February 16, 2023 • 37 mins
EPISODE 135: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: If you're wondering if the American Political Media Industrial Complex learned something - anything - from its disastrous stenography of Donald Trump's seven-year-long assault on democracy, the answer is here, and the answer is NO. Mike Pence, who refused to testify to the 1/6 Committee because of EXECUTIVE privilege, last night said he was refusing to testify to Special Counsel Jack Smith's grand jury because of LEGISLATIVE privilege and no reporter called him on the impossibility of both things being true, or the fact that he's trying to evade testified about AN ATTEMPT TO MURDER HIM.
Getting even more whitewashing and gaslighting courtesy Robert Costa of CBS and Maggie Haberman was Nikki Haley's presidential candidacy announcement. It was barely noted that she was one of the first mainstream Republicans to sell her soul to Trump, and she then did his evil bidding at the U.N., announcing the move of the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem simply to satisfy the religious nuts who believed it was necessary before all the Jews could be converted and all the good little evangelicals can get their asses raptured.
Political Media only understands four or five story templates and still won't take sedition and fascism seriously, nor call out the "Republicans" who helped Trump and now are pretending to distance themselves from his evil. It's unconscionable, and if they're not going to call out the Pences and Haleys, I'm going to call THEM out.
B-Block (19:30) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Smith also subpoenas Mark Meadows, and the death of Raquel Welch, which requires the telling of the extraordinary Peter Cook story from his movie with her, "Bedazzled." (22:20) IN SPORTS: The day they tweet $185,000,000 signee Jacob deGrom was "clocking in," he clocked out with the all-too-familiar non-injury injury. And if your team is on a Bally Sports Network: oops, they may be going bankrupt. (25:40) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Indiana Congresswoman born in Ukraine has the nerve to compare the NewsMax/DirecTV story to totalitarianism; Same Sex couple parental rights at risk; and the two idiot Tennessee Republicans who want to rename "John Lewis Way" after Donald Trump.
C-Block (31:15) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Guiness (32:15) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I was actually asked on a New York street yesterday what the greatest thing my father ever said. So I had to explain. And explain how it then wound up coming out of Jeff Daniels' mouth on the 7th Episode of HBO's "Newsroom."
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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.
If you are wondering if the American political media industrial
(00:25):
complex has learned something, anything, anything at all from its
disastrous stenographic coverage of Donald Trump and his seven years
of the attempt to overthrow democracy in this country, the
answer is here, and the answer is no. Mike Pence
announced last night he is willing to go to the
Supreme Court if need be, to evade testifying to Special
(00:50):
Counsel Jack Smith because of quote separation of powers, because
Smith wants to ask him about January six and on
January six, Pence was acting as President of the Senate.
So Pence claims legis slative immunity and says it will
be wrong to quote establish a precedent where a legislative
(01:11):
official would be called into court by an executive branch. Curiously,
none of the coverage of Pence's statement mentions a it's
complete bullshit, nor specifically be When Pence evaded testifying to
the January sixth committee, he claimed executive immunity and said
(01:34):
it would be wrong for quote the Congress to summon
a vice President of the United States to speak about
deliberations that took place at the White House, and thus
nobody reported that c having already claimed legislative immunity and
privilege and executive immunity and privilege, Pence has now claimed
(01:56):
every privilege except white privilege and give him some time.
The American political media industrial complex therefore all to ignore
d Mike Pence is trying to evade testifying about an
attempt to murder him. American political reporters forget with extraordinary
consistency that they are Americans and that when they go
(02:19):
home for the night, they have to live in America,
in the country that is created in large part because
they will not say that wholier than thou con men
like Mike Pence are smarmy, self contradicting bastards. Reporters deliberately
suppress the reality that outcomes and moral force matter just
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as much, if not more, than stenography. This was writ
even larger when Nicki Haley announced her presidential candidacy yesterday,
and the most prominent political reporters of this country promptly
announced that they will never, ever ever address the only
possible newsworthiness and relevance to her vanity campaign, that she
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is the first of the Trump collaborators, the first of
his good Germans to actually try to succeed him, while
simultaneously pretending she had distanced herself from his evil, and
also pretending she and all the others who served him
did not forfeit for all time their right to hold
any seat of power or responsibility in the government of
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a democracy that Trump, with their help, tried to destroy.
The American political media will never ever ever call her
what she was. Part of a Republican party without guts,
without spines, without principles, without effect, which once it saw
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Trump would win the nomination and maybe even the election,
willingly hoard itself out to Trump and tried to bury
its past brief, fleeting unsuccessful problematic stance against his corruption,
against his fascism, against his personal loathsomeness. Nicki Haley and
the others were the central part of the vc GOP
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who in two thousand, seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and
twenty did Trump's bidding and ignored and covered up and
shrugged off his ever increasing insanity and incitement and rabid
hatred of all that which is truly American. And still
none of that fits the four or five cubby holes
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and story templates that the American political media can understand
and process and into which it has trying to stuff
every event and every politician it has covered for the
last forty years. The evidence that everything some of us
thought might have been learned in fact has been lost
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was supplied by a thirteen tweet thread from the Haley
announcement by Robert Costa, who rather inexplicably is the chief
election and campaign correspond for CBS News. This is nothing
against Costa. Like most of his contemporaries, he has not
suited for his job. He has no particular reporting or
television skills, and he no more understands the world around
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him than an Amazon parrot taught to memorize the names
of the one senators would. I don't know him, I've
never met him. I don't think he's any worse than
anybody else. And that's the problem. Costa sent out his
thirteen tweets that indicate that the Nicki Haley's of this
world are going to get away with it. They're going
(05:37):
to be treated in three and four as if they
did not be trade democracy in two thousand, sixteen and
seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and twenty and twenty one
and twenty two. Costa's opus, which dismisses the coup as
just another question Haley has to address somewhere on the
list behind immigration and social Security, included this Trump. Costa
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tweeted his conduct January six, his refusal to concede and
fall so he claimed fraud, and her own changing takes
on Trump over the years. Imagine von Dirkson, the last
Nazi ambassador to pre war Britain, running for president of
West Germany in nine and being asked about Hitler his conduct,
(06:22):
death camps is overthrowing democracy three, refusing to hold elections,
and his own changing takes on Hitler over the years.
That's where we are. If you somehow need to remind
yourself what is wrong with American political media. What has
been wrong with American political media since it stopped wondering
about what the politicians do for or to the country
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once they get elected and started wondering only about their
changing takes on Trump or the horse race, or polling
or endorsements or who's paneling this week on Meet the Press. Well,
if you've forgotten any of that, Costa provides that reminder.
The threat never mentions her hypocrisy, her lack of character,
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her opportunism, her servitude to this scum Trump I mean
to America. Nicki Haley is defined by her willingness to oppose,
then support, then fallen over, then defer to, then insists
she would never run against Trump formination. If we need
a fresh reminder of that. Her first big endorsement for
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president yesterday came from Congressman Ralph Norman of Oklahoma, who
won January, texted Mark Meadows that Trump had to become
dictator immediately. Quote our last hope is invoking martial law.
Please urge to President to do so. And of course
this fascist moron misspelled Marshal and in the coverage not
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only didn't Costa mention Little Ralphie's sedition, he didn't even
mention Little Ralphie himself, nor the endorsement. Much as the
Robert Costas of this world want to pretend she is
just any former administration apparatic from any former administration, from
Dick Gebhart to Dan Quaile, she is not. Nicki Haley
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was the Ambassador to the United Nations, appointed by and
answering to Donald Trump, and did she ever answer to him.
She was the one who announced that Trump's Behest that
we would stop trying to remove Assad in Syria, and
thus we would simplify Vladimir Putin's world by or more.
She was the one who voted at Trump's Behest against
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the U n resolution condemning the death penalty in some
countries for people being gay. She was the one who
revealed at Trump's behest that he would move the US
embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which of course has never
been and never will be, anything more than a play
for the evangelicals who supported Trump and America's fascist years,
because those evangelicals believe there will be a rapture, but
(08:58):
it will only happen when all the Jews are in Jerusalem,
and then they get converted from Judaism, and oh, by
the way, the ones who don't die. Oh, and also, oh,
by the way, when the evangelicals talk about all the
Jews being in Jerusalem, they never advertised this part, but
they have two plans to make that happen. Either move
them to Jerusalem or convert or kill all the ones
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who are not in Jerusalem. Nicki Haley announced that first
part at the United Nations. If Donald Trump had started
a war somewhere, and there had been a war crimes
tribunal about the regime that ruled this country from two
thousand seventeen into two thousand twenty one. Nicki Haley would
not have been in the first group brought up on charges,
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but she would have been a defendant sooner or later.
And Robert Costa and all the others are so close
to these trees that they have no idea that there
is even a forest. Costa's Twitter spread shows that no.
The political industrial complex is so freshly rededicated to make
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king sure all its stories fit into those couple of
cubbyholes and templates, so panoramically relieved that it can stop
trying to understand issues too complicated for its own training,
like treason and sedition and conspiracy and the politics of
hatred and theocracy and threat. It's so gratified it doesn't
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have to deal with any of that complicated stuff anymore,
that it will treat the Republicans and the v C
g OP like Hailey and as if there never was
a Donald Trump, as if Hailey and Pence and all
the others were equal partners in democracy rather than the
most insipid betrayers of themselves and the people they pretended
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to represent, and their country, which, incidentally, reporters, is also
your country. Trump's attack on America did not begin on
January six. It began in two thousand fifteen, and it
nearly succeeded because Nick Haley and people like her and Pence,
the first line of defense folded like the French before
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Hitler in. And then they all went and asked where
they needed to go to sign up to join the administration.
Hailey and people like her could never find enough principles
nor strength, but they could always find enough rationalizations. And
when her utter lack of morals can be summed up
by people like Costa as quote, she didn't hold that
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anti Trump position as a core stance like so many Repubs.
She threw her support behind Trump and joined his administration
as if she were undecided about which salad dressing she
would get that day. When her total self interest at
a time of ballooning national crisis can be whitewashed and
gas lighted in that way, it is clear she has
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allies in the complicit media like Costa, whose core stances
are access to the candidate, scoops and maybe getting to
moderate a debate someday. I appreciate that to these quote
reporters unquote, none of what I have said makes the
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slightest sense, and that my criticisms are both astonishing and irrelevant.
I appreciate that to them, Nicki Haley's candidacy is a
story about the former U n Ambassador and the former
woman governor deciding to run for president. They must cover
this as certainly as a baseball reporter must cover the
(12:41):
signing of a free agent player who everybody else recognizes
will be useless, whose personal ethics are weak or in doubt,
whose salary is so disproportionately large that it will crash
the franchise. But the Trump acolytes who are today trying
to use the shallowness of the American political media to
declare themselves Nazis, but former Nazis. They're not just bad
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players with bad contracts. These are the players who took
bribes to throw the game. Nicky Haley and the others
are the cheaters, the performance enhancing drug users of politics,
the domestic batterers of politics. They have, and oddly enough,
baseball writers will actually write that they would have no
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place in the game. If you were to try to
cover that players signing without mentioning any of their real
past when they showed their real selves there. Nicky Haley
worked for Trump time. If you tried to do that
in sports, you would be transferred from the sports department
over to the political desk. And again this sounds like
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it is some sort of vendetta against this guy Costa,
and it is not. The New York Times wrote a
huge piece for today's editions, nearly all of it about
Nicki Haley, headlined, They're trying to topple Trump, but they
barely utter his name. And that amazingly apropo headline is
about Haley and a couple of other would be Republican candidates.
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It is not about Times writers who composed this bilge.
In thirty three paragraphs in the New York Time, there's
one reference to Trump's efforts to end the democracy, and
thus the New York Times one reference to the fact
that Haley and Pence and all the others gave Trump
cover before or after, accessories before or after the fact.
(14:37):
And here is the one reference Nicki Hayley. The New
York Times rights left quote his administration in and making
halting efforts to criticize him after the January attack on
the Capitol unquote, yet more evidence that as we careeing
towards more mindless coverage of four campaign season, the American
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political media complex will never be accused of believing that
the ends justify the means. To these quote reporters unquote,
there are no ends. There are only means. And lastly,
it will shock you. I know that the thirty three
paragraphs of means without ends in The Times was co
(15:25):
authored by Maggie Aberman. Still ahead, Raquel Welch has died.
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It might be in bad taste, but it means that
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Raquel Welch story from the
movie they did together must be told. Baseball's first day
of spring training, and speaking of bad contracts, Jacob deGrom
of the five million dollar free agent deal with Texas.
He's not hurt, They're due is going to hold him
back a day or two, or if the Graham averages hold.
(16:13):
And this actually happened to me yesterday. I was asked
on the street what the best thing my dad ever
said was. So I had to explain, and I had
to explain how it wound up on HBO. I will
explain that to you as well in things I promised
not to tell. That's next. This is countdown. This is
(16:35):
countdown with Keith Alberman postcripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. State Line, Washington. It
is not just Jack Smith's subpoena of Mike Pence. The
Special counsel was also demanding documents and testimony now from
Trump Chief of staffed Mark Meadows. And given the number
of texts and clandestine meetings, Meadows was at the center
(16:58):
of I have some advice for him. I mean, I
am no lawyer, but my suggestion to Meadows would be
lee to Brazil. Dateline Mari Lago. Here's a twist. Trump
flamed his defeat in part on Mailian voting and ballot collection,
or as the conspiracy theorists call it, ballot harvesting. Now
he has sent fundraising emails trying to raise money to
(17:20):
fortify the Republican effort to increase mail in voting and
ballot harvesting. Dateline Guam. Unnamed US officials tell The New
York Times they think the shotdown Chinese spy balloon was
not supposed to be targeted at Idaho or the Midwest,
or anywhere else on its eventual Hindenburg like path that
(17:41):
it was supposed to overfly Guam and Hawaii, which is great,
I guess, except Guam and Hawaii are also America and
dateline Los Angeles. The actress Raquel Welch has not at
the age of eighty two at her home after what
her agent said was a brief illness, usually dismissed because
of her voluptuous figure and how much we saw of it.
(18:02):
She gave excellent performances in several movies, including Fantastic Voyage
and The Three Musketeers The Ladder of which she won
a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe
for in nine four. She was also superb in Bedazzled
the Seven Vehicle for the then team of British comedians
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. She played lust be Dazzled
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produced one of the greatest movie stories of all time.
Possibly apocryphal and maybe not appropriate for an obituary, but
there you go. As the movie was being made, they
had not decided on a title. The brilliant Peter Cook
suggested calling the film Raquel Welch mystified producers couldn't figure
(18:47):
it out. Why call the movie Raquel Welch. Finally, Cook,
in his most dead pan voice, explained that that way
theater marquees around the world would read Peter Cook and
Dudley Moore in Raquel Welch. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(19:19):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman
heyo in Sports Over the Winter. Two times Cy Young
Award winner Jacob deGrom left the New York Mets to
sign a five million dollar free agent contract with the
Texas Rangers. New York baseball fans, dyspeptic without interruption since
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the Irvington's of New Jersey stopped the Brooklyn Atlantics thirty
six game winning streak in June of eighteen sixty six,
were oddly quiet about their one time hero de Grom
departing for Arlington. That was largely because de Graham had
pitched only twenty six times in the last two seasons
due to a series of arm problems that all began
(20:03):
the same way. He's not injured, He's just got a
little sore nows he's gonna miss a start, or it's
a little bit of a strain or that just as
a precaution, want to hold him out for a couple
of days. At ten o one Central Time yesterday morning,
the Texas Rangers proudly tweeted a photo of de Gram,
their new ace, walking into their spring training facility, with
(20:24):
the caption de Gram clocking in well, and then a
couple of hours, de Gram clocked out. Now he's not injured,
says Texas Rangers boss Chris Young. It's just cold in
spring training and they want to hold him out for
a couple of days. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And if
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your local sports ball teams games are shown on one
of the Bally's regional sports networks, maybe by a transistor
radio or a TV with rabbit ears or something. Their
parent company did not make roughly a hundred forty million
dollars in interest payments due yesterday on the cash notes
keeping the company afloat, and that company declared it has
(21:15):
entered the thirty day grace period in order to better
assess its future. And this is basically a bankruptcy warning.
The entire structure of sports on television and untouchable cash
cow as recently as two or three years ago is
up in the Air Valleys has TV rights for fifty
five of the teams in the NBA, w n b A, NHL,
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and in baseball and in preseason football, And forgive me,
I meant to say that correctly, w n B A,
and even networks not affiliated with Ballet's are having financial problems.
MSG Network in New York is co owned with the
New York Rangers and the New York Knicks and Madison
Square Garden. And we've been through this a thousand times.
(21:58):
All The Rangers just left on a West coast swing,
but their television play by play team in my first Boss,
Sam Rosen, did not go with them. The Rangers game
last night was in Vancouver, the announcers Sam and Joe
mccleetti were in New York. MSG did send a radio crew,
(22:19):
but only half of the usual allotment. The only set
the play by play man, the color guy stayed home.
(22:40):
Had things I promised not to tell. In the day,
Aaron Sorkin borrowed my dad's Pitheist observation and put it
on TV first time for the daily round up of
the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The bronze Indiana Congresswoman
Victorious Sparks, who was a little late to the news
(23:03):
Max party, the one in which fascists try to take
news Max, raising its price for direct TV to carry it,
raising it from zero dollars to thirteen million dollars a year,
and direct TV saying half off. They're trying to transform
that into you know, the crucifixion. It's, quote, according mss Sparks,
(23:25):
an issue of government created, protected and subsidized monopolies turning
us into an oligarchy. If we continue on this path,
we will start resembling a totalitarian country very soon. Unquote.
Congresswoman's Sparks was born in the Soviet Union in what
is now Ukraine, which is getting bombed daily by an
(23:46):
actual totalitarian country called Russia. And for her, of all people,
to compare news Max's inability to gauge its own price
point correctly to authoritarian governments is an insult to every
Ukrainian American like me. Congress Woman shut up. The runner
(24:07):
up Oklahoma District Judge Lynn McGuire, who has ruled that
Chris Williams has lost parenting rights to see the son
she had with her then wife, Rebecca Wilson. You know
who does now have parenting rights according to Judge McGuire,
the sperm donor. You heard me. The sperm donor is
a guy named Harlan Vaughan, and he is who Chris
(24:28):
Williams and Rebecca Wilson went to when they wanted to
have a child. Since then, Rebecca Wilson has moved in
with the sperm donor and she and Harlan Mr Sperm
claimed Chris Williams was abusive and they want the court
to get her parenting rights revoked and assigned to the
guy who brought the sperm. The judge has agreed. And
(24:52):
if you don't think this is going to be used
as a precedent to start taking parental rights away from
same sex couples, you're still asleep. But our winners Tennessee lawmakers,
Senators Frank Nicely and Representative Paul Cherrell. They want to
rename a portion of a street in Nashville after Trump.
I want to call it President Donald Trump Boulevard. Presumably
(25:13):
it would go nowhere. Now neither of them represent Nashville,
But because state lawn Tennessee supersedes local ordinances, these two
yokels believe they have the final word on what the
streets in Nashville shall be called, and they want that
portion named for Trump. And if that's not offensive enough,
since it doesn't say run in front of the County Jail.
The street they want to call President Donald Trump Boulevard
(25:37):
is currently part of the place known as John Lewis Way,
after the Congressman, after my friend, the late John Lewis,
John Lewis Way, which contains several of the lunch counters
at which Lewis first protested. Tennessee Republicans Frank Nicely and
Paul Scharrell. How about this stretch of Amy Lynn Drive
(25:59):
out near Tune Airport, how about you name that after Trump?
You know where the guard arbage dump is. Nicely and
Cherrell Today's worst persons and still ahead on countdown. So
(26:24):
while I'm walking the dogs today looking for Flacco, I
get stopped by a young lady and we somehow start
talking about my dad and the best thing he ever said.
And I had to explain not only what it was
and what it meant, but how it wound up. On
the seventh episode of the HBO series Newsroom, starring Jeff
Daniels Things I promised not to tell. Next, first, speaking
(26:46):
of dogs, In each addition of Countdown, we feature a
dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day.
Good news, Joy was rescued. Her sister Easy is at
a foster, which is good news too. Now to Guinness,
who for three years has been a foster with special
needs Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation SNAr North the they help
him recover from being shot in the head, and then
(27:08):
a couple of weeks ago the foster family noticed he
was off balance. They m r eyed him. It's brain
cancer and as terrible as it sounds, there's no cancer
anywhere else in his body, and dogs handle targeted radiation
way better than humans do. The neurologists believe they can
stop the tumor even reverse its growth, and give him
a good life. The fundraiser Forgiveness Guinness with One End,
(27:30):
is on Giving Grid. You can find him there or
on my Twitter feeds. I thank you, and Guinness, thanks you.
Finally our number one story in the Countdown Things I
Promised not to tell And back to my favorite topic, me.
(27:51):
I heard Jeff Daniels say the words, and in the
next minute my cell phone rang it was an ex girlfriend.
While we were talking, an email arrived from another ex girlfriend,
and then in came at text from the current girlfriend
at her folks house, then two more emails, and before
I was off the phone, two voicemails, and then regular
friends started to contact me. This is just over ten
(28:13):
years ago now. Was Sunday, August five, two thousand twelve,
Jeff Daniels was playing the controversial newscaster and commentator on
Aaron Sorkin's HBO series Newsroom, which was based structurally on
Me and Countdown. And I know this because Aaron Sorkin
told me so before he filmed any of it. And
I know this because he asked me if he could
(28:36):
base the pilot episode on what happened to me at
MSNBC in the spring and summer of two thousand ten.
And I know this because he came in and shadowed
the staff of Countdown for two days to get the
feel for the place. And I know this because he
wound up basing one character, Maggie Jordan's on my assistant,
Margaret Judson, and then hiring Margaret Judson as a consultant,
(28:59):
and then hiring her as an actress to play a
part that wasn't supposed to be her, and I know
this because he was furious when I would not fly
to Denver. I think it was to do a cameo
in the pilot. And I know this because he said
he was hiring me as a consultant. And I know
this because I never saw a dime out of it.
This was the second time Aaron Sorkin had based one
(29:20):
of his TV series on one of my TV series.
The other was called Sports Night, and Esquire Magazine once
asked me to interview Sorkin about Sports Night, and I
asked him the real tough question, what was the origin
of Sports Night? And his answer was, quote, you are
the origin. So when The New York Times had called
(29:40):
me about Newsroom, I lightheartedly said it was nice to
know in advanced this time that Aaron Sorkin was making
a TV series about me. Sorkin did not like this
at all, and he told all his actors to tell
all their interviewers that this was not true. And I
know that because Jeff Daniels told me that that was
what Sorkin had told him. Sorkin is interesting. I had
(30:04):
known him for about ten or twelve years when he
came into countdown to see what it looked and felt like,
and he was twenty minutes late. And my assistant Margaret
after whom he named Maggie Jordan's, whom he then hired
away from me, and when he finally hired as an
actress to play Tess Weston, and she was great by
the way. Margaret brings him in and he apologizes for
being late, and he says he's staying in a hotel
(30:26):
two blocks away, and he should have just walked, but
instead he got in a car, and the next thing
he knew, he was six blocks away, caught in traffic
caused by the complete shutdown of one of the crosstown
streets for mid day construction. And I laughed and I said, well,
like my late father, the architect used to say, New York,
it'll be a great town whenever they finish it. And
(30:47):
he laughed, and I laughed. And two years later, in
the seventh episode of the HBO Newsroom series first aired
on August five, two twelve, and reaired throughout the week,
Jeff Daniels as the anchorman Will McAvoy, who wasn't me
but actually kind of was me. He is late to
his newsroom because he gets caught in Manhattan traffic caused
(31:09):
by Sunday night street construction, and he says to his
exasperated producer, New York, it'll be a great town whenever
they finish it. That's when my phone and email blew up,
and the then girlfriend, and like forty of all of
my exes ever all had the same question, New York,
It'll be a great town whenever they finish it. Isn't
(31:31):
that what your dad used to say? Even the ones
who never met my dad knew this because I used
to quote him constantly, because the real humor in the
quote is the fact that my dad was an architect
and construction was his business. New York, It'll be a
great town whenever they finish it. And then one of
the last of the x is reached out. She waited
(31:52):
until the show was over. Now, I don't think any
of us is proud of this, but she had also
dated Sorkin once or twice, and since she had written
celebrity stories for a New York newspaper, he had later
asked her by email what the world of gossip reporting
was like, and she told him by email, and what
she now told me made Aaron Sorkin's use of my
(32:15):
dad's quote and other parts of my life seemed like
possible coincidences. She said. She was watching the third, maybe
fourth episode of Newsroom, and in walked a new character,
a gossip columnist, a woman, and the first sentence the
character said was my friend. And Ex said word for
word something she had sent to Sorkin in one of
(32:36):
the emails about the gossip business. She said, when she
heard it, her face started to get read, and it
would keep getting reader. The gossip columnist character's second line
had also been cut and pasted from my ex's email,
then her long speech, then all of her dialogue. She
said in her second scene, my ex actually managed to
record that episode and to find her own email to
(32:58):
Sorkin and to compare them. And she said, other than
changing a couple of tenses, he had used her answers
verbat him. I met the actor Josh Charles during the
two thousand World Series. I was there anchoring it for
Fox Sports. Josh was there promoting his new show on Fox.
Josh had played Dan Rydell on Sorkin's Sports Night series,
(33:20):
and even Sorkin and I agreed dan Rydell is just
me with a different haircut. I was walking up sixth
Avenue one day in October two thousand and from several
blocks away, I saw Josh Charles walking towards me, so
I had several minutes to prepare what I could say
to him. This was not spontaneous, sadly, but after our
(33:41):
eyes met and I smiled, and he gave me that yes,
I'm on TV. Look that I recognized and have myself deployed.
He switched suddenly to shock and even a little apprehension,
and I said the line I had been rehearsing in
my head for several minutes. Excuse me. You don't get
to say this often in life, But didn't you used
(34:01):
to play me on TV? Right there on six to
then you? Josh told me about the ordeal of working
with and for Aaron Sorkin, and I thought he just
met for actors, but I later found out because New York,
it'll be a great town whenever they finish it. Josh
and I are still friends. We've got two ball games together.
We were in a fantasy baseball league together, and one
(34:22):
night on my ESPN two show, we came back from
commercial giving the audience no warning or explanation, and we
simply started co anchoring the show and calling it Sports
Night and making references to the program and to Newsroom.
And then he said, why did we keep reading this?
And I said, I don't know. I just assumed Sorkin
had run out of new ideas. The mutual laughter that
(34:44):
followed was sincere, there is one more punchline to the
Newsroom Sorkin story, because I was like his seventh guest ever.
When Stephen Colbert wrapped up the Colbert Report on Comedy Central,
I was invited to be on the final farewell episode,
me and like nine other people. They're were so many
(35:05):
of us, ranging from Barry Manilow to Brian Cranston to
Big Bird, that they had like nine green rooms in
the Comedy Central building. And I get there and they
send me to the green room I would be sharing
with several other people. And I trudge up a bunch
of stairs to the top floor and in this big
room there is only one other performer there yet it's
(35:25):
Jeff Daniels. Without saying hello, he says, now, wait, let
me explain, Sorkin told me, and I explained, and then
he explained, and then I explained some more and Jeff said,
oh a lot, and once he said oops, and Sarkin
didn't tell me that. And after about three minutes he said,
(35:47):
so I owe you an apology and I said, no,
you don't. It's not your fault. And he smiled and
he said, well great, I'm glad. So can we take
a picture together that I can put out on Twitter?
And I said, yeah, absolutely, but only if you captured
in it New York. It'll be a great on whenever
they finish it. Countdown has come to you from the
(36:20):
studios of Alderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters in the Sports
Capsule Building in New York. Thank you for listening. Here
are the credits. Most of the music, including our theme
Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by John Philip
Shanelle and Brian Ray, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards
(36:41):
by John Philip Shanelle, produced by t k O Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections of it arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Alderman theme from
ESPN Too. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. And everything else is
(37:02):
pretty much my fault. And that is countdown for this,
the seven seventy second day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government in the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow, and until then, I'm Keith old Reman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(37:33):
Keith old Reman is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, 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.
If you are wondering if the American political media industrial
(00:25):
complex has learned something, anything, anything at all from its
disastrous stenographic coverage of Donald Trump and his seven years
of the attempt to overthrow democracy in this country, the
answer is here, and the answer is no. Mike Pence
announced last night he is willing to go to the
Supreme Court if need be, to evade testifying to Special
(00:50):
Counsel Jack Smith because of quote separation of powers, because
Smith wants to ask him about January six and on
January six, Pence was acting as President of the Senate.
So Pence claims legis slative immunity and says it will
be wrong to quote establish a precedent where a legislative
(01:11):
official would be called into court by an executive branch. Curiously,
none of the coverage of Pence's statement mentions a it's
complete bullshit, nor specifically be When Pence evaded testifying to
the January sixth committee, he claimed executive immunity and said
(01:34):
it would be wrong for quote the Congress to summon
a vice President of the United States to speak about
deliberations that took place at the White House, and thus
nobody reported that c having already claimed legislative immunity and
privilege and executive immunity and privilege, Pence has now claimed
(01:56):
every privilege except white privilege and give him some time.
The American political media industrial complex therefore all to ignore
d Mike Pence is trying to evade testifying about an
attempt to murder him. American political reporters forget with extraordinary
consistency that they are Americans and that when they go
(02:19):
home for the night, they have to live in America,
in the country that is created in large part because
they will not say that wholier than thou con men
like Mike Pence are smarmy, self contradicting bastards. Reporters deliberately
suppress the reality that outcomes and moral force matter just
(02:39):
as much, if not more, than stenography. This was writ
even larger when Nicki Haley announced her presidential candidacy yesterday,
and the most prominent political reporters of this country promptly
announced that they will never, ever ever address the only
possible newsworthiness and relevance to her vanity campaign, that she
(03:00):
is the first of the Trump collaborators, the first of
his good Germans to actually try to succeed him, while
simultaneously pretending she had distanced herself from his evil, and
also pretending she and all the others who served him
did not forfeit for all time their right to hold
any seat of power or responsibility in the government of
(03:23):
a democracy that Trump, with their help, tried to destroy.
The American political media will never ever ever call her
what she was. Part of a Republican party without guts,
without spines, without principles, without effect, which once it saw
(03:46):
Trump would win the nomination and maybe even the election,
willingly hoard itself out to Trump and tried to bury
its past brief, fleeting unsuccessful problematic stance against his corruption,
against his fascism, against his personal loathsomeness. Nicki Haley and
the others were the central part of the vc GOP
(04:11):
who in two thousand, seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and
twenty did Trump's bidding and ignored and covered up and
shrugged off his ever increasing insanity and incitement and rabid
hatred of all that which is truly American. And still
none of that fits the four or five cubby holes
(04:34):
and story templates that the American political media can understand
and process and into which it has trying to stuff
every event and every politician it has covered for the
last forty years. The evidence that everything some of us
thought might have been learned in fact has been lost
(04:55):
was supplied by a thirteen tweet thread from the Haley
announcement by Robert Costa, who rather inexplicably is the chief
election and campaign correspond for CBS News. This is nothing
against Costa. Like most of his contemporaries, he has not
suited for his job. He has no particular reporting or
television skills, and he no more understands the world around
(05:17):
him than an Amazon parrot taught to memorize the names
of the one senators would. I don't know him, I've
never met him. I don't think he's any worse than
anybody else. And that's the problem. Costa sent out his
thirteen tweets that indicate that the Nicki Haley's of this
world are going to get away with it. They're going
(05:37):
to be treated in three and four as if they
did not be trade democracy in two thousand, sixteen and
seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and twenty and twenty one
and twenty two. Costa's opus, which dismisses the coup as
just another question Haley has to address somewhere on the
list behind immigration and social Security, included this Trump. Costa
(06:00):
tweeted his conduct January six, his refusal to concede and
fall so he claimed fraud, and her own changing takes
on Trump over the years. Imagine von Dirkson, the last
Nazi ambassador to pre war Britain, running for president of
West Germany in nine and being asked about Hitler his conduct,
(06:22):
death camps is overthrowing democracy three, refusing to hold elections,
and his own changing takes on Hitler over the years.
That's where we are. If you somehow need to remind
yourself what is wrong with American political media. What has
been wrong with American political media since it stopped wondering
about what the politicians do for or to the country
(06:46):
once they get elected and started wondering only about their
changing takes on Trump or the horse race, or polling
or endorsements or who's paneling this week on Meet the Press. Well,
if you've forgotten any of that, Costa provides that reminder.
The threat never mentions her hypocrisy, her lack of character,
(07:08):
her opportunism, her servitude to this scum Trump I mean
to America. Nicki Haley is defined by her willingness to oppose,
then support, then fallen over, then defer to, then insists
she would never run against Trump formination. If we need
a fresh reminder of that. Her first big endorsement for
(07:29):
president yesterday came from Congressman Ralph Norman of Oklahoma, who
won January, texted Mark Meadows that Trump had to become
dictator immediately. Quote our last hope is invoking martial law.
Please urge to President to do so. And of course
this fascist moron misspelled Marshal and in the coverage not
(07:52):
only didn't Costa mention Little Ralphie's sedition, he didn't even
mention Little Ralphie himself, nor the endorsement. Much as the
Robert Costas of this world want to pretend she is
just any former administration apparatic from any former administration, from
Dick Gebhart to Dan Quaile, she is not. Nicki Haley
(08:14):
was the Ambassador to the United Nations, appointed by and
answering to Donald Trump, and did she ever answer to him.
She was the one who announced that Trump's Behest that
we would stop trying to remove Assad in Syria, and
thus we would simplify Vladimir Putin's world by or more.
She was the one who voted at Trump's Behest against
(08:35):
the U n resolution condemning the death penalty in some
countries for people being gay. She was the one who
revealed at Trump's behest that he would move the US
embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which of course has never
been and never will be, anything more than a play
for the evangelicals who supported Trump and America's fascist years,
because those evangelicals believe there will be a rapture, but
(08:58):
it will only happen when all the Jews are in Jerusalem,
and then they get converted from Judaism, and oh, by
the way, the ones who don't die. Oh, and also, oh,
by the way, when the evangelicals talk about all the
Jews being in Jerusalem, they never advertised this part, but
they have two plans to make that happen. Either move
them to Jerusalem or convert or kill all the ones
(09:20):
who are not in Jerusalem. Nicki Haley announced that first
part at the United Nations. If Donald Trump had started
a war somewhere, and there had been a war crimes
tribunal about the regime that ruled this country from two
thousand seventeen into two thousand twenty one. Nicki Haley would
not have been in the first group brought up on charges,
(09:42):
but she would have been a defendant sooner or later.
And Robert Costa and all the others are so close
to these trees that they have no idea that there
is even a forest. Costa's Twitter spread shows that no.
The political industrial complex is so freshly rededicated to make
(10:04):
king sure all its stories fit into those couple of
cubbyholes and templates, so panoramically relieved that it can stop
trying to understand issues too complicated for its own training,
like treason and sedition and conspiracy and the politics of
hatred and theocracy and threat. It's so gratified it doesn't
(10:29):
have to deal with any of that complicated stuff anymore,
that it will treat the Republicans and the v C
g OP like Hailey and as if there never was
a Donald Trump, as if Hailey and Pence and all
the others were equal partners in democracy rather than the
most insipid betrayers of themselves and the people they pretended
(10:49):
to represent, and their country, which, incidentally, reporters, is also
your country. Trump's attack on America did not begin on
January six. It began in two thousand fifteen, and it
nearly succeeded because Nick Haley and people like her and Pence,
the first line of defense folded like the French before
(11:11):
Hitler in. And then they all went and asked where
they needed to go to sign up to join the administration.
Hailey and people like her could never find enough principles
nor strength, but they could always find enough rationalizations. And
when her utter lack of morals can be summed up
by people like Costa as quote, she didn't hold that
(11:34):
anti Trump position as a core stance like so many Repubs.
She threw her support behind Trump and joined his administration
as if she were undecided about which salad dressing she
would get that day. When her total self interest at
a time of ballooning national crisis can be whitewashed and
gas lighted in that way, it is clear she has
(11:57):
allies in the complicit media like Costa, whose core stances
are access to the candidate, scoops and maybe getting to
moderate a debate someday. I appreciate that to these quote
reporters unquote, none of what I have said makes the
(12:20):
slightest sense, and that my criticisms are both astonishing and irrelevant.
I appreciate that to them, Nicki Haley's candidacy is a
story about the former U n Ambassador and the former
woman governor deciding to run for president. They must cover
this as certainly as a baseball reporter must cover the
(12:41):
signing of a free agent player who everybody else recognizes
will be useless, whose personal ethics are weak or in doubt,
whose salary is so disproportionately large that it will crash
the franchise. But the Trump acolytes who are today trying
to use the shallowness of the American political media to
declare themselves Nazis, but former Nazis. They're not just bad
(13:05):
players with bad contracts. These are the players who took
bribes to throw the game. Nicky Haley and the others
are the cheaters, the performance enhancing drug users of politics,
the domestic batterers of politics. They have, and oddly enough,
baseball writers will actually write that they would have no
(13:26):
place in the game. If you were to try to
cover that players signing without mentioning any of their real
past when they showed their real selves there. Nicky Haley
worked for Trump time. If you tried to do that
in sports, you would be transferred from the sports department
over to the political desk. And again this sounds like
(13:50):
it is some sort of vendetta against this guy Costa,
and it is not. The New York Times wrote a
huge piece for today's editions, nearly all of it about
Nicki Haley, headlined, They're trying to topple Trump, but they
barely utter his name. And that amazingly apropo headline is
about Haley and a couple of other would be Republican candidates.
(14:11):
It is not about Times writers who composed this bilge.
In thirty three paragraphs in the New York Time, there's
one reference to Trump's efforts to end the democracy, and
thus the New York Times one reference to the fact
that Haley and Pence and all the others gave Trump
cover before or after, accessories before or after the fact.
(14:37):
And here is the one reference Nicki Hayley. The New
York Times rights left quote his administration in and making
halting efforts to criticize him after the January attack on
the Capitol unquote, yet more evidence that as we careeing
towards more mindless coverage of four campaign season, the American
(15:02):
political media complex will never be accused of believing that
the ends justify the means. To these quote reporters unquote,
there are no ends. There are only means. And lastly,
it will shock you. I know that the thirty three
paragraphs of means without ends in The Times was co
(15:25):
authored by Maggie Aberman. Still ahead, Raquel Welch has died.
(15:46):
It might be in bad taste, but it means that
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore Raquel Welch story from the
movie they did together must be told. Baseball's first day
of spring training, and speaking of bad contracts, Jacob deGrom
of the five million dollar free agent deal with Texas.
He's not hurt, They're due is going to hold him
back a day or two, or if the Graham averages hold.
(16:13):
And this actually happened to me yesterday. I was asked
on the street what the best thing my dad ever
said was. So I had to explain, and I had
to explain how it wound up on HBO. I will
explain that to you as well in things I promised
not to tell. That's next. This is countdown. This is
(16:35):
countdown with Keith Alberman postcripts to the news, some headlines,
some updates, some snarks, some predictions. State Line, Washington. It
is not just Jack Smith's subpoena of Mike Pence. The
Special counsel was also demanding documents and testimony now from
Trump Chief of staffed Mark Meadows. And given the number
of texts and clandestine meetings, Meadows was at the center
(16:58):
of I have some advice for him. I mean, I
am no lawyer, but my suggestion to Meadows would be
lee to Brazil. Dateline Mari Lago. Here's a twist. Trump
flamed his defeat in part on Mailian voting and ballot collection,
or as the conspiracy theorists call it, ballot harvesting. Now
he has sent fundraising emails trying to raise money to
(17:20):
fortify the Republican effort to increase mail in voting and
ballot harvesting. Dateline Guam. Unnamed US officials tell The New
York Times they think the shotdown Chinese spy balloon was
not supposed to be targeted at Idaho or the Midwest,
or anywhere else on its eventual Hindenburg like path that
(17:41):
it was supposed to overfly Guam and Hawaii, which is great,
I guess, except Guam and Hawaii are also America and
dateline Los Angeles. The actress Raquel Welch has not at
the age of eighty two at her home after what
her agent said was a brief illness, usually dismissed because
of her voluptuous figure and how much we saw of it.
(18:02):
She gave excellent performances in several movies, including Fantastic Voyage
and The Three Musketeers The Ladder of which she won
a Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Golden Globe
for in nine four. She was also superb in Bedazzled
the Seven Vehicle for the then team of British comedians
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. She played lust be Dazzled
(18:27):
produced one of the greatest movie stories of all time.
Possibly apocryphal and maybe not appropriate for an obituary, but
there you go. As the movie was being made, they
had not decided on a title. The brilliant Peter Cook
suggested calling the film Raquel Welch mystified producers couldn't figure
(18:47):
it out. Why call the movie Raquel Welch. Finally, Cook,
in his most dead pan voice, explained that that way
theater marquees around the world would read Peter Cook and
Dudley Moore in Raquel Welch. This is Sports Center. Wait,
(19:19):
check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman
heyo in Sports Over the Winter. Two times Cy Young
Award winner Jacob deGrom left the New York Mets to
sign a five million dollar free agent contract with the
Texas Rangers. New York baseball fans, dyspeptic without interruption since
(19:43):
the Irvington's of New Jersey stopped the Brooklyn Atlantics thirty
six game winning streak in June of eighteen sixty six,
were oddly quiet about their one time hero de Grom
departing for Arlington. That was largely because de Graham had
pitched only twenty six times in the last two seasons
due to a series of arm problems that all began
(20:03):
the same way. He's not injured, He's just got a
little sore nows he's gonna miss a start, or it's
a little bit of a strain or that just as
a precaution, want to hold him out for a couple
of days. At ten o one Central Time yesterday morning,
the Texas Rangers proudly tweeted a photo of de Gram,
their new ace, walking into their spring training facility, with
(20:24):
the caption de Gram clocking in well, and then a
couple of hours, de Gram clocked out. Now he's not injured,
says Texas Rangers boss Chris Young. It's just cold in
spring training and they want to hold him out for
a couple of days. Thank you, Nancy Faust. And if
(20:53):
your local sports ball teams games are shown on one
of the Bally's regional sports networks, maybe by a transistor
radio or a TV with rabbit ears or something. Their
parent company did not make roughly a hundred forty million
dollars in interest payments due yesterday on the cash notes
keeping the company afloat, and that company declared it has
(21:15):
entered the thirty day grace period in order to better
assess its future. And this is basically a bankruptcy warning.
The entire structure of sports on television and untouchable cash
cow as recently as two or three years ago is
up in the Air Valleys has TV rights for fifty
five of the teams in the NBA, w n b A, NHL,
(21:38):
and in baseball and in preseason football, And forgive me,
I meant to say that correctly, w n B A,
and even networks not affiliated with Ballet's are having financial problems.
MSG Network in New York is co owned with the
New York Rangers and the New York Knicks and Madison
Square Garden. And we've been through this a thousand times.
(21:58):
All The Rangers just left on a West coast swing,
but their television play by play team in my first Boss,
Sam Rosen, did not go with them. The Rangers game
last night was in Vancouver, the announcers Sam and Joe
mccleetti were in New York. MSG did send a radio crew,
(22:19):
but only half of the usual allotment. The only set
the play by play man, the color guy stayed home.
(22:40):
Had things I promised not to tell. In the day,
Aaron Sorkin borrowed my dad's Pitheist observation and put it
on TV first time for the daily round up of
the misgrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens who constitute
today's worst persons in the world. The bronze Indiana Congresswoman
Victorious Sparks, who was a little late to the news
(23:03):
Max party, the one in which fascists try to take
news Max, raising its price for direct TV to carry it,
raising it from zero dollars to thirteen million dollars a year,
and direct TV saying half off. They're trying to transform
that into you know, the crucifixion. It's, quote, according mss Sparks,
(23:25):
an issue of government created, protected and subsidized monopolies turning
us into an oligarchy. If we continue on this path,
we will start resembling a totalitarian country very soon. Unquote.
Congresswoman's Sparks was born in the Soviet Union in what
is now Ukraine, which is getting bombed daily by an
(23:46):
actual totalitarian country called Russia. And for her, of all people,
to compare news Max's inability to gauge its own price
point correctly to authoritarian governments is an insult to every
Ukrainian American like me. Congress Woman shut up. The runner
(24:07):
up Oklahoma District Judge Lynn McGuire, who has ruled that
Chris Williams has lost parenting rights to see the son
she had with her then wife, Rebecca Wilson. You know
who does now have parenting rights according to Judge McGuire,
the sperm donor. You heard me. The sperm donor is
a guy named Harlan Vaughan, and he is who Chris
(24:28):
Williams and Rebecca Wilson went to when they wanted to
have a child. Since then, Rebecca Wilson has moved in
with the sperm donor and she and Harlan Mr Sperm
claimed Chris Williams was abusive and they want the court
to get her parenting rights revoked and assigned to the
guy who brought the sperm. The judge has agreed. And
(24:52):
if you don't think this is going to be used
as a precedent to start taking parental rights away from
same sex couples, you're still asleep. But our winners Tennessee lawmakers,
Senators Frank Nicely and Representative Paul Cherrell. They want to
rename a portion of a street in Nashville after Trump.
I want to call it President Donald Trump Boulevard. Presumably
(25:13):
it would go nowhere. Now neither of them represent Nashville,
But because state lawn Tennessee supersedes local ordinances, these two
yokels believe they have the final word on what the
streets in Nashville shall be called, and they want that
portion named for Trump. And if that's not offensive enough,
since it doesn't say run in front of the County Jail.
The street they want to call President Donald Trump Boulevard
(25:37):
is currently part of the place known as John Lewis Way,
after the Congressman, after my friend, the late John Lewis,
John Lewis Way, which contains several of the lunch counters
at which Lewis first protested. Tennessee Republicans Frank Nicely and
Paul Scharrell. How about this stretch of Amy Lynn Drive
(25:59):
out near Tune Airport, how about you name that after Trump?
You know where the guard arbage dump is. Nicely and
Cherrell Today's worst persons and still ahead on countdown. So
(26:24):
while I'm walking the dogs today looking for Flacco, I
get stopped by a young lady and we somehow start
talking about my dad and the best thing he ever said.
And I had to explain not only what it was
and what it meant, but how it wound up. On
the seventh episode of the HBO series Newsroom, starring Jeff
Daniels Things I promised not to tell. Next, first, speaking
(26:46):
of dogs, In each addition of Countdown, we feature a
dog in need you can help. Every dog has its day.
Good news, Joy was rescued. Her sister Easy is at
a foster, which is good news too. Now to Guinness,
who for three years has been a foster with special
needs Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation SNAr North the they help
him recover from being shot in the head, and then
(27:08):
a couple of weeks ago the foster family noticed he
was off balance. They m r eyed him. It's brain
cancer and as terrible as it sounds, there's no cancer
anywhere else in his body, and dogs handle targeted radiation
way better than humans do. The neurologists believe they can
stop the tumor even reverse its growth, and give him
a good life. The fundraiser Forgiveness Guinness with One End,
(27:30):
is on Giving Grid. You can find him there or
on my Twitter feeds. I thank you, and Guinness, thanks you.
Finally our number one story in the Countdown Things I
Promised not to tell And back to my favorite topic, me.
(27:51):
I heard Jeff Daniels say the words, and in the
next minute my cell phone rang it was an ex girlfriend.
While we were talking, an email arrived from another ex girlfriend,
and then in came at text from the current girlfriend
at her folks house, then two more emails, and before
I was off the phone, two voicemails, and then regular
friends started to contact me. This is just over ten
(28:13):
years ago now. Was Sunday, August five, two thousand twelve,
Jeff Daniels was playing the controversial newscaster and commentator on
Aaron Sorkin's HBO series Newsroom, which was based structurally on
Me and Countdown. And I know this because Aaron Sorkin
told me so before he filmed any of it. And
I know this because he asked me if he could
(28:36):
base the pilot episode on what happened to me at
MSNBC in the spring and summer of two thousand ten.
And I know this because he came in and shadowed
the staff of Countdown for two days to get the
feel for the place. And I know this because he
wound up basing one character, Maggie Jordan's on my assistant,
Margaret Judson, and then hiring Margaret Judson as a consultant,
(28:59):
and then hiring her as an actress to play a
part that wasn't supposed to be her, and I know
this because he was furious when I would not fly
to Denver. I think it was to do a cameo
in the pilot. And I know this because he said
he was hiring me as a consultant. And I know
this because I never saw a dime out of it.
This was the second time Aaron Sorkin had based one
(29:20):
of his TV series on one of my TV series.
The other was called Sports Night, and Esquire Magazine once
asked me to interview Sorkin about Sports Night, and I
asked him the real tough question, what was the origin
of Sports Night? And his answer was, quote, you are
the origin. So when The New York Times had called
(29:40):
me about Newsroom, I lightheartedly said it was nice to
know in advanced this time that Aaron Sorkin was making
a TV series about me. Sorkin did not like this
at all, and he told all his actors to tell
all their interviewers that this was not true. And I
know that because Jeff Daniels told me that that was
what Sorkin had told him. Sorkin is interesting. I had
(30:04):
known him for about ten or twelve years when he
came into countdown to see what it looked and felt like,
and he was twenty minutes late. And my assistant Margaret
after whom he named Maggie Jordan's, whom he then hired
away from me, and when he finally hired as an
actress to play Tess Weston, and she was great by
the way. Margaret brings him in and he apologizes for
being late, and he says he's staying in a hotel
(30:26):
two blocks away, and he should have just walked, but
instead he got in a car, and the next thing
he knew, he was six blocks away, caught in traffic
caused by the complete shutdown of one of the crosstown
streets for mid day construction. And I laughed and I said, well,
like my late father, the architect used to say, New York,
it'll be a great town whenever they finish it. And
(30:47):
he laughed, and I laughed. And two years later, in
the seventh episode of the HBO Newsroom series first aired
on August five, two twelve, and reaired throughout the week,
Jeff Daniels as the anchorman Will McAvoy, who wasn't me
but actually kind of was me. He is late to
his newsroom because he gets caught in Manhattan traffic caused
(31:09):
by Sunday night street construction, and he says to his
exasperated producer, New York, it'll be a great town whenever
they finish it. That's when my phone and email blew up,
and the then girlfriend, and like forty of all of
my exes ever all had the same question, New York,
It'll be a great town whenever they finish it. Isn't
(31:31):
that what your dad used to say? Even the ones
who never met my dad knew this because I used
to quote him constantly, because the real humor in the
quote is the fact that my dad was an architect
and construction was his business. New York, It'll be a
great town whenever they finish it. And then one of
the last of the x is reached out. She waited
(31:52):
until the show was over. Now, I don't think any
of us is proud of this, but she had also
dated Sorkin once or twice, and since she had written
celebrity stories for a New York newspaper, he had later
asked her by email what the world of gossip reporting
was like, and she told him by email, and what
she now told me made Aaron Sorkin's use of my
(32:15):
dad's quote and other parts of my life seemed like
possible coincidences. She said. She was watching the third, maybe
fourth episode of Newsroom, and in walked a new character,
a gossip columnist, a woman, and the first sentence the
character said was my friend. And Ex said word for
word something she had sent to Sorkin in one of
(32:36):
the emails about the gossip business. She said, when she
heard it, her face started to get read, and it
would keep getting reader. The gossip columnist character's second line
had also been cut and pasted from my ex's email,
then her long speech, then all of her dialogue. She
said in her second scene, my ex actually managed to
record that episode and to find her own email to
(32:58):
Sorkin and to compare them. And she said, other than
changing a couple of tenses, he had used her answers
verbat him. I met the actor Josh Charles during the
two thousand World Series. I was there anchoring it for
Fox Sports. Josh was there promoting his new show on Fox.
Josh had played Dan Rydell on Sorkin's Sports Night series,
(33:20):
and even Sorkin and I agreed dan Rydell is just
me with a different haircut. I was walking up sixth
Avenue one day in October two thousand and from several
blocks away, I saw Josh Charles walking towards me, so
I had several minutes to prepare what I could say
to him. This was not spontaneous, sadly, but after our
(33:41):
eyes met and I smiled, and he gave me that yes,
I'm on TV. Look that I recognized and have myself deployed.
He switched suddenly to shock and even a little apprehension,
and I said the line I had been rehearsing in
my head for several minutes. Excuse me. You don't get
to say this often in life, But didn't you used
(34:01):
to play me on TV? Right there on six to
then you? Josh told me about the ordeal of working
with and for Aaron Sorkin, and I thought he just
met for actors, but I later found out because New York,
it'll be a great town whenever they finish it. Josh
and I are still friends. We've got two ball games together.
We were in a fantasy baseball league together, and one
(34:22):
night on my ESPN two show, we came back from
commercial giving the audience no warning or explanation, and we
simply started co anchoring the show and calling it Sports
Night and making references to the program and to Newsroom.
And then he said, why did we keep reading this?
And I said, I don't know. I just assumed Sorkin
had run out of new ideas. The mutual laughter that
(34:44):
followed was sincere, there is one more punchline to the
Newsroom Sorkin story, because I was like his seventh guest ever.
When Stephen Colbert wrapped up the Colbert Report on Comedy Central,
I was invited to be on the final farewell episode,
me and like nine other people. They're were so many
(35:05):
of us, ranging from Barry Manilow to Brian Cranston to
Big Bird, that they had like nine green rooms in
the Comedy Central building. And I get there and they
send me to the green room I would be sharing
with several other people. And I trudge up a bunch
of stairs to the top floor and in this big
room there is only one other performer there yet it's
(35:25):
Jeff Daniels. Without saying hello, he says, now, wait, let
me explain, Sorkin told me, and I explained, and then
he explained, and then I explained some more and Jeff said,
oh a lot, and once he said oops, and Sarkin
didn't tell me that. And after about three minutes he said,
(35:47):
so I owe you an apology and I said, no,
you don't. It's not your fault. And he smiled and
he said, well great, I'm glad. So can we take
a picture together that I can put out on Twitter?
And I said, yeah, absolutely, but only if you captured
in it New York. It'll be a great on whenever
they finish it. Countdown has come to you from the
(36:20):
studios of Alderman Broadcasting Empire World Headquarters in the Sports
Capsule Building in New York. Thank you for listening. Here
are the credits. Most of the music, including our theme
Beethoven's Ninth, was arranged, produced, and performed by John Philip
Shanelle and Brian Ray, who are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian Ray, All orchestration and keyboards
(36:41):
by John Philip Shanelle, produced by t k O Brothers.
Other Beethoven selections of it arranged and performed by No
Horns Allowed. The sports music is the Alderman theme from
ESPN Too. It was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN, Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was Richard Lewis. And everything else is
(37:02):
pretty much my fault. And that is countdown for this,
the seven seventy second day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government in the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next schedule
countdown is tomorrow, and until then, I'm Keith old Reman.
Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with
(37:33):
Keith old Reman is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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