, Mark said, unquote share a great idea.
Let's let him sit. Him simmer down. Simmer down for
five or ten seasons, suspend him coming up? What are
(26:23):
they doing at CNN preparing to protect their profits even
if this country goes full fascists. I was an eyewitness
when MSNBC tried this in two thousand three, and I
had to walk off the set to keep them from
forcing me to run a Michael Savage commentary in the
middle of the countdown. I'll tell you that story first.
It's the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and
(26:45):
Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
the world. Lebronze Congressman Jim Jordan's with a foreword tweet
quote make America safe again? Given the cults obsession with acronyms,
make America safe again would be massa massa as in
every cliche from every story ever about American slavery. And
(27:08):
make America safe again for whom? Jim for the Pelosi's
for the wrestlers. Lebronze draws mement Oz, fascist candidate for
Senate from Pennsylvania. The Washington Post caught him cooking the
research books and getting banned for two years from publishing
in the Journal of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
(27:30):
But for my money, the Post buried its lead. It
reports that OZ tried to get his old boss, Eric Rose,
chief of cardiac surgery at Columbia University, to cover up
the puppy story. Quoting about three weeks ago, Rose said
Oz reached out after years of not being in touch
and asked him to say publicly that OZ did not
(27:50):
bear responsibility for alleged inhumane treatment of puppies that occurred
as part of medical research oz oversaw. Rose said he
declined Oz's request because it felt like a political favor.
He killed puppy cruelly. But our winner, Andrew Mitchell of MSNBC,
(28:11):
I'm sorry. She was one of the greats. She gave
us at MSNBC credibility fifteen and twenty years ago when
most people at NBC laughed at us. But this is
out of control. Yesterday she literally both sized the attack
on the Pelosi's quoting her, let me just repeat, the
(28:33):
Republicans have been targeted, Andrew Mitchell said yesterday. Quote. There
have been death threats. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney memorably could
barely campaign in Wyoming in public. You know, Susan Collins
talk about the protection in one's home, so it's both
sides unquote. Susan Collins called the cops because two women
(28:53):
had written a pro choice message on the public sidewalk
outside the Collins home. And the death threats that Republicans
Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney got that Andrew Mitchell brought
up as if she was the only one who knew
about them. They were from other Republicans who were enraged
because Kinsinger and Cheney would not defend Trump. Andrew Mitchell
(29:14):
seems to have no idea that any of this is true.
She seems lost on the air. She has been doing
it this way for weeks, for months, maybe a year.
She is providing a disservice to her audience and to
journalism and to herself. Sad to say she needs to
retire today and if she won't, MSNBC needs to remove her.
(29:35):
Andrew Mitchell Today's worst person in the world. Finally to
the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I've promised not to tell and I've
been warning you about. CNN and Chris Licked, the former
(29:55):
Joe Scarborough hitman who when we worked together at MSNBC.
I used to think eight pace. He was hired to
run c ANN by its new right Way owners to
neutralize CNN. A maga breaks into Nancy Pelosi's home, nearly
kills her husband, plans to hold her hostage until she
tells him some sort of truth. CNN has on Kentucky
(30:16):
fascist Congressman James Comber to respond, and he explains people
in both parties toned down the rhetoric, and then he
seiguays into the GOP plan to investigate Hunter and James
Biden because that shirt tones down the rhetoric. Almost every night,
Chris Licked has this idiot Scott Jennings on in primetime.
He's a conservative. He didn't like what a liberal commentator
(30:38):
sitting next to him on the stage was saying, so
he said of him, quote, tell you what, man, do
you have a single friend? Absolute jerk? I'll repeat my point.
This is no voting accident. The reason Glickt is in
charge of CNN is virtually every mainstream media organization in
this country has already had the meeting they had at CNN.
(31:00):
Let's discuss how if America goes fully fascist. In earlier
we can still protect this company's profits. I say this
not merely because I 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
(31:22):
white guy president was elected just seven years and two
months after nine eleven. We forget how seriously and terrifyingly
we already have teetered on the edge of full fledged
fascism here after the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon nine eleven happened between my two tenures
at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a half
(31:43):
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 build him into the host of a
weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot.
