May 8, 2023 • 34 mins
EPISODE 196: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: "The first girl I walked up to," said one of the first bystanders to the scene in Allen, Texas, "was crouched down covering her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face." The cops then refused to take questions and the authorities had nothing but emotionless platitudes.
We live now in a society in which our children are randomly put to death in public, with weapons of war, by Right Wing Terrorists - and the Republicans treat it as blandly as if it were all as inevitable as Bad Weather. Hurricanes, Tornados, Thunderstorms, Mass Shootings. If they show any emotion it is to tell us this is god's will or to explain we have "lost" the battle to rein in assault weapons, as the shrill screeching fascist Megyn Kelly did.
The antidote to the dour acceptance of this slaughter must come from the president of the United States. He must act - by executive orders to address those peripheral areas that can at least reduce the carnage - and most importantly by stating the truth: Republicans Cause Mass Shootings.
B-Block (17:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Judge calls Chump's bluff in E. Jean Carroll Trial, Pence gives Jack Smith guilty foreknowledge, Tucker Carlson has plans to burn down Fox, and Dick Durbin has excuses for Dianne Feinstein and John Roberts (21:45) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Ted Cruz can't tell one African-American from another, Chuck Grassley loses the thread on the "explosive" Biden document (it's the Burisma crap), and Vivek Ramaswamy is trying to bury his Fellowship. His... SOROS Fellowship.
C-Block (27:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Gray, in the worsening situation at the NYC pound. (28:05) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: 24 hours before Megyn Kelly's infamous tweets, of all the people who could have been walking on my New York street, who do I run into but the idiot NBC executive who gave her $69 million and tried to mainstream her. Happily I managed to avoid his gaze; as usual, Andy Lack was too busy listening to himself talk.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. The
first girl I walked up to was crouched down, covering
(00:26):
her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse,
pulled her head to the side, and she had no face. Alan,
Texas Saturday. We live now in a society where our
children are randomly put to death in public so that
(00:46):
our Republican congressman can smilingly pose for Christmas cards while
they hold weapons of mass murder which they can barely lift.
And after this past weekend, we live now in a
society where the sacrifice of these children at adults as well,
is melding with right wing tear rorism. The shooter in Allen,
(01:06):
Texas wore a patch with a symbol standing for right
wing death Squad, and his social media history is filled
with white supremacists and Nazi posts. And the motive of
the creature who then drove a car into a bus
stop in front of a Texas shelter filled with immigrants
yesterday needs far less analysis. Why it's almost as if
(01:28):
people acted on the imaginary terrors. Fox quote news unquote
has been selling them for years, selling them for decades,
selling them for every day of its existence. We live
now in a society where we ban books that the
exploitative cynical Republicans venomously insist can harm children, Where we
(01:52):
ban drag shows that the exploitative cynical Republicans moronically insist
can harm children. Where we banned doctors from helping kids
in crisis that the exploitative cynical Republicans manipulatively insists can
arm children. But we do not ban assault weapons. And
we do not ban television channels and streaming services and
(02:14):
websites that endlessly beckon the evil to stochastic terrorism on
behalf of white supremacy. We ban people from voting because
Republicans don't like how they're going to vote. We ban
representatives from state legislatures because Republicans don't like how they
have voted. We ban immigrants, and we ban some stem cells.
(02:37):
And we ban transgender athletes as if the women's Olympic
team consisted only of them. We ban water bottles on
planes because twenty years ago a Republican told us some
terrorists were planning to mix fluids during flights to blow
up planes. But we do not ban assault weapons because
(02:57):
Republicans will tell you bans don't work. Our children are
randomly put to death in public in order to protect
somebody's right to randomly put other innocent people to death
(03:19):
in public. Once a month, once a week, once a day.
Our citizens are randomly put to death in public to
protect a right to own guns that does not exist,
a right to own guns in an amendment to the Constitution,
(03:41):
an amendment that does not have the word own in it,
nor any synonym for own in it. And when it
becomes unmistakably obvious that with each child murdered to protect
Republicans right to kill other children to come, we, the
ones who did not die in Texas Saturday or Sunday,
(04:02):
are absorbing psychological trauma after psychological trauma. When it becomes
unmistakably obvious that with each death, a little piece of
us dies inside, and within ten years or one year
or one month, the pain of that is too large
to continue to process it, we simply pretend it doesn't
(04:24):
hurt anymore. We simply pretend it doesn't hurt to think
of the horror and the terror of those children and
those adults in their final moments, we simply stop dealing
with it, or fighting back against it, or recognizing that
the viscera and the brains on the sidewalks outside the
malls of America might as well be our own. And
when it turns out, the good guys with guns can't
(04:46):
stop it, and the responsible gun owners can't stop it,
and the Democrats can't stop it, and the Republicans won't
stop it, and the Republicans, like the local congressman Keith's self,
insists thoughts and prayers are working, and if you disagree
with him, you are one of the quote people that
don't believe in an almighty God who is absolutely in
(05:08):
control of our lives. That translates insanely as this solution
to all of these nightmares. God wanted the thirteen thousand,
nine hundred people shot to death in this country already
this year. He wanted them dead, and now the cops
can't stop it. So the cops simply hold a news
(05:32):
conference at which they take no questions and blandly congratulate
themselves and deal disdainfully with the victims and the implications,
and without emotion, they read off the number of those
put to death this time, and the number transported to hospitals,
and how badly they feel, and you realize that they
now treat the public execution of nine more of us
(05:57):
as if it was bad weather. Gun mass are bad weather. Hurricanes, tornadoes,
flash floods, mudslides, wildfires, children randomly put it to death
by guns in public. It is all the same now
to them, it is all inevitable, it is all unavoidable,
(06:18):
It is all uniquely, necessarily, permanently American. It is weather.
Ban licenses to carry handguns in Texas, and effectively ban
mental health care in Texas by cutting two hundred and
eleven million dollars out of the budget, and ban abortion
because we're pro life, and banned books because the kids
(06:39):
are too precious to be indoctrinated, and banned drag shows
because we must protect kids from grooming, and we must
make sure the kids are fine and fit and happy.
