March 9, 2023 • 37 mins
EPISODE 150: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: Tucker Carlson's Trump Derangement Syndrome Dance Party went into re-runs last night, then was cancelled, and then the star ran away. Carlson literally ran out of new 1/6 video and re-ran much of his Monday segment; his conspiracy theory rant went from the rage and drama of Monday to something closer than kvetchy. It ended with not a bang but a whimper.
Did Carlson sense that his schtick was less gaslight and more stomach gas and it couldn't have done more damage to himself and Fox "News" if it had planned that way? Did somebody at Fox tell him to stop? There certainly was no mistaking what Carlson did after bailing on 1/6: he had a reporter do the softest, squishiest, credulous report on Trump's promise that if elected everybody would get their own new "Freedom City" - and a flying car. The message was obvious: Trump heard about the "I hate him passionately" text and exacted retribution.
But while Carlson bailed out, America piled on. Carlson was slammed by everybody from Ben Shapiro to Joe Biden. Liz Cheney attacked the possible new investigation of the 1/6 Commission by tweeting "bring it on" and four presidential ethicists asked the House to investigate the McCarthy/MAGA Congressmen/Carlson deal.
B-Block (13:51) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Comer and Marjorie Traitor Greene are going to jail. Unfortunately we think they won't be staying. In Paste Eating news, CNN's boss tells his employees not to go for the "sugar high of ratings." He needn't worry about the ratings - there aren't any. (18:30) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Jesse Watters thinks he can arrest Dr. Fauci. A new trick in high school book-banning: just check out all copies of the book you want to shadow ban. And the Texas state legislator pushing a secession referendum also wanted the death penalty for abortions and wanted a tax break for married straight couples. Then a reporter found out the legislator seems to have gotten his wife off a website that bills itself as an alternative to "mail order brides from Thailand and the Philippines." Ooops.
C-Block (24:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Basil, in New York (25:45) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Somebody asked me the other day: "Where In The World Is Mitt Lauer?" And I said I didn't know, but I hoped it was somewhere unpleasant. Before the ugly violent stuff came out, everybody at NBC knew he was a dangerous manipulative vindictive jackass. One day I got a scoop he thought he deserved, so he tried to get me fired. We should have done more to stop him.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Tucker
Carlson's Trump Derangement Syndrome Dance Party went into reruns last
(00:27):
night and was then canceled out of sheer boredom, whereupon
its star gave up and ran away, and Carlson, clearly
terrified and no longer in control of whatever it was
he had been trying to do with the January sixth
government video he had gained illicit access to, headed for
the hills, and before you could say Kevin McCarthy wasn't watching,
(00:48):
Carlson was reduced to playing a tape of an old
interview with Russell Brand, who used to be a comedian
or something, if you want to truly go conspiracy theory
on this week. The whole force could not have done
more damage to Tucker Carlson and Fox quote news unquote
if it had been designed to do so. The further
(01:10):
Carlson went out onto that limb, the more those who
helped him out there backed away. Before the day was over,
Kevin McCarthy was again revealing he didn't even watch a
prediction here. That was the last time you will hear
about January sixth from Tucker Carlson for a long long
time for one practical thing. Carlson apparently ran out of
(01:33):
new hidden January sixth video. He literally had to show
old hidden January sixth video the exact same tape last
night of the Qan on Shaman that he ran Monday night,
right down to the exact same narration that ran Monday Night.
Carlson also gave an amazingly tedious twenty minute monologue and listen,
(01:54):
I know a tedious twenty minute monologue when I hear one,
I have given one or two of them in my life.
It was fleshed out with vague demands for apologies from
Liz Haney and Anderson Cooper. Its tone lacked all of
the drama of Monday Night's sales job, and it sunk
quickly from frightening to cetchy. And it was highlighted by
(02:15):
the epitome of self unawareness, a Tucker Carlson lecture on
how to tell when terrified small men are lying to you. Then, tellingly,
twenty eight hours after the revelation of the text in
which he said of Trump, I hate him passionately, Tucker
Carlson ran a dead serious report from poor Kevin Cork
(02:38):
gushing about Trump's recent promise that if elected, we will
all get new freedom cities and flying cars and a pony.