His real name was Michael Leaner, and all you need
(32:03):
to know about him is he was a weener who
pretended he was a savage. What happened to him when
they tried to stick him into prime time and what
he said that led to his firing and the blowing
up of the let's out Fox Fox News plan of
the then 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
(32:28):
Nudes launched within weeks of each other in n and
for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in December,
we were ahead of Fox in many time periods, though
CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine eleven,
and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All
(32:49):
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, right 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
(33:12):
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, 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,
(33:33):
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, all over here,
I'm the one in the middle. Bob Right also brought
in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise
much of his fascism. Bob Right fired Phil Donohue, although
(33:53):
to be fair, that was really more about money than
it was about politics. But he replaced Donna Hues show
with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly
right leaning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It
was called Old Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say,
the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they
(34:13):
changed it to Countdown with Keith Olberman. MSNBC's lineup was
remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight
pm show from October one through the beginning of December,
and then I left to go back to sports and
baseball at Fox. Then the eight pm hour was hosted
(34:34):
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 became North and
Paul Begala. 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
(34:54):
half hour and 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 and 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
(35:15):
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 later 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 worth Forest Sawyer. In January two thousand one,
they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(35:38):
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 show in the eight p m
MSNBC slot. Then in March two thousand three, day off Donahue,
they started Countdown, originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(36:01):
anything to count down to anymore, they hired me to
host Operate Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith all Ryman. That's twenty
different shows or four matsy 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
(36:23):
and virtually all of them made it onto TV. His
next set of ideas was a prime time lineup of
me doing the News at eight, then Scarborough 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 three.
(36:45):
Everybody agreed it was crap on radio. Savage sounded kind
of threatening, I guess, kind of red meat fascist. But
on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little,
cramped looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked
small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a
(37:06):
bad toupee and a suit that was far worse than that.
When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two
thousand three, I got the executive in charge of Prime
Time 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. But then on Friday,
(37:27):
April three, I came into work. We were about a
month into the show, and there in the computer rundown
of my newscast was a prerecorded Michael Savage commentary. As
soon as he saw I was in the office, the
executive producer they had hired from Fox across side chain
smoker named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office
and said, we have to run a Michael Savage commentary.
(37:49):
There's also a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per
Phil Griffin. 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 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
(38:09):
unlikely return to MSNBC. She didn't flinch. Of course, you
have to walk out, but first call Phillip Griffin's office
and tell him you're leaving. Give him a chance. It'll
help when you soothe 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
(38:29):
moral ground. So I called Griffin's office. His assistant said
he was in Washington and 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.
(38:50):
Was three minutes later, Griffin, who frequently panicked outdid himself
on this call. You would really walk out, Buddy, I said,
it was in the contract. I was putting my pens
and books in a box as we spoke. Uh, I
told him he was repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy,
can you just can you look at the commentary and
(39:12):
find me a reason, a reason it isn't about politics,
why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean, like video
quality or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good,
racist language or something that would be great. Call me back.
The executive producer and I went to the video edit suite,
(39:34):
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 Xbox 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 brown shirt. The editor, Amelia,
(39:56):
played the whole video for me, and as I dialed
Phil Griffin, cell I started laughing. I said, even for
racist homophole, bit crap. This thing make no sense. He
just keeps saying George W. Bush is right because George W.
Bush because he's right. He looks small and whiney and
covetchi and he's got a bad tupe in a worst suit.
We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite in his obituary.
(40:17):
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 they intended to, God knows.
(40:39):
I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was about the
time Michael Savage ended his own TV career. On Saturday
July two thousand three, show fifteen out of a series
of Checks Notes fifteen, Michael Savage was on the air
live on MSNBC when a caller baited him about gaze.
(41:01):
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 you pig. You've got nothing better to
put me down? Your piece of garbage. You have nothing
better to do today, Go eat a sausage and choke
on it. Get tricking noteses end quote and Michael Savage.
(41:26):
And by the way, that quote that I just read
that was way better than the commentary they had him
record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday, Eric Sorenson
the president of MSNBC, and he was president of all
the boring things. Bob Wright didn't want to be bothered
with an MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson, for
(41:47):
whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news and
who consulted on my show on Current TV as recently
as two thousand 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,
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Right, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
(42:09):
to fire Americ Right 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
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, remember what number
(42:33):
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
in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a
long pause on the other end of the phone, and
(42:54):
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
their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after us long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
(43:16):
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract. Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you have
to fire him? I've done all the damage I can
(43:41):
do here. Thanks for listening, follow the podcast. If you
can tell a friend, we're number one among non news
outlets in news and political podcasts. But I'm greedy more, mamma.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Shane, guitars,
(44:05):
Bassed and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t k
O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and appears courtesy of my friends
at ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust, the best
baseball stadium organist ever, our announcer today with Stevie van
(44:27):
z Ant, and that means everything else is pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown for this the six and
sixty six day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him
now while we still can six six, As if every
day with Trump weren't satanic enough. A new episode tomorrow
(44:48):
and until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I Heart Ray.
Do you visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio.
He was completely caught up in the fantasy, in the
(00:27):
Maga fantasy, because he really believed in the whole Maga
Pizza Gates stolen election. If you go to Fox News,
if you go on the Internet and you look at
Q and on, you know he had all these theories.
End quote David de Papi's employer of six years, Frank Cecerelli,
to the New York Times. The man who wanted to
(00:48):
torture and assassinate Nancy Pelosi and did attack Paul Pelosi
was ardently maga. He thought reporters who would not confirm
that the election had been stolen should be killed. He
was convinced about Pizza Gate. And he will apparently defend
himself by blaminga q and on Fox News, the Internet,
and Trump and claiming vulnerability to conspiracy theories and misinformation.