So somebody who can get a weapon of war and
every fourth or fifth day put groups of our children
to death. But at least first the children were not
polluted by books. If the thirteen thousand, nine hundred people
(07:06):
already put to death by guns in this country this
year had been murdered by people working for the Mexican
drug cartels, what would the Republicans have been willing to
do about the guns. Well, we saw that Marjorie Taylor
Green combined her unique gifts of ethnic hatred and prejudice
to assume that that's what the Hispanic last name of
(07:27):
the Allen shooter must have meant. When the Republicans wanted
to sell the fear that there was a terrorist around
every corner, Suddenly there were metal detectors outside every sports stadium,
just in case somebody tried to bring in a gun,
and outside every political event, just in case somebody tried
to bring in a gun, and with not a minute's
worth of self reflection or appreciation of the irony, suddenly
(07:50):
you could not bring a gun into the meeting of
the NRA. There is overwhelming support in this country for
four simple steps that will at least reduce this transformation
of mass murder into bad weather. Eighty percent believe in
(08:13):
banning assault weapons eighty percent. Eighty one percent believe in
raising the age to buy all guns or keeping the
age at twenty one. Eighty one percent believe in rigorously
enforcing existing gun laws, and eighty seven percent want background
checks for all gun purchasers. And these numbers are from
(08:37):
two weeks ago in a poll done by Fox. And
none of it can pass a Republican House of Representatives
populated with whores bought and sold by the gun and
death lobby. And since none of it can pass a
Republican House of Representatives and the whores therein, this falls
to the President of the United States. It was Senator
(09:00):
Elizabeth Warren who observed that executive orders alone could broaden
the re requirement for background checks for virtually every gun buyer,
and to report multiple purchases, and to raise the minimum
aged by a gun, and to increase prosecution for gun
trafficking across that Texas border, and to revoke the license
of gun dealers who break the laws, and to investigate
(09:23):
and prosecute the NRA, and to keep guns out of
the hands of any domestic abuser. That's just what any
president could do today. And if a court blocks your orders,
mister presidents, issue another order, issue another twenty issue, another
two thousand of them, issue two million of them. Let
the NRA and let the Congress, and let the courts
(09:45):
be waiting knee deep in your executive orders. And if
that is still not enough, mister president, if the Attorney
General of Texas confesses, as he did last year, that
he cannot enforce the gun laws on the books. You
have to do with Eisenhower and Kennedy and and Johnson
(10:05):
did when other states attorneys generals and governors confess that
they could not or would not enforce the laws about integration,
you send in troops to enforce those laws for the
states that cannot do it themselves. And first and foremost,
mister President, stopped dancing around the truth. Thoughts and prayers
(10:27):
and thanks for the first responders are very nice, and
they are irrelevant. They contribute to the sense that this
is just bad weather. The little girl in Allen, Texas,
the little girl and the little boy, and the other
little girl, and the other little boy, and the other
little girl and the other little boy, and all of
(10:50):
them in Uvaldi, Texas, and the people just out for
a Saturday night in a place they considered their haven
in Colorado, and all the others thirteen thousand, nine hundred
this year, they, mister President, were killed directly or stochastically
by Republicans. Say that use the powers of your presidency
(11:17):
to state these truths and give them legitimacy and moral force.
When Republicans come out while they are still removing the
dismembered bodies of the people the Republicans have decided are
suitable to be hunted in this country. And when Republicans
vomit nonsensical excuses claiming that this happened because God wanted
(11:41):
it and any way a hero cop stopped it, or
it could have been worse, or the school didn't have
high enough fences, or because the target was not hard enough,
or the outright lie and say, if they'd only had
a cop in this school in Texas or that school
in Texas, or that mall in Texas, or that house
in Texas, or every street corner in Texas when the
cops of Evaldi stood and watched, or the outright lie
(12:04):
and say, if only there's been a good guy with
a gun in that supermarket in Buffalo when there was
a retired cop with a gun inside and he was
killed too, or when they outright lie and say if
only there'd been a cop in the Club Q in
Colorado Springs when the shooter was stopped by an unarmed
man who grabbed the gun from his hand and hit
him with it. When they lie, when the Republicans lie
(12:27):
about this when the Republicans make you feel as if
this is the weather and there is nothing to do
about it. When they lie about it. President Biden, say it.
The little girl in Texas Saturday, the Republicans murdered her.
Say it, mister President. It will not change until you
(12:51):
do so. Still ahead on this edition of Countdown, once again,
Dick Durbin has resolved the Clarence Thomas scandal. This time
(13:12):
he has asked Chief Justice Roberts extra nicely to resolve
it for him. Tucker Carlson has a plan to burn
down Fox, as I've noted here previously, Fox has a
plan to burn down Tucker Carlson, as mel Brooks once
noted in a different context. Get your marshmallows on your sticks,
but don't everybody rush at them all at once and
put them out. We want to enjoy this fire. And
(13:35):
if you think the Meghan Kelly approach to the mass
murders was reprehensible, consider the idiot who put her on
NBC News in the first place. I had to consider
him because I ran into him this weekend, the Andy
Lack story in things I promised not to tell. That's next.
(13:56):
This is Countdown. This is countdown with Keith Opleman postscripts
to the news Dateline, New York. The judge and E
Gene Carroll's rape and defamation case gave Trump until five
(14:18):
pm yesterday to testify or get off the pot. Since
the judge heard nothing from Trump nor his lawyer, Joey Tax,
so much for the threat to return from Scotland to
quote confront her. No surprise, as usual, Trump has stayed
on the pot Dateline Washington. Trump has more to worry about.
Mike Pence confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he basically
(14:40):
quoted his own book in testimony to the Special Council's
Grand Jury, and that would indicate he swore that Trump
knew in advance that none of the legal schemes to
overturn the twenty twenty election were going to work, which
would be evidence that all of the stopped the steal
fundraising by Trump was actually wire fraud. Thank you, Nancy
(15:22):
Faust and the Wall Street Journal on the same subject
puts two and two together, noting that aid Dan Scavino
testified to the Jack Smith Grand Jury for eight hours
last week, but that a lot of other Smith witnesses
are getting callbacks to go over very specific incidents in
great depth, and the paper concludes, quote Special Counsel Smith
(15:42):
is racing through a roster of interviews in his wide
ranging investigations related to former President Trump, including with Pence
and other top aids, as he contemplates filing charges. According
to people familiar with the matter, prosecutors revisiting of earlier
witness testimony points to efforts to tie up loose ends
(16:03):
dateline How eight Men fight Land, Axios reporting the Tucker
Carlson is convinced of what I told you last week
that Fox was the source of all the video and
text leaks against him, and he is planning to strike
back quote preparing to unleash allies to attack Fox in
an effort to bully the network into letting him work
for or start a right wing rival, sources close to
(16:26):
him tell Axios in the story Mother Tucker's allies, one
of whom has identified as Megan Kelly good luck with
her on your side, confirm his contract runs out at
the end of next year and he's owed north of
thirty million, and Fox is willing to pay him out,
but will force him to sit it out, and he
thinks he can get them to release him from what
(16:47):
would be a career ending time on the beat through
the twenty twenty four election, because, quoting Carlson's source, he
knows where a lot of bodies are buried and is
ready to start drawing a map. Question, wait, the plan is?
Carlson starts revealing Fox is full of evil people who
have done terror. A who doesn't know that? And B
(17:09):
what part of Fox's audience would not applaud that? And
Dateline Washington once again, this is not a game yet
Democrats are showing up to the knife fight with all
the requisites of flagged football. The Dianne Feinstein disaster on
the Senate Judiciary Committee is so obvious that even CNN's
Jake Tapper sat up and took notice. He called Chairman
(17:30):
Dick Durbin on it yesterday, comparing it to the Ruth
Bader Ginsburg disaster, and he let Durbin dig and dig
some more, and Durbin said he wants to treat Feinstein
quote fairly. I want to be sensitive to her family
situation and her personal situation. I don't want to say
that she's going to have to be put under more
pressure than others have been in the past. But the
(17:50):
bottom line is the business of the Committee and of
the Senate is affected by her absence. I will say
this again, if one absenceee Republican vote, we're keeping a
Republican Senate Judiciary chairman from subpoena ing Sonia Soto mayor
or some other liberal justice, you'd suddenly find out that
metaphorically or literally, that missing Republican senator had fallen out
(18:13):
a window. Durbin added that he has again asked John
Roberts to pretty please do something about Supreme Court ethics,
you know, like start having some So I'm just minding
(18:40):
my business, walking down my street with one of my
dogs on Friday night, and here coming the other way.
The fired NBC news chief who once gave Megan Kelly
sixty nine million dollars, coming up first time for the
Daily round Up with the misgrants, morons and Dunnan Kruger
effect specimens who constitute today's Where's Person's in the world,
(19:00):
the Bronze to Congress, and Jim Geez. Still nobody's asked
me whether I beat up my college girlfriend Comber and
Senator Chuck world's oldest tweeter Grassley. They have Ballyhood, a
supposed FBI whistleblower document detailing some huge quote bliden crime unquote.
Turns out it's the Barisma crap all over again. Comber
(19:24):
was so worked up about it that he accused the
Bidens of trying to intimidate him because a plane flew
over the Kentucky Derby on Saturday trailing a banner bringing
up the allegations about what Comber did to his college girlfriend.
But Grassley lost the plot Somewhere along the line. Grassley
went on Newsmax and basically admitted the whole whistleblower story
(19:44):
could be nonsense. Quote. It's a very serious delegation, Senny.
I wish I could say that I knew it was
true or untrue. The old advertising tagline would seem to
apply here. You ever get the feelings some people just
stop trying runner up Another Senator, Ted Cruz, the congressman
(20:04):
from the t Exus thirty second and former linebacker of
the Tennessee Titans, Colin Allred, declared his candidacy for the
Democratic nomination to oppose Cruise to the Senate seat, and
you might say it's thrown Ted. He immediately tried to
fundraise off it by texting supporters that Allread voted with
Nancy Pelosi one hundred percent of the time, and he's
far left, and he doesn't represent and and and then
(20:27):
there's a mashed up picture in cruises fundraising text that
shows him seeming to lecture a bespectacled African American man.
And there's only one problem. The guy in the picture
is not Congressan Allread, it's Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Hard to tell here either, Ted is too stupid to
tell the difference between Bragg and Allred where he did
(20:49):
this deliberately and he thinks Texas voters are too stupid.
But our winner, the long shot Republican candidate for president,
Vivek Ramaswami. And they're all kinds of problems with his
vanity campaign, first of them being he doesn't seem to
understand that a president serves under the Constitution rather than
as a kind of elected king. More immediately, though, there's
(21:10):
his Wikipedia page. Mediaite reports Ramaswami paid a Wikipedia editor
to alter it, specifically to cut out what would ordinarily
be a rather trivial detail that in twenty eleven Ramaswami
want a fellowship for New Americans given out by Paul
and Daisy Soros. Paul Soros, why would you want Paul Soros'
(21:35):
name taken out of your Wikipedia page if you're repunning
for the Republican nomination? Yep, George's brother. The problem with that,
of course, is the story about getting the story removed
from the Wikipedia page has now been put into the
Wikipedia page. Vivic Soros, Why that's Soros's name? Ramaswami, Today's
(21:57):
worst parson and the world still a head on Countdown?
Did you see those? Megan Kelly tweets declaring victory in
her bid to keep the country safe for people who
(22:17):
want to slaughter children at random. I swear twenty four
hours before them, I saw the guy who gave her
all that NBC money she's still living off of. First.
In each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog ineed
you can help. Every dog has its day to New
York and Gray is a victim of the wholesale killing
going on at the pound here the killing they promised
would stop. He is a two year old Belgian Malinois
(22:40):
fifty seven pounds. Loves people, affectionate, social with humans. Wiggley
loves toys, does not like dogs. Be him for a moment.
Imagine what it's like there inside a pound with hundreds
of dogs, and you came in terrified that he will
not instantly become better behaved without training. Is their excuse
to kill him just a week after his human dumped
(23:01):
him there He's a big, beautiful tan and white dog
who deserves training to calm him down, not death. Look
for Gray on my Twitter feeds. Your pledges to defray
the costs of a rescue to pull and train him
are his only chance of survival. I thank you, and
Gray thanks you to the number one story on the
(23:34):
Countdown and timing is everything. And twenty four hours before that,
screeching fascist Megan Kelly decided to declare that she and
the forces of the mass murder of children and the
unfettered access to weapons of war to use to put
random citizens to death on American streets had triumphs over
morality and law. Twenty four hours before she did that,
(23:57):
on Saturday night on Twitter, I walked past the idiot
who mainstreamed her at NBC, Andy Lack, as usual. I
heard Andy Lack before I saw him. I met him
first in nineteen ninety seven and spoke to him on
the phone a couple of times and realized he was
another one of those people you could hear without actually
(24:20):
using the phone. Married to this foghorn is his utter
fascination with himself. As I saw him approach from the
east as my dog and I walked from the west,
I tried to make myself small and invisible, but I
really had nothing to worry about. As usual, Andy Lack
was so absorbed with the sound of his own voice
and the brilliant points he was making that I could
(24:42):
have blasted Hello, Andy Adam through a bullhorn and he
would never have noticed. On the other hand, I noticed
again that phenomenon of his career and life, that his wife,
Betsy looks a little like every woman anchor he has
ever hired. It was Andy Lack who, in his second
(25:04):
and finally incarnation as the head of NBC News, decided
that Megan Kelly should be brought over from Fox and
given a reported sixty nine million dollars over three years.
Because I forget what he said, but the actual answer
was she looked like his wife when she was younger.
As several of my remaining friends at NBC had told me,
(25:25):
he had already demoted a couple of the minority anchors
on MSNBC to make room for women anchors he liked
who looked like his wife at various stages of her life.
He probably never heard any of the racist, stupid, moronic
things Megan Kelly had said on the air, nor any
of the warnings he had been given about here, because
(25:45):
he was always talking, talking, talking makes me look like
a mute. Back in nineteen ninety eight at MSNBC, the
little sputtering nightly news magazine show Lack had hired me
to do suddenly exploded. We went from literally seventy or
eighty thousand viewers a night in total, to a million,
(26:06):
than to a million and a half, then to two
million a night, just as long as we continued to
mention Bill Clinton and or Monica s Lewinsky. So after
a couple of months of this, I decided to quit.
I had just left the office of my new therapist,
having spent most of the hour talking about the craziest
(26:27):
person I had yet met in broadcasting, Andy Lack, the
president of NBC News, when my phone rang out on
twenty third Street in New York, and it was Andy Lack.
The background here is that the problem in short was
that we had turned my not too successful magazine show
of nineteen ninety seven into the all Bill Clinton Monica
(26:47):
Lewinsky showed nineteen ninety eight that there was not enough
new news about them. Every night did not matter. We
did at least one show a night, often too often
for two hours each. If Monica Lewinsky's lawyer said anything
more detailed than no comment, we stayed on the air
until we ran out of guests. The whole thing, including
(27:07):
television's crazed wall to wall reaction, was a carefully planned
Newt Gingrich plot in which he thought he could actually
impeach Clinton and then somehow impeach President Al Gore before
President Gore could get a new vice president confirmed, which
would mean the new new president would be Newt Gingrich.
(27:29):
So I wanted out because we were no longer just
covering this, we were participating in it. I said, let
me leave, or let me do something else, change the topic,
because I'm done. The problem was every time I said
something like I'm done, or I let my cynicism about
the story escape on the air, the ratings went up.
(27:51):
The year before, MSNBC was lucky to get one hundred
thousand viewers for one fifteen minute period a month. Now,
we were upset if we did not get a million
viewers a minute. MSNBC was actually making money, and that
was almost entirely because of my shows. So when I
wanted to quit, people like Andy Lack wanted not to
(28:11):
kill me, but to force me to stay there and
keep talking like that woman who does the news on
North Korean television. To make that possible, Andy Lack tried
everything promises that I and not Brian Williams, would be
the next anchor of NBC Nightly News once he got
rid of Tom Brokaw, more money, time off, threats, threats
(28:32):
against my family, anything except the first step towards letting
me change the show or leave it. The first step
would have been just talk to me, face to face.
That was what he was calling to talk about on
the warm afternoon of the twenty seventh of May nineteen
ninety eight. How he couldn't talk to me. It was
(28:54):
exactly as crazy as it sounds, and it underscored what
I saw that Friday evening on my dog walk. You
think I can talk, Holy cow. First, I asked Lack
if I could come into his office to talk to
him about it. He said no. I asked him if
we could talk about it on the phone. At some
point he said no. Then he proceeded to talk about
(29:14):
it well, he began. If you're a calling about this
meeting of life business, if you just want to stir
the pot about how you're not satisfied with the show
at the moment, I might add, only at the moment
the nuance and subtleties of your career will I'd have
to say no, we can't meet. Of course, in saying
that I'm always available to meet with you, I love you.
But to me he paused for no discernible reason, possibly
(29:36):
in the desperate attempt to remember what he had just said.
In my mind. There now appeared at the bottom of
that news channel ticker that always goes across it that
flashed a message about not worrying about what I would
hear next, that all this was just some sort of
test of the Andy Lack emergency random thoughts warning system.
He suddenly resumed, It's just not the right time, it's premature,
(29:59):
it's too early in the process. And in saying it's
too early in the process, I'm not saying there is
a process. I'm just saying saying that there shouldn't be
a process yet, because it's just not right the right
time for this, And I don't think we've explored the
options fully for improving how you see what's happening. And
when I say we, of course I mean you and
Phil Griffin, You and Phil Griffin, because Phil's part of
this process, not to imply there is a process, but
(30:21):
rather he's just at the beginning of this situation, of
the resolution of this situation, not that this is a
situation that requires resolution necessary because I think you know,
in life, you have many times, many durations, many seasons,
many years where you might say you're unhappy or discontented
or in some way not pleased with what you're doing,
but you'll have plenty of opportunities to make changes in
the direction of your life. Obviously, not now. You made
(30:42):
these changes last year, and you committed to it, and
I committed to it, and you've done such an outstanding job,
a thoroughly outstanding job, that I can't tell you how
much we value you. And I was on Larry King
last week and Larry said to me, I love Ulderman,
and I said, I love Ulderman, and he said, I
wish I could be doing for you what He's doing
for you. And this is not that you should think
that I'm totally blowing smoke up your backside, but the
(31:03):
critical acclaim, especially the insider's critical acclaim, the people whose
opinions matter consistently rating you is the best at this
on the cutting edge, and for that matter, the ratings
have been outstanding. And I'm fully committed to you in
all senses of the word. But if you want to
talk to me about in some way changing what you're doing,
it just doesn't enter into the equation. Because things are
going so well then we're just delighted with the program.
(31:25):
And you need to understand that on my radar screen,
this isn't even on the fast track, because why should
I say to you, Look, I want to change this
completely successful show when it's been such a success and
a complete one and a runaway hit, and everybody says
to me how smoothly you've made the transition from sports,
And I can't talk to you about it because I
love you. I mean, I'm fully behind you one hundred percent,
and you have my support and my commitment and my
(31:46):
resources and they're all at your beck and call anytime
you need them or you need me. But there aren't problems,
and I love the show and the thought of tinkering
with it or adjusting it just is the farthest thing
from my mind right now. But you have to understand
I'm completely committed to you and Phil then what you're doing,
and I just can't talk to you about it now,
although the door is always open, and you know you
can call me and talk to me at any time
about anything. And when I say I mean anything, I
(32:10):
don't mean this, and I can envision changing things because
I don't have to click. That was Andy Lack, the
president of NBC News, talking to me about not talking
to me about changing the Clinton Lewinsky TV marathon. It
is possible that after all these years, I did not
quote his three minute spasm of words completely accurately. But
(32:34):
if I did not, I got damned close. So the
next time Megan Kelly says something stupid or tweets something stupid,
and it's got to be soon, she's due, just remember,
don't just blame her spread it around. Blame the guy
who stuck her on an actual television network with a reputation,
(32:56):
Andy Lack, and say your criticisms of Andy Lack as
loud as you want, because just remember he he's going
to keep talking and he'll never hear a word of it.
(33:24):
I've done all the damage I can do. Here. Here
are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillips Shanelle. The
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman
(33:47):
theme from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Larry David. That little husk in my voice
is courtesy of a springtime allergy attack here in New York,
and everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
(34:07):
countdown for this the eight hundred and fifty third day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States, do not forget to keep
arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Until then on Keith Olberman, good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(34:39):
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. The
first girl I walked up to was crouched down, covering
(00:26):
her head in the bushes, so I felt for a pulse,
pulled her head to the side, and she had no face. Alan,
Texas Saturday. We live now in a society where our
children are randomly put to death in public so that
(00:46):
our Republican congressman can smilingly pose for Christmas cards while
they hold weapons of mass murder which they can barely lift.
And after this past weekend, we live now in a
society where the sacrifice of these children at adults as well,
is melding with right wing tear rorism. The shooter in Allen,
(01:06):
Texas wore a patch with a symbol standing for right
wing death Squad, and his social media history is filled
with white supremacists and Nazi posts. And the motive of
the creature who then drove a car into a bus
stop in front of a Texas shelter filled with immigrants
yesterday needs far less analysis. Why it's almost as if
(01:28):
people acted on the imaginary terrors. Fox quote news unquote
has been selling them for years, selling them for decades,
selling them for every day of its existence. We live
now in a society where we ban books that the
exploitative cynical Republicans venomously insist can harm children, Where we
(01:52):
ban drag shows that the exploitative cynical Republicans moronically insist
can harm children. Where we banned doctors from helping kids
in crisis that the exploitative cynical Republicans manipulatively insists can
arm children. But we do not ban assault weapons. And
we do not ban television channels and streaming services and
(02:14):
websites that endlessly beckon the evil to stochastic terrorism on
behalf of white supremacy. We ban people from voting because
Republicans don't like how they're going to vote. We ban
representatives from state legislatures because Republicans don't like how they
have voted. We ban immigrants, and we ban some stem cells.
(02:37):
And we ban transgender athletes as if the women's Olympic
team consisted only of them. We ban water bottles on
planes because twenty years ago a Republican told us some
terrorists were planning to mix fluids during flights to blow
up planes. But we do not ban assault weapons because
(02:57):
Republicans will tell you bans don't work. Our children are
randomly put to death in public in order to protect
somebody's right to randomly put other innocent people to death
(03:19):
in public. Once a month, once a week, once a day.
Our citizens are randomly put to death in public to
protect a right to own guns that does not exist,
a right to own guns in an amendment to the Constitution,
(03:41):
an amendment that does not have the word own in it,
nor any synonym for own in it. And when it
becomes unmistakably obvious that with each child murdered to protect
Republicans right to kill other children to come, we, the
ones who did not die in Texas Saturday or Sunday,
(04:02):
are absorbing psychological trauma after psychological trauma. When it becomes
unmistakably obvious that with each death, a little piece of
us dies inside, and within ten years or one year
or one month, the pain of that is too large
to continue to process it, we simply pretend it doesn't
(04:24):
hurt anymore. We simply pretend it doesn't hurt to think
of the horror and the terror of those children and
those adults in their final moments, we simply stop dealing
with it, or fighting back against it, or recognizing that
the viscera and the brains on the sidewalks outside the
malls of America might as well be our own. And
when it turns out, the good guys with guns can't
(04:46):
stop it, and the responsible gun owners can't stop it,
and the Democrats can't stop it, and the Republicans won't
stop it, and the Republicans, like the local congressman Keith's self,
insists thoughts and prayers are working, and if you disagree
with him, you are one of the quote people that
don't believe in an almighty God who is absolutely in
(05:08):
control of our lives. That translates insanely as this solution
to all of these nightmares. God wanted the thirteen thousand,
nine hundred people shot to death in this country already
this year. He wanted them dead, and now the cops
can't stop it. So the cops simply hold a news
(05:32):
conference at which they take no questions and blandly congratulate
themselves and deal disdainfully with the victims and the implications,
and without emotion, they read off the number of those
put to death this time, and the number transported to hospitals,
and how badly they feel, and you realize that they
now treat the public execution of nine more of us
(05:57):
as if it was bad weather. Gun mass are bad weather. Hurricanes, tornadoes,
flash floods, mudslides, wildfires, children randomly put it to death
by guns in public. It is all the same now
to them, it is all inevitable, it is all unavoidable,
(06:18):
It is all uniquely, necessarily, permanently American. It is weather.
Ban licenses to carry handguns in Texas, and effectively ban
mental health care in Texas by cutting two hundred and
eleven million dollars out of the budget, and ban abortion
because we're pro life, and banned books because the kids
(06:39):
are too precious to be indoctrinated, and banned drag shows
because we must protect kids from grooming, and we must
make sure the kids are fine and fit and happy.
So somebody who can get a weapon of war and
every fourth or fifth day put groups of our children
to death. But at least first the children were not
polluted by books. If the thirteen thousand, nine hundred people
(07:06):
already put to death by guns in this country this
year had been murdered by people working for the Mexican
drug cartels, what would the Republicans have been willing to
do about the guns. Well, we saw that Marjorie Taylor
Green combined her unique gifts of ethnic hatred and prejudice
to assume that that's what the Hispanic last name of
(07:27):
the Allen shooter must have meant. When the Republicans wanted
to sell the fear that there was a terrorist around
every corner, Suddenly there were metal detectors outside every sports stadium,
just in case somebody tried to bring in a gun,
and outside every political event, just in case somebody tried
to bring in a gun, and with not a minute's
worth of self reflection or appreciation of the irony, suddenly
(07:50):
you could not bring a gun into the meeting of
the NRA. There is overwhelming support in this country for
four simple steps that will at least reduce this transformation
of mass murder into bad weather. Eighty percent believe in
(08:13):
banning assault weapons eighty percent. Eighty one percent believe in
raising the age to buy all guns or keeping the
age at twenty one. Eighty one percent believe in rigorously
enforcing existing gun laws, and eighty seven percent want background
checks for all gun purchasers. And these numbers are from
(08:37):
two weeks ago in a poll done by Fox. And
none of it can pass a Republican House of Representatives
populated with whores bought and sold by the gun and
death lobby. And since none of it can pass a
Republican House of Representatives and the whores therein, this falls
to the President of the United States. It was Senator
(09:00):
Elizabeth Warren who observed that executive orders alone could broaden
the re requirement for background checks for virtually every gun buyer,
and to report multiple purchases, and to raise the minimum
aged by a gun, and to increase prosecution for gun
trafficking across that Texas border, and to revoke the license
of gun dealers who break the laws, and to investigate
(09:23):
and prosecute the NRA, and to keep guns out of
the hands of any domestic abuser. That's just what any
president could do today. And if a court blocks your orders,
mister presidents, issue another order, issue another twenty issue, another
two thousand of them, issue two million of them. Let
the NRA and let the Congress, and let the courts
(09:45):
be waiting knee deep in your executive orders. And if
that is still not enough, mister president, if the Attorney
General of Texas confesses, as he did last year, that
he cannot enforce the gun laws on the books. You
have to do with Eisenhower and Kennedy and and Johnson
(10:05):
did when other states attorneys generals and governors confess that
they could not or would not enforce the laws about integration,
you send in troops to enforce those laws for the
states that cannot do it themselves. And first and foremost,
mister President, stopped dancing around the truth. Thoughts and prayers
(10:27):
and thanks for the first responders are very nice, and
they are irrelevant. They contribute to the sense that this
is just bad weather. The little girl in Allen, Texas,
the little girl and the little boy, and the other
little girl, and the other little boy, and the other
little girl and the other little boy, and all of
(10:50):
them in Uvaldi, Texas, and the people just out for
a Saturday night in a place they considered their haven
in Colorado, and all the others thirteen thousand, nine hundred
this year, they, mister President, were killed directly or stochastically
by Republicans. Say that use the powers of your presidency
(11:17):
to state these truths and give them legitimacy and moral force.
When Republicans come out while they are still removing the
dismembered bodies of the people the Republicans have decided are
suitable to be hunted in this country. And when Republicans
vomit nonsensical excuses claiming that this happened because God wanted
(11:41):
it and any way a hero cop stopped it, or
it could have been worse, or the school didn't have
high enough fences, or because the target was not hard enough,
or the outright lie and say, if they'd only had
a cop in this school in Texas or that school
in Texas, or that mall in Texas, or that house
in Texas, or every street corner in Texas when the
cops of Evaldi stood and watched, or the outright lie
(12:04):
and say, if only there's been a good guy with
a gun in that supermarket in Buffalo when there was
a retired cop with a gun inside and he was
killed too, or when they outright lie and say if
only there'd been a cop in the Club Q in
Colorado Springs when the shooter was stopped by an unarmed
man who grabbed the gun from his hand and hit
him with it. When they lie, when the Republicans lie
(12:27):
about this when the Republicans make you feel as if
this is the weather and there is nothing to do
about it. When they lie about it. President Biden, say it.
The little girl in Texas Saturday, the Republicans murdered her.
Say it, mister President. It will not change until you
(12:51):
do so. Still ahead on this edition of Countdown, once again,
Dick Durbin has resolved the Clarence Thomas scandal. This time
(13:12):
he has asked Chief Justice Roberts extra nicely to resolve
it for him. Tucker Carlson has a plan to burn
down Fox, as I've noted here previously, Fox has a
plan to burn down Tucker Carlson, as mel Brooks once
noted in a different context. Get your marshmallows on your sticks,
but don't everybody rush at them all at once and
put them out. We want to enjoy this fire. And
(13:35):
if you think the Meghan Kelly approach to the mass
murders was reprehensible, consider the idiot who put her on
NBC News in the first place. I had to consider
him because I ran into him this weekend, the Andy
Lack story in things I promised not to tell. That's next.
(13:56):
This is Countdown. This is countdown with Keith Opleman postscripts
to the news Dateline, New York. The judge and E
Gene Carroll's rape and defamation case gave Trump until five
(14:18):
pm yesterday to testify or get off the pot. Since
the judge heard nothing from Trump nor his lawyer, Joey Tax,
so much for the threat to return from Scotland to
quote confront her. No surprise, as usual, Trump has stayed
on the pot Dateline Washington. Trump has more to worry about.
Mike Pence confirmed to the Washington Examiner that he basically
(14:40):
quoted his own book in testimony to the Special Council's
Grand Jury, and that would indicate he swore that Trump
knew in advance that none of the legal schemes to
overturn the twenty twenty election were going to work, which
would be evidence that all of the stopped the steal
fundraising by Trump was actually wire fraud. Thank you, Nancy
(15:22):
Faust and the Wall Street Journal on the same subject
puts two and two together, noting that aid Dan Scavino
testified to the Jack Smith Grand Jury for eight hours
last week, but that a lot of other Smith witnesses
are getting callbacks to go over very specific incidents in
great depth, and the paper concludes, quote Special Counsel Smith
(15:42):
is racing through a roster of interviews in his wide
ranging investigations related to former President Trump, including with Pence
and other top aids, as he contemplates filing charges. According
to people familiar with the matter, prosecutors revisiting of earlier
witness testimony points to efforts to tie up loose ends
(16:03):
dateline How eight Men fight Land, Axios reporting the Tucker
Carlson is convinced of what I told you last week
that Fox was the source of all the video and
text leaks against him, and he is planning to strike
back quote preparing to unleash allies to attack Fox in
an effort to bully the network into letting him work
for or start a right wing rival, sources close to
(16:26):
him tell Axios in the story Mother Tucker's allies, one
of whom has identified as Megan Kelly good luck with
her on your side, confirm his contract runs out at
the end of next year and he's owed north of
thirty million, and Fox is willing to pay him out,
but will force him to sit it out, and he
thinks he can get them to release him from what
(16:47):
would be a career ending time on the beat through
the twenty twenty four election, because, quoting Carlson's source, he
knows where a lot of bodies are buried and is
ready to start drawing a map. Question, wait, the plan is?
Carlson starts revealing Fox is full of evil people who
have done terror. A who doesn't know that? And B
(17:09):
what part of Fox's audience would not applaud that? And
Dateline Washington once again, this is not a game yet
Democrats are showing up to the knife fight with all
the requisites of flagged football. The Dianne Feinstein disaster on
the Senate Judiciary Committee is so obvious that even CNN's
Jake Tapper sat up and took notice. He called Chairman
(17:30):
Dick Durbin on it yesterday, comparing it to the Ruth
Bader Ginsburg disaster, and he let Durbin dig and dig
some more, and Durbin said he wants to treat Feinstein
quote fairly. I want to be sensitive to her family
situation and her personal situation. I don't want to say
that she's going to have to be put under more
pressure than others have been in the past. But the
(17:50):
bottom line is the business of the Committee and of
the Senate is affected by her absence. I will say
this again, if one absenceee Republican vote, we're keeping a
Republican Senate Judiciary chairman from subpoena ing Sonia Soto mayor
or some other liberal justice, you'd suddenly find out that
metaphorically or literally, that missing Republican senator had fallen out
(18:13):
a window. Durbin added that he has again asked John
Roberts to pretty please do something about Supreme Court ethics,
you know, like start having some So I'm just minding
(18:40):
my business, walking down my street with one of my
dogs on Friday night, and here coming the other way.
The fired NBC news chief who once gave Megan Kelly
sixty nine million dollars, coming up first time for the
Daily round Up with the misgrants, morons and Dunnan Kruger
effect specimens who constitute today's Where's Person's in the world,
(19:00):
the Bronze to Congress, and Jim Geez. Still nobody's asked
me whether I beat up my college girlfriend Comber and
Senator Chuck world's oldest tweeter Grassley. They have Ballyhood, a
supposed FBI whistleblower document detailing some huge quote bliden crime unquote.
Turns out it's the Barisma crap all over again. Comber
(19:24):
was so worked up about it that he accused the
Bidens of trying to intimidate him because a plane flew
over the Kentucky Derby on Saturday trailing a banner bringing
up the allegations about what Comber did to his college girlfriend.
But Grassley lost the plot Somewhere along the line. Grassley
went on Newsmax and basically admitted the whole whistleblower story
(19:44):
could be nonsense. Quote. It's a very serious delegation, Senny.
I wish I could say that I knew it was
true or untrue. The old advertising tagline would seem to
apply here. You ever get the feelings some people just
stop trying runner up Another Senator, Ted Cruz, the congressman
(20:04):
from the t Exus thirty second and former linebacker of
the Tennessee Titans, Colin Allred, declared his candidacy for the
Democratic nomination to oppose Cruise to the Senate seat, and
you might say it's thrown Ted. He immediately tried to
fundraise off it by texting supporters that Allread voted with
Nancy Pelosi one hundred percent of the time, and he's
far left, and he doesn't represent and and and then
(20:27):
there's a mashed up picture in cruises fundraising text that
shows him seeming to lecture a bespectacled African American man.
And there's only one problem. The guy in the picture
is not Congressan Allread, it's Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Hard to tell here either, Ted is too stupid to
tell the difference between Bragg and Allred where he did
(20:49):
this deliberately and he thinks Texas voters are too stupid.
But our winner, the long shot Republican candidate for president,
Vivek Ramaswami. And they're all kinds of problems with his
vanity campaign, first of them being he doesn't seem to
understand that a president serves under the Constitution rather than
as a kind of elected king. More immediately, though, there's
(21:10):
his Wikipedia page. Mediaite reports Ramaswami paid a Wikipedia editor
to alter it, specifically to cut out what would ordinarily
be a rather trivial detail that in twenty eleven Ramaswami
want a fellowship for New Americans given out by Paul
and Daisy Soros. Paul Soros, why would you want Paul Soros'
(21:35):
name taken out of your Wikipedia page if you're repunning
for the Republican nomination? Yep, George's brother. The problem with that,
of course, is the story about getting the story removed
from the Wikipedia page has now been put into the
Wikipedia page. Vivic Soros, Why that's Soros's name? Ramaswami, Today's
(21:57):
worst parson and the world still a head on Countdown?
Did you see those? Megan Kelly tweets declaring victory in
her bid to keep the country safe for people who
(22:17):
want to slaughter children at random. I swear twenty four
hours before them, I saw the guy who gave her
all that NBC money she's still living off of. First.
In each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog ineed
you can help. Every dog has its day to New
York and Gray is a victim of the wholesale killing
going on at the pound here the killing they promised
would stop. He is a two year old Belgian Malinois
(22:40):
fifty seven pounds. Loves people, affectionate, social with humans. Wiggley
loves toys, does not like dogs. Be him for a moment.
Imagine what it's like there inside a pound with hundreds
of dogs, and you came in terrified that he will
not instantly become better behaved without training. Is their excuse
to kill him just a week after his human dumped
(23:01):
him there He's a big, beautiful tan and white dog
who deserves training to calm him down, not death. Look
for Gray on my Twitter feeds. Your pledges to defray
the costs of a rescue to pull and train him
are his only chance of survival. I thank you, and
Gray thanks you to the number one story on the
(23:34):
Countdown and timing is everything. And twenty four hours before that,
screeching fascist Megan Kelly decided to declare that she and
the forces of the mass murder of children and the
unfettered access to weapons of war to use to put
random citizens to death on American streets had triumphs over
morality and law. Twenty four hours before she did that,
(23:57):
on Saturday night on Twitter, I walked past the idiot
who mainstreamed her at NBC, Andy Lack, as usual. I
heard Andy Lack before I saw him. I met him
first in nineteen ninety seven and spoke to him on
the phone a couple of times and realized he was
another one of those people you could hear without actually
(24:20):
using the phone. Married to this foghorn is his utter
fascination with himself. As I saw him approach from the
east as my dog and I walked from the west,
I tried to make myself small and invisible, but I
really had nothing to worry about. As usual, Andy Lack
was so absorbed with the sound of his own voice
and the brilliant points he was making that I could
(24:42):
have blasted Hello, Andy Adam through a bullhorn and he
would never have noticed. On the other hand, I noticed
again that phenomenon of his career and life, that his wife,
Betsy looks a little like every woman anchor he has
ever hired. It was Andy Lack who, in his second
(25:04):
and finally incarnation as the head of NBC News, decided
that Megan Kelly should be brought over from Fox and
given a reported sixty nine million dollars over three years.
Because I forget what he said, but the actual answer
was she looked like his wife when she was younger.
As several of my remaining friends at NBC had told me,
(25:25):
he had already demoted a couple of the minority anchors
on MSNBC to make room for women anchors he liked
who looked like his wife at various stages of her life.
He probably never heard any of the racist, stupid, moronic
things Megan Kelly had said on the air, nor any
of the warnings he had been given about here, because
(25:45):
he was always talking, talking, talking makes me look like
a mute. Back in nineteen ninety eight at MSNBC, the
little sputtering nightly news magazine show Lack had hired me
to do suddenly exploded. We went from literally seventy or
eighty thousand viewers a night in total, to a million,
(26:06):
than to a million and a half, then to two
million a night, just as long as we continued to
mention Bill Clinton and or Monica s Lewinsky. So after
a couple of months of this, I decided to quit.