Probably Carlson did not say this was him begging for
mercy from Trump after the I hate him passionately text
was revealed, he didn't have to say that. So the
(02:59):
Carlson January sixth video gas lighting ended with a whimper
and not a bang. Something approaching or exceeding a third
of the whole thing was just footage of Jacob Chansley,
the quan On shaman, walking around the halls of Congress,
which to Carlson was supposed to be as dramatic and
decisive as the Zapruter film. And Carlson's conclusion was that
(03:19):
since Chansley didn't kill any police or melt anything inside
Congress with his eyes, clearly the violent insurrection was not
a violent insurrection. In conclusion, January sixth is a land
of contrasts. Thank you. Carlson may have exited stage rights
out of fear or under orders from his bosses, and
(03:42):
terminated early his quixotic quest to gaslight the coup and
lay the ground for the House Republicans to undermine the
January sixth committee on Trump's behalf, but while he bailed out,
America piled on Tucker Carlson and Fox quote news unquote
were attacked by everybody from Ben Shapiro to Joe Biden.
(04:02):
An ad hoc committee centered by former George W. Bush
Presidential ethics adviser, demanded the House investigate Speaker McCarthy and
others for the back room deal that gave Carlson access
to that video that turned out to be an utter
boring dud. Liz Cheney issued not an apology, but a dare.
If House Republicans want new jan six hearings, she wrote,
(04:24):
bring it on. Senator Cornin of Texas attacked his House
GOP colleagues, saying, I think they need to watch a
little less cable TV. And as Speaker McCarthy refused to
agree with, Carlson refused to disagree with Carlson, refused to
say if he was going to watch any of Carlson's segments,
(04:44):
later insisted he had not watched any of Carlson's segments
so far. Asked if Carlson was right when he said
January sixth was quote mostly peaceful, McCarthy instead answered something
about CNN and Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, while CNN
was unearthing a radio interview from January twenty twenty one
(05:05):
in which McCarthy said, the mob quote overtook the place.
People brought ropes straps, possibly to kidnap people inside the house.
Anybody that participated, McCarthy said, needs to go to court,
needs to go to jail. Unquote. Ben Shapiro clearing his
traditional people who own homes it might be flooded due
(05:28):
to climate change will have already sold them brain fog
told his audience that January sixth, quote wasn't a peaceful event.
Tucker also gave credence to the original falsehoods that I
think Trump was speaking from November fourth to January sixth,
which is that the election was capable of being overturned,
that Trump legitimately won the election. Shapiro was far more
(05:50):
critical even than the President and his spokesman. More than
one hundred and forty officers were injured on January sixth.
Biden wrote, I've said before, how dare anyone diminish or
deny the hell they went through? I stand with the
Capitol police. I hope house Republicans feel a shame for
what was done to undermine our law enforcement. The White
(06:10):
House press spokesman Andrew Bates was left to hit Carlson
directly and personally quote. We also agree with what Fox
News his own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed
in multiple courts of law that Tucker Carlson is not credible.
The most significant blowback to this disaster, though, had a
(06:30):
little bit more meat on the bones. The appeal to
the House Ethics Committee I mentioned earlier. It was from
Richard Painter, who was Bush's ethics lawyer and wasn't too
busy while he did it, and Norm Eisen, Obama's ethics lawyer,
plus Lisa Gilbert and Craig Holman from the group Public Citizen.