(01:12):
In fact, he will confess to being inspired to do
what he did stochastically by all the forces at the
back and call of the Republican Party. The exact argument
we have been making here since the attack, the exact
arguments the Republicans have been dismissing in such a desperate
(01:32):
and obvious effort to evade culpability when somebody finally did
what they so wanted somebody to do. That they had
paid two hundred and twenty seven million dollars over the
last four years for TV advertisements showing Pelosi being hunted,
shot and burned MAGA, Fox News Q and on Pizza Gate.
(01:53):
Trump case closed. If that is his defense, the Republicans
will have to do better then their simple blanket denial.
They will have to find somebody's smarter than the r
n C chair RONA McDaniel, who insists, quote, I think
it's unfair. You can't see people saying let's fire Pelosi
(02:13):
or let's take back the house is saying go do violence.
It's just unfair. Senator John Cornyn brought up to Pappy's
immigration status. Tucker Carlson continued to push the same kind
of conspiracy theories that sent David to Pappy into Nancy
Pelosi's home where the hammer and zip ties byron Yorke
(02:34):
of The Washington Examiner, who is what passes for a
deep thinker in conservative circles, said checking lefty media, there
are numerous references to the attempted assassination of Nancy Pelosi.
Not sure what that means. There wasn't an attempted assassination
of Nancy Pelosi. The thing that happened never happened, Byron
(02:55):
York says to this day. The Washington Examiner of Byron
York insists that the man who called police to come
get him a block away from Justice Brett Avanaugh's home
before he did something bad was guilty of Kavanaughs quote
attempted assassination. The RAND Think Tank reported that in the
(03:15):
first eight months of its most recent period of study,
domestic terrorism broke down leslie from the far left, six
from the far right. Domestic terrorism political violence is an
almost exclusively right wing phenomenon. Yet right wingers don't just
contest this, don't just dismiss this, don't just mock this.
(03:39):
They seem to genuinely believe they are both right and
not hypocritical. How how can they do this? Conservatism, wrote
a classical music composer named Frank Wilhoit four years ago,
consists of exactly one proposition, to wit, there must be
in groups whom the law protects but does not bind,
(04:01):
alongside out groups whom the law binds but does not
protect that's it. It is the political catch twenty two.
When I do it, it's my right. When you do it,
it's a crime. The anti abortion Republicans who paid for
their girlfriends abortions. Marjorie Taylor Green lecturing on patriotism when
(04:21):
she tried to overthrow the government and threatened the life
of the Speaker of the House, and of course Trump
his entire life. It is the Conservatives universal solvent, their
magic bullet, the all you can eat Forever buffet. When
Peter Navarro was arrested for contempt of Congress, he was
(04:42):
outraged that they actually took him to jail. Quote. I
served in the Trump White House for four years, he
told the judge. I saved millions of lives. When Navara
was arrested, the lame duck, lame brain Congressman Louis Gombert
of Texas said, if you are a Republican, you can't
even lie to Congress, or lie to an FBI agent
(05:04):
or coming after you. When Justice Alito wrote the Leak
decision overturning Roe v. Wade because he believes it is
the state killing people, he quoted Sir Matthew Hale, a
seventeenth century British jurist who literally presided at a witch
hunt trial that literally resulted in the state killing people
(05:26):
two women when a jury laughed John Durham out of
the courtroom in the Sessman case, William Barr insisted Durham
had one because he brought out the truth about Hillary Clinton.
Black lives matters. Protesters are terrorists and rioters, but the
January six rioters who preached the capital during the literal
(05:46):
peaceful transition of power were just tourist patriots. The gun
obsessed punk Rittenhouse was simply defending and endangered used car
lot in a different state. Another observer pointed out that
the essence of the twenty one century Republican Party is simple.
You can't tell us what to do masks during COVID No,
(06:07):
you can't tell us what to do. Vaccines now, you
can't tell us what to do obeying the laws. You
can't tell us what to do. We tell you what
to do. Life is simple when the law exists to
protect you and expose them. Consider the internet memes starring
the Dunning Krueger dropout Stephen Crowder sitting outdoors at a
(06:31):
card table at Texas Christian University smugly raising a coffee
mug to his lips, a sign draped over the table
in front of him, reading male privilege is a myth,
Change my mind, as if there were a mind to change.
The photo is four years old, and it made Crowder famous,
or it might have if it had not been such
(06:53):
an invitation to the rest of the world to photoshop
the image and he'll just rewrite it on their iPhone
app so that you erase the male privilege is a
myth part and right in its place anything anything at all,
but you make sure you leave the part about change
my mind. Most people have simply gone with something like
every Republican accusation is a confession, and then you leave
(07:15):
the second line, so you have this Crowder clown sitting
behind a table at TCU, smugly lifting his coffee mug
while the sign reads every Republican accusation is a confession.
Change my mind. And it works, of course, because nearly
every Republican accusation is a confession, as we are seeing
again in the reactions to David de Pappi Maga and
(07:36):
the Pelosi's why who does this? Who accuses people of
things they do themselves? If you normal non conservative person
have a skeleton in your closet, or even no, you
just have a closet without skeletons, where you keep your own,
boring personal life. That's nobody's business. You do not spend
(07:58):
the rest of the time accusing people of doing what
you've actually done, let alone accusing people of doing what
you've we done and demonizing it and maybe running for
office on a promise to make it illegal or give
life sentences to people who do it, or to execute them,
or or or this happens every week. Republicans overturning Roe v. Wade,
(08:20):
and they have left a trail of wives and girlfriends
and mistresses who they pressured to get abortions. In this world,
in this area, Herschel Walker is like his own industry.
But he's not alone. The GOP nominee in the Oregon
six Mike Rickson, alleged to have driven his ex girlfriend
to an a t M withdrawn three hundred bucks and
then taking her to a clinic to get an abortion.
(08:42):
We now call his doing a herschel. Tim Murphy the
quote pro life Republican congressman from Pennsylvania, resigned from Congress
in two thousand seventeen after his mistress half his age
and married, revealed he had demanded she get an abortion.
Two thousand thirteen, Republican Representative Scott Deserli of Tennessee abortion
for the mistress, two abortions for the ex wife, one
(09:04):
for the previous mistress, who was also his patient. That's right,
he was her doctor. And we know all this detail
because he taped himself talking her into getting the abortion.
Which one which her? I read the story two seven times,
I still can't tell which one. Elliott Broidy, Deputy financial
chairman of the Republican National Committee, Trump backer gets a
(09:28):
playboy playmate pregnant, has crazy Trump's old lawyer Michael Cohen
pay for the abortion, or maybe it was Trump or
somebody else, and Broidy just took the fall, which is
dumb because we already know Trump wanted his second wife
to get an abortion, because Trump said so. Trump's head
of Refugee Resettlement prevented immigrants who needed abortions from getting them,
(09:52):
including a seventeen year old rape victim. That guy once
drove his own girlfriend of the clinic for her abortion,
and on and on and on, and I'm not even
emphasizing herschel Walker, and this hypocrisy is not just about abortions,
Tucker Carlson fighting against trans athletes, praising the Hungarian dictator
(10:15):
or Bond's attempts to repress gaze, still insisting the Republican
inspired murderous attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband had to be
some people doing gay something. And in his college year book,
Carlson claimed to have been a member of a society
named after the man who assassinated the gay political icon
Harvey Milk and the mayor of San Francisco in and
(10:39):
Carlson's published a video online that he says is about
declining masculinity, and it's nothing but shirtless guys wrestling, shooting
jugs of canola oil with a machine gun, and chopping wood.
And one guy has shown naked arms triumphantly outstretched above
his head, airing out his privates in front of what
(11:02):
is either an infrared lamp or charging station for an
electric car. As the prominent gay activist and terrific Star
Trek actor George Takay wrote in retweeting that video, quote
this is so gay. Unquote. I know I'm going to
take heat for this next statement. I know it is
going to harm me professionally, and know your confidence in
(11:24):
my judgment may be shaken by it. Nevertheless, I believe
that Tucker Carlson and the other conservatives and fascists have
been giving us mixed messages. There, I said it, mixed messages.
But why? Why is every Republican accusation a confession? Why
(11:46):
all known Crowder photoshop meme? Finally I turned to my
friend of twenty five years, a therapist, doctor. Why do
these people who get abortions for their mistresses or higher
gay hookers, or do coke in the bathroom? Why are
they the ones who are the most loud, the most angry,
the most vindictive, about trying to criminalize abortion, about trying
(12:07):
to punish homosexuality, about trying to send people to jail
for life for doing drugs. Why? And her answer was
not what I expected. I had studied some of this
stuff in college, and I assumed, is maybe you still
assume that it was projection or compensation, or a desire
maybe to get caught, maybe even to get help or
(12:29):
anything else that was psych speak for every Republican accusation
is a confession. Nope, Nope, not at all. Call it
the scoreboard theory of personal behavior. As she put it
to me, say, you have been taught since childhood that
sex out of wedlock is wrong and abortion is wrong.
And you've had sex out of wedlock like fifty times,
(12:54):
and there have been half a dozen pregnancies, and you've
talked the women into and paid for half a dozen abortions.
And you're a conservative congressman or a conservative running for
the Senate, and your constituents are every day getting a
little lighter on that forgiveness of the Lord's stuff, but
a little heavier on the wrath of God's stuff. And
(13:14):
to make it worse for your sanity, maybe you really
believe sex out of wedlock is wrong and abortion is wrong.
And yet here you are the neighborhood distributor of sex
out of wedlock and of abortions in your own congressional district.
You're unconscious. My shrink explains hits on an ingenious solution.
(13:34):
You have three and fifty sexes out of wedlock and
six abortions on your scoreboard. Well, you can make that
number irrelevant. You can virtually wipe it away, make it
look like nothing. Simply act and talk and legislate three
thousand anti abortion things, persecute the doctors, encourage the neighbors
(13:55):
to run out people who help women in need, accuse
the other side of killing viable infants after birth, or
take it to the final step, accused them of pedophilia
and eating babies, and run for office on a platform
of exposing those secret baby torture chambers in the basements
of the pizza restaurants that not only don't have torture chambers,
(14:15):
but they don't even have basements. And David de Pappi
still believes this crap. Me, I can't be an adulterer
and an abortionist. Maybe once or twice or three fifty
six times I made a simple human error that God
long ago forgave me for. But look, I've closed a
thousand abortion clinics, and I forced a thousand women to
(14:38):
give birth, and I've accused a thousand liberals of eating babies.
That's three thousand, three d fifty six see on the scoreboard.
I am so anti abortion. It is as if those
abortions I paid for never happened. Three thousand to just
three fifty six. And that my shrink said is the
(15:00):
gist of it. So when we go back to the
denial of the possibility that decades of demonizing Nancy Pelosi
and showing TV commercials in which she has chased, shot
and burned could possibly be the reason that somebody went
to her house to try to torture and kill her.
And we go back to every Republican accusation is a confession,
change my mind. We are in fact wrong in one respect,
(15:23):
only every Republican accusation is more like one hundred confessions.
(15:43):
Still ahead, Lindsey Graham has to testify in Georgia. And
there is more to Elon Musk's bid to monetize Twitter verification.
In fact, it is effectively blackmail. The Republican running for
governor Wisconsin comes out and says it if he wins,
no Republican will ever lose another race there. I guess
how he intends to do that. How do he af
fix basketball's Kyrie Irving anti semitism problem where all by
(16:07):
changing his team's coach naturally, and the continuing prostitution of
CNN by the right wingers running it now looks so
familiar to me because I saw it attempted at MSNBC
in two thousand three. I'll tell you the story of
the day I quit Countdown and called the car to
take me home after they tried to force me to
(16:28):
run a commentary by the infamous Michael Savage. That's next.
This is Countdown. This is Countdown. With Keith Overman still
(16:50):
ahead on Countdown, the NBA has the perfect response to
the Kyrie Irving anti Semitism disaster fire. His team's coach
looks like the Oakland A's are moving and you know
who should be moving. Andrea Mitchell All MSNBC worst Person's
ahead first. In each edition of Countdown, we feature a
dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has
(17:11):
its day. Hex is a gorgeous one year old German
shepherd with big ears even for a shepherd. She is
on death row at DeVore, California, because she did not
like a dog she encountered in the pound, yet she
had gotten along fine with the strange dog she was
kindled with. We can save her with pledges to help
defray the costs of a rescue pulling her out. She
(17:33):
could also use a family in California willing to foster her.
If you can help, Hex will be the pinned tweet
on my account for dogs in need. Tom Jumbo Grumbo
Your pledge big or small to get her out will
be gratefully welcomed. If you can't foster, that would be
even better. Still, your retweet of Hex's story will also
be of immeasurable help. Thank you for that help. O
(18:10):
scripts to the news, some headlines, some inside, some snark,
and now we are adding some predictions. Dateline, Washington. Supreme
Court actually rules against Senator Lindsey Graham. He does have
to testify to the Fulton County grand jury investigating Trump's
attempt to falsify the election results in Georgia. He is
scheduled to testify November. Plus. Trump chief of staff Mark
(18:33):
Meadows was pinning his hopes on not testifying on a
decision in Graham's favor, so out that goes prediction. Graham
now appeals the Supreme Court verdict to the United Federation
of Planets. Dateline Madison, Wisconsin. Ever since the Scott Walker days,
Wisconsin has been ground zero for Republican efforts to maintain
(18:54):
permanent control of a state and then a nation by
jerrymandering districts and overruling any executive they disagreed with by
means of special legislation. While now their Republican gubernatorial candidate
in Wisconsin, Tim Michaels has said that Quiet part out
loud in audio obtained and provided by the liberal group
American Bridge. Michaels said it at a campaign stop Monday.
(19:19):
Republicans will never lose another election in Wisconsin after I'm
elected governor. No context, we don't really need one. Michaels
has insisted, if elected, he may try to decertify the
presidential vote just to please l Douche himself. Let me
hear Tim Michael's one more time. Republicans will never lose
another election in Wisconsin after I'm elected governor, because there'll
(19:41):
never be another election in Wisconsin after he's elected governor.
Dateline Washington, lish Cheney says the January six Committee is
discussing how it wants Trump to testify. Quote. We have
not made determinations about format, but it will be done
under oath. It will be done over multiple days. Prediction.
Trump is not going to testify even if the Democrats
(20:02):
keep the House. He will dare the Department of just
just to prosecute him. Dateline Soul, South Korea. The latest
number of fatalities in the Halloween crushed their Saturday night
is a hundred and fifty three. The BBC is reporting
that the first calls to police warning of dangerous overcrowding
in the narrow streets where the celebration was taking place,
(20:22):
came four hours before the Nightmare unfolded, and there were
eleven calls made and essentially ignored and dateline San Francisco first,
Elon Musk decided to demand twenty dollars a month for
account verification blue checks, as they're known. Then the author
Stephen King roasted him, and Musk actually asked if King
(20:43):
would instead pay eight dollars a month. We all know
what you are. We're now just haggling over the price.
Elon eventually Musk tried to position this is some sort
of populist message. Quote Twitter's current Lords and Peasants system
for who has or doesn't have a blue check mark
is bs power to the people blue For eight dollars
(21:03):
a month, you also get priority in replies, mentions, and search,
an ability to post long video and audio. In other words,
pay a me eight dollars a month, or will not
only take away your blue check, but we will shadow
ban you. It's blackmail and it could get worse. Musk
could easily threatened to take somebody's ARCT verification away and
(21:24):
sell that verification to somebody else. Musk also applauded a
tweet from somebody named Brent Winton, who seems to misunderstand
why those of us with the blue checks value them,
quoting lords who have been knighted by the Twitter verification
wand are upset that the proles will be able to
buy status. Has nothing to do with status. It's about
(21:44):
other people impersonating you and writing anything and putting your
name on it. If people like this Winton are jealous
of a verification mark, that's their emotional problem. There are
several even more stupid elements to this. Elon Musk explained
to Stephen King that he can't rely on advertisers alone
to pay the Twitter bills. There are about three hundred
(22:06):
thousand verified Twitter users. If ten of them pay that
eight dollars a month, that will earn Twitter almost three
million dollars a year. Even if they all paid, that
would be thirty million a year. Relying on advertising, Twitter
is currently taking in revenue of five billion a year,
and the response to the chaos IPG Marketing, which advises
(22:27):
major companies like American Express, Spotify, and Johnson and Johnson
has advised all of its clients to pause all advertising
on Twitter, and Musk's reliance on investment from Saudi Arabia,
Qatar and China has, according to The Washington Post, led
the U. S. Treasury Department to look into whether it
(22:48):
has the right to investigate and maybe hold up the
purchase because that purchase might give foreign nationals access to
the personal info of users in this country. Nice work, Elmo.
(23:14):
This is Sports Center. Wait check that, not anymore. This
is countdown with Keith in Sports. World Series resumed in
Philly last night. Once again. Home runs, nothing but home runs. Literally,
We've crossed one thousand World Series home runs now, not
(23:36):
just this year. I gave up after Lance mccolors of
the Astros became the first pitcher ever to give up
five homers in a series game, or in fact, any
postseason game, and Astro's manager Dusty Baker, who is beloved
universally but who has been since n a notoriously mediocre
in game manager, left mccolors in to face the Phillies
(23:57):
for a third time through the batting order. I think
the final score it was Phillies seventy three astros just watching,
I know will get tired of people being tired of
too many home runs. I first complained about it circa seven.
The great writer Ring Lardner was driven away from baseball
because he thought there were too many home runs in
ninety But it's just so boring and repetitive. And don't
(24:22):
tell me. Oh, that kid in right fielder dropped Brandon
Marsha's homer last night. That was such a human moment.
And then the Phillies gave him the ball. If the
kid ty Coner just waits long enough, they'll be like
three more homers hit to him the other Baseball, in
another tradition as old as time itself, looks like the
Oakland A's will be moving and moving to Las Vegas,
Commissioner Manfred telling interviewers a new ballpark in Oakland quote
(24:44):
just doesn't look like it's going to happen, And more importantly,
says baseball's owners would waive a relocation fee if the
A's were to move to Nevada. Such a move would
eliminate Vegas as a place for an expansion team and
the two billion dollars it would net the other owners.
The A's moved from Philadelphia where they started, to Kansas
City in nineteen fifty five, to Oakland in ninety eight,
(25:06):
and to Denver in nineteen seventy seven seventy seventy nine,
only to have those last three moves blocked by the
other owners. And how has the NBA responded to Brooklyn
Nets star Kyrie Irving and his implied threat of anti
Semitic violence after he was challenged for having endorsed an
anti Semitic book and movie and the protesters showed up
(25:27):
wearing fight anti Semitism shirts sitting right behind the Brooklyn bench.
What did the NBA do about it? The Nets yesterday
parted ways with their coach, Steve Nash. Kyrie Irving then
went out with the new coach and missed all six
three pointers he tried. He scored a total of four points.
The Nets lost to the Chicago Bulls ninety nine. Nets
(25:47):
general manager Shawn Marks then informed media that Kyrie Irving
would not be available for interviews after the game. Quote,
we don't want to cause more fuss right now. Let's
let him simmer down, Mark said, unquote share a great idea.
Let's let him sit. Him simmer down. Simmer down for
five or ten seasons, suspend him coming up? What are
(26:23):
they doing at CNN preparing to protect their profits even
if this country goes full fascists. I was an eyewitness
when MSNBC tried this in two thousand three, and I
had to walk off the set to keep them from
forcing me to run a Michael Savage commentary in the
middle of the countdown. I'll tell you that story first.
It's the daily round up of the miscreants, morons and
(26:45):
Dunning Krueger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in
the world. Lebronze Congressman Jim Jordan's with a foreword tweet
quote make America safe again? Given the cults obsession with acronyms,
make America safe again would be massa massa as in
every cliche from every story ever about American slavery. And
(27:08):
make America safe again for whom? Jim for the Pelosi's
for the wrestlers. Lebronze draws mement Oz, fascist candidate for
Senate from Pennsylvania. The Washington Post caught him cooking the
research books and getting banned for two years from publishing
in the Journal of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery.
(27:30):
But for my money, the Post buried its lead. It
reports that OZ tried to get his old boss, Eric Rose,
chief of cardiac surgery at Columbia University, to cover up
the puppy story. Quoting about three weeks ago, Rose said
Oz reached out after years of not being in touch
and asked him to say publicly that OZ did not
(27:50):
bear responsibility for alleged inhumane treatment of puppies that occurred
as part of medical research oz oversaw. Rose said he
declined Oz's request because it felt like a political favor.
He killed puppy cruelly. But our winner, Andrew Mitchell of MSNBC,
(28:11):
I'm sorry. She was one of the greats. She gave
us at MSNBC credibility fifteen and twenty years ago when
most people at NBC laughed at us. But this is
out of control. Yesterday she literally both sized the attack
on the Pelosi's quoting her, let me just repeat, the
(28:33):
Republicans have been targeted, Andrew Mitchell said yesterday. Quote. There
have been death threats. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney memorably could
barely campaign in Wyoming in public. You know, Susan Collins
talk about the protection in one's home, so it's both
sides unquote. Susan Collins called the cops because two women
(28:53):
had written a pro choice message on the public sidewalk
outside the Collins home. And the death threats that Republicans
Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney got that Andrew Mitchell brought
up as if she was the only one who knew
about them. They were from other Republicans who were enraged
because Kinsinger and Cheney would not defend Trump. Andrew Mitchell
(29:14):
seems to have no idea that any of this is true.
She seems lost on the air. She has been doing
it this way for weeks, for months, maybe a year.
She is providing a disservice to her audience and to
journalism and to herself. Sad to say she needs to
retire today and if she won't, MSNBC needs to remove her.
(29:35):
Andrew Mitchell Today's worst person in the world. Finally to
the number one story on the Countdown and my favorite topic,
me and things I've promised not to tell and I've
been warning you about. CNN and Chris Licked, the former
(29:55):
Joe Scarborough hitman who when we worked together at MSNBC.
I used to think eight pace. He was hired to
run c ANN by its new right Way owners to
neutralize CNN. A maga breaks into Nancy Pelosi's home, nearly
kills her husband, plans to hold her hostage until she
tells him some sort of truth. CNN has on Kentucky
(30:16):
fascist Congressman James Comber to respond, and he explains people
in both parties toned down the rhetoric, and then he
seiguays into the GOP plan to investigate Hunter and James
Biden because that shirt tones down the rhetoric. Almost every night,
Chris Licked has this idiot Scott Jennings on in primetime.
He's a conservative. He didn't like what a liberal commentator
(30:38):
sitting next to him on the stage was saying, so
he said of him, quote, tell you what, man, do
you have a single friend? Absolute jerk? I'll repeat my point.
This is no voting accident. The reason Glickt is in
charge of CNN is virtually every mainstream media organization in
this country has already had the meeting they had at CNN.
(31:00):
Let's discuss how if America goes fully fascist. In earlier
we can still protect this company's profits. I say this
not merely because I 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
(31:22):
white guy president was elected just seven years and two
months after nine eleven. We forget how seriously and terrifyingly
we already have teetered on the edge of full fledged
fascism here after the attacks on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon nine eleven happened between my two tenures
at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a half
(31:43):
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 build him into the host of a
weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot.
His real name was Michael Leaner, and all you need
(32:03):
to know about him is he was a weener who
pretended he was a savage. What happened to him when
they tried to stick him into prime time and what
he said that led to his firing and the blowing
up of the let's out Fox Fox News plan of
the then 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
(32:28):
Nudes launched within weeks of each other in n and
for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in December,
we were ahead of Fox in many time periods, though
CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine eleven,
and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All
(32:49):
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, right 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
(33:12):
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, 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,
(33:33):
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, all over here,
I'm the one in the middle. Bob Right also brought
in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise
much of his fascism. Bob Right fired Phil Donohue, although
(33:53):
to be fair, that was really more about money than
it was about politics. But he replaced Donna Hues show
with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly
right leaning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It
was called Old Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say,
the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they
(34:13):
changed it to Countdown with Keith Olberman. MSNBC's lineup was
remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight
pm show from October one through the beginning of December,
and then I left to go back to sports and
baseball at Fox. Then the eight pm hour was hosted
(34:34):
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 became North and
Paul Begala. 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
(34:54):
half hour and 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 and 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
(35:15):
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 later 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 worth Forest Sawyer. In January two thousand one,
they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
(35:38):
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 show in the eight p m
MSNBC slot. Then in March two thousand three, day off Donahue,
they started Countdown, originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
(36:01):
anything to count down to anymore, they hired me to
host Operate Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
show they launched Countdown with Keith all Ryman. That's twenty
different shows or four matsy 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
(36:23):
and virtually all of them made it onto TV. His
next set of ideas was a prime time lineup of
me doing the News at eight, then Scarborough 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 three.
(36:45):
Everybody agreed it was crap on radio. Savage sounded kind
of threatening, I guess, kind of red meat fascist. But
on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little,
cramped looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked
small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a
(37:06):
bad toupee and a suit that was far worse than that.
When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two
thousand three, I got the executive in charge of Prime
Time 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. But then on Friday,
(37:27):
April three, I came into work. We were about a
month into the show, and there in the computer rundown
of my newscast was a prerecorded Michael Savage commentary. As
soon as he saw I was in the office, the
executive producer they had hired from Fox across side chain
smoker named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office
and said, we have to run a Michael Savage commentary.
(37:49):
There's also a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per
Phil Griffin. 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 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
(38:09):
unlikely return to MSNBC. She didn't flinch. Of course, you
have to walk out, but first call Phillip Griffin's office
and tell him you're leaving. Give him a chance. It'll
help when you soothe 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
(38:29):
moral ground. So I called Griffin's office. His assistant said
he was in Washington and 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.
(38:50):
Was three minutes later, Griffin, who frequently panicked outdid himself
on this call. You would really walk out, Buddy, I said,
it was in the contract. I was putting my pens
and books in a box as we spoke. Uh, I
told him he was repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy,
can you just can you look at the commentary and
(39:12):
find me a reason, a reason it isn't about politics,
why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean, like video
quality or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good,
racist language or something that would be great. Call me back.
The executive producer and I went to the video edit suite,
(39:34):
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 Xbox 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 brown shirt. The editor, Amelia,
(39:56):
played the whole video for me, and as I dialed
Phil Griffin, cell I started laughing. I said, even for
racist homophole, bit crap. This thing make no sense. He
just keeps saying George W. Bush is right because George W.
Bush because he's right. He looks small and whiney and
covetchi and he's got a bad tupe in a worst suit.
We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite in his obituary.
(40:17):
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 they intended to, God knows.
(40:39):
I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was about the
time Michael Savage ended his own TV career. On Saturday
July two thousand three, show fifteen out of a series
of Checks Notes fifteen, Michael Savage was on the air
live on MSNBC when a caller baited him about gaze.
(41:01):
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 you pig. You've got nothing better to
put me down? Your piece of garbage. You have nothing
better to do today, Go eat a sausage and choke
on it. Get tricking noteses end quote and Michael Savage.
(41:26):
And by the way, that quote that I just read
that was way better than the commentary they had him
record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday, Eric Sorenson
the president of MSNBC, and he was president of all
the boring things. Bob Wright didn't want to be bothered
with an MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson, for
(41:47):
whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news and
who consulted on my show on Current TV as recently
as two thousand 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,
Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
was Bob Right, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
(42:09):
to fire Americ Right 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
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, remember what number
(42:33):
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
in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a
long pause on the other end of the phone, and
(42:54):
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
their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
after us long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
(43:16):
fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract. Bob
Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you have
to fire him? I've done all the damage I can
(43:41):
do here. Thanks for listening, follow the podcast. If you
can tell a friend, we're number one among non news
outlets in news and political podcasts. But I'm greedy more, mamma.
Here are the credits. Most of the music, including our
theme from Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced and performed by
Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They are the Countdown
musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Shane, guitars,
(44:05):
Bassed and drums by Brian Ray, produced by t k
O Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed
by the group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is
the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it was written
by Mitch Warren Davis and appears courtesy of my friends
at ESPN Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust, the best
baseball stadium organist ever, our announcer today with Stevie van
(44:27):
z Ant, and that means everything else is pretty much
my fault. So that's countdown for this the six and
sixty six day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against
the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest him
now while we still can six six, As if every
day with Trump weren't satanic enough. A new episode tomorrow
(44:48):
and until then, I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight,
and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from I Heart Ray.
Do you visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
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