I had just left the office of my new therapist,
having spent most of the hour talking about the craziest
(26:27):
person I had yet met in broadcasting, Andy Lack, the
president of NBC News, when my phone rang out on
twenty third Street in New York, and it was Andy Lack.
The background here is that the problem in short was
that we had turned my not too successful magazine show
of nineteen ninety seven into the all Bill Clinton Monica
(26:47):
Lewinsky showed nineteen ninety eight that there was not enough
new news about them. Every night did not matter. We
did at least one show a night, often too often
for two hours each. If Monica Lewinsky's lawyer said anything
more detailed than no comment, we stayed on the air
until we ran out of guests. The whole thing, including
(27:07):
television's crazed wall to wall reaction, was a carefully planned
Newt Gingrich plot in which he thought he could actually
impeach Clinton and then somehow impeach President Al Gore before
President Gore could get a new vice president confirmed, which
would mean the new new president would be Newt Gingrich.
(27:29):
So I wanted out because we were no longer just
covering this, we were participating in it. I said, let
me leave, or let me do something else, change the topic,
because I'm done. The problem was every time I said
something like I'm done, or I let my cynicism about
the story escape on the air, the ratings went up.
(27:51):
The year before, MSNBC was lucky to get one hundred
thousand viewers for one fifteen minute period a month. Now,
we were upset if we did not get a million
viewers a minute. MSNBC was actually making money, and that
was almost entirely because of my shows. So when I
wanted to quit, people like Andy Lack wanted not to
(28:11):
kill me, but to force me to stay there and
keep talking like that woman who does the news on
North Korean television. To make that possible, Andy Lack tried
everything promises that I and not Brian Williams, would be
the next anchor of NBC Nightly News once he got
rid of Tom Brokaw, more money, time off, threats, threats
(28:32):
against my family, anything except the first step towards letting
me change the show or leave it. The first step
would have been just talk to me, face to face.
That was what he was calling to talk about on
the warm afternoon of the twenty seventh of May nineteen
ninety eight. How he couldn't talk to me. It was
(28:54):
exactly as crazy as it sounds, and it underscored what
I saw that Friday evening on my dog walk. You
think I can talk, Holy cow. First, I asked Lack
if I could come into his office to talk to
him about it. He said no. I asked him if
we could talk about it on the phone. At some
point he said no. Then he proceeded to talk about
(29:14):
it well, he began. If you're a calling about this
meeting of life business, if you just want to stir
the pot about how you're not satisfied with the show
at the moment, I might add, only at the moment
the nuance and subtleties of your career will I'd have
to say no, we can't meet. Of course, in saying
that I'm always available to meet with you, I love you.
But to me he paused for no discernible reason, possibly
(29:36):
in the desperate attempt to remember what he had just said.
In my mind. There now appeared at the bottom of
that news channel ticker that always goes across it that
flashed a message about not worrying about what I would
hear next, that all this was just some sort of
test of the Andy Lack emergency random thoughts warning system.
He suddenly resumed, It's just not the right time, it's premature,
(29:59):
it's too early in the process. And in saying it's
too early in the process, I'm not saying there is
a process. I'm just saying saying that there shouldn't be
a process yet, because it's just not right the right
time for this, And I don't think we've explored the
options fully for improving how you see what's happening. And
when I say we, of course I mean you and
Phil Griffin, You and Phil Griffin, because Phil's part of
this process, not to imply there is a process, but
(30:21):
rather he's just at the beginning of this situation, of
the resolution of this situation, not that this is a
situation that requires resolution necessary because I think you know,
in life, you have many times, many durations, many seasons,
many years where you might say you're unhappy or discontented
or in some way not pleased with what you're doing,
but you'll have plenty of opportunities to make changes in
the direction of your life. Obviously, not now. You made
(30:42):
these changes last year, and you committed to it, and
I committed to it, and you've done such an outstanding job,
a thoroughly outstanding job, that I can't tell you how
much we value you. And I was on Larry King
last week and Larry said to me, I love Ulderman,
and I said, I love Ulderman, and he said, I
wish I could be doing for you what He's doing
for you. And this is not that you should think
that I'm totally blowing smoke up your backside, but the
(31:03):
critical acclaim, especially the insider's critical acclaim, the people whose
opinions matter consistently rating you is the best at this
on the cutting edge, and for that matter, the ratings
have been outstanding. And I'm fully committed to you in
all senses of the word. But if you want to
talk to me about in some way changing what you're doing,
it just doesn't enter into the equation. Because things are
going so well then we're just delighted with the program.
(31:25):
And you need to understand that on my radar screen,
this isn't even on the fast track, because why should
I say to you, Look, I want to change this
completely successful show when it's been such a success and
a complete one and a runaway hit, and everybody says
to me how smoothly you've made the transition from sports,
And I can't talk to you about it because I
love you. I mean, I'm fully behind you one hundred percent,
and you have my support and my commitment and my
(31:46):
resources and they're all at your beck and call anytime
you need them or you need me. But there aren't problems,
and I love the show and the thought of tinkering
with it or adjusting it just is the farthest thing
from my mind right now. But you have to understand
I'm completely committed to you and Phil then what you're doing,
and I just can't talk to you about it now,
although the door is always open, and you know you
can call me and talk to me at any time
about anything. And when I say I mean anything, I
(32:10):
don't mean this, and I can envision changing things because
I don't have to click. That was Andy Lack, the
president of NBC News, talking to me about not talking
to me about changing the Clinton Lewinsky TV marathon. It
is possible that after all these years, I did not
quote his three minute spasm of words completely accurately. But
(32:34):
if I did not, I got damned close. So the
next time Megan Kelly says something stupid or tweets something stupid,
and it's got to be soon, she's due, just remember,
don't just blame her spread it around. Blame the guy
who stuck her on an actual television network with a reputation,
(32:56):
Andy Lack, and say your criticisms of Andy Lack as
loud as you want, because just remember he he's going
to keep talking and he'll never hear a word of it.
(33:24):
I've done all the damage I can do. Here. Here
are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced,
and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillips Shanelle. The
Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Shanelle. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by the
group No Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Olberman
(33:47):
theme from ESPN two, and it was written by Mitch
Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical comments by Nancy Fauss.
The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer today was
my friend Larry David. That little husk in my voice
is courtesy of a springtime allergy attack here in New York,
and everything else is pretty much my fault. So that's
(34:07):
countdown for this the eight hundred and fifty third day
since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected
government of the United States, do not forget to keep
arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow. Until then on Keith Olberman, good Morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is
(34:39):
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!