They wrote, quote, the exclusive release of the January six
(06:52):
video footage appears to have been the result of a
political agreement between Speaker McCarthy, Tucker Carlson, and others in
McCarthy's bid to become speaker. They demanded an investigation. The
lang is formal and controlled. The insinuation is that there
may have been something that violated House rules, maybe even
laws governing McCarthy's decision to let Carlson have the video
(07:15):
that board everybody. Law Professor Lawrence Tribe went further, albeit
probably unrealistically. How about Tribe asked charging McCarthy with stealing
government property? Well, sure, why not? The feistiest response was
Liz Cheney's. And if McCarthy and the radical right who
still hold the power to oust him, even vaguely understand
(07:37):
that the video on the Tucker Carlson Show was less
gas light than it was stomach gas, this might give
them pause about the essential plan to send a new
January sixth committee to go and investigate the last January
sixth committee, tweeted Cheney. Bring it on. Let's replay every
(07:59):
witness and all the evidence from last year. But this
time those members who sought pardon and or hid from
subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be
confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence. And, of course,
invoking those January sixth hearings, the former congressman underscored why
(08:20):
the Carlson gaslight gambit went so horribly horribly wrong. Whatever
else you thought of them, the committee hearings last year
had drama and action and were forgive me good TV,
whatever else you thought of it. Carlson's video presentation was
boring as hell. From decades of having made daily decisions
(08:44):
about how to convey things viscerally through video on television,
I get it. I have a little empathy, if not sympathy,
for Carlson's producers. If you want to show that January
sixth was not a violent insurrection, that it was sightseers,
you have to show the audience whatever looks the most
like Grandma's Summer vacation home movies from nineteen sixty two.
(09:08):
But there are two insurmountable problems with that. To borrow
from another set of old daily decisions of mine, you
could show highlights from that baseball game years ago in
which the Phillies beat the Cubs twenty three to twenty two,
and you could try to convince people that no, it
was actually a nothing, nothing, double no hit game. You
could show not the eleven home runs that were hit,
(09:31):
but the eleven strikeouts and the fifteen walks. The first
insurmountable problem is, no matter what highlights of calm and
serenity and in action you show, the final score still
was twenty three to twenty two, and there are lots
of peeled the people out there who just will not
join you in lying about the score. But the second
(09:53):
insurmountable problem is what did in Tucker Carlson, and by extension,
what did in Kevin McCarthy, and by extension, what did
in Donald Trump? That tape full of walks and strikeouts
is what we in television call a tough watch. Nobody
wants to see walks and strikeouts. Nobody will sit there
(10:16):
and watch walks and strikeouts. In this case, the Tucker
Carlson crowd was expecting I don't know, video of Nancy
Pelosi smashing open a Capitol window with her head, or
at least shots of this guy Ray Epps doing something
rather than just standing there and all Tucker Carlson and
(10:39):
ultimately all this will be remembered, as is Tucker Carlson
having just this three nights worth of video of this idiot,
the QAnon shaman, wandering around the Capitol halls looking like
he'd lost his wallets somewhere. It was not violent, Unfortunately
(11:02):
for Tucker Carlson and the gass. It also was not interesting.
(11:23):
Stell ahead of us in this edition of Countdown, the
one hundred and fiftieth edition of the podcast, a Texas
State Representative is now pushing a c session referendum there.
Earlier from him, he presented an offer for the death
penalty for abortions at another bill that would give a
tax break for straight married couples who've never been divorced.
(11:44):
But now an enterprising reporter has discovered that that Texas
State rep appears to have found his wife on a
website that fills itself as an alternative option to mail
order brides from the Philippines. In paste eating News, CNN's
president his troops to quote avoid the sugar high of
(12:07):
ratings that shouldn't be a problem, and he promises his
new show will stop people in their tracks because of
its new theme song. And the question used to be
NBC's biggest promotional catchphrase, where in the world is Matt Lauer? Well,
where in the world is Matt Lauer? The answer maybe hell.
(12:28):
A story from before the revelations that should have set
off more alarm bells than it did the day he
trying to get me fired from NBC for getting a
huge scoop interview with somebody everybody wanted to interview. The
problem was Lauer wanted to interview him first. That's next.
This is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman. Postscripts
(13:00):
to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions.
They Line Washington Representatives Marjorie Trayer Green and James Comer
say they and the staff of the House Oversight Committee
are setting up a tour for a congressional delegation to
go see January sixth, insurrectionists in a DC jail one
(13:21):
way trip I hope. Date Line, Raleigh, North Carolina. After
a judge said his sexual battery suit against CEPAC major
Domo and theocratic hypocrite Matt Slap could not continue were
he to remain anonymous, thirty nine year old Carlton Hoffman
put his name on the suit. He is a longtime
aide to Republican campaigners, and you know what he accuses
(13:44):
Slap of doing. It is nice to be able to
put a name to the face. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Dateline,
(14:09):
New York. Puck News reports that CNN president and guy
who when we worked together at MSNBC, we all thought
eight paced Chris Licht has held a company town hall
in which he claims his new CNN programs have created
buzz and are driving the conversation and other cliches he
once heard a real television executive say. Licht added that
(14:32):
his new midday show quote will stop people in their
tracks because of the new set and the theme song.
Licht also told staffers, quote, no short term audience gain
is worth doing long term damage to our brand, and
advise them to quote avoid the sugar high of ratings,
(14:53):
which shouldn't be a problem at CNN. By late Tuesday night,
CNN's ratings had sunk to one third of MSNBC's and
MSNBC's ratings are terrible ahead in retrospect, boy, were MSNBC
(15:20):
and NBC banned places to work? A large part of
that was the presence then of Matt Lauer. If he
liked you, if you did what he told you to do,
it was a golden ticket. But if you crossed him,
he would try to destroy you. Well, first he liked me,
then he tried to destroy me. Coming up in Things
I Promised Not to Tell first time for the daily
roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
(15:42):
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze.
Jesse Waters proof that if you hang around Fox quote
news unquote long enough, taking the manure out to fertilize
the lawns, eventually they'll give you your own show. Jesse Waters,
now part of two different hours devoted to distracting viewers
(16:03):
from reality, announced yesterday about doctor Anthony Fauci, who's helped
save countless American lives despite the best efforts of Trump
and idiots like Waters to kill them. He said a
fouchi quote, I always thought when we were going to
rast him, and then he said, it'll have to wait
until a Republican attorney general. Jesse Waters used to be
(16:24):
Bill O'Reilly's in house stalker, signed to harass women reporters
who had been critical of O'Reilly for you know, he's
lying in his fascism and his misogyny and his threats.
Billow was convinced that Fox security could arrest people who
said things on his show that he didn't like, so naturally,
Waters would conflate the bubble in which he lives at
Fox with the Republican Party and with law enforcement. You
(16:49):
do that, little Jesse, you and your wee go arrest
doctor Fauci. Runners up the fascist school board at the
infamous Pennridge High School District in Pennsylvania, halfway between Philadelphia
and Allentown, halfway between twenty twenty three and the year
nine hundred. They're not satisfied with sneaking book bands into play.
(17:09):
The Bucks County Beacon has discovered that several titles made
controversial by the Republicans remained in the school library, sometimes
with as many eight or nine copies of each book available,
but each copy of each of these books had been
checked out. Eight or nine of each book checked out
for one year. You want to read John Green's Looking
(17:33):
for Alaska, The library computer system says the wait until
the book is available is between three hundred and fifty
seven and three hundred and fifty eight days. But our
winner Brian Slayton, Texas state representative, who has filed a
bill that would put a referendum on the next ballot
there asking voters to decide whether or not Texas should
(17:54):
investigate c session. Yeah, good idea. Every year Texas gets
around thirty six billion dollars more in funds and resources
from the federal government and from the Blue States, then
it gives to the federal government. Now imagine a Texas
without that thirty six billion a year, without any US
military basis, whose schools could not play sports against American colleges,
(18:19):
where the space center would be moved out. Without American funding,
Texas would be bankrupt in days, as one South Carolini
instead of his state as it started to ce sed
before the Civil War. Texas is too small for a
republic and too large for an insane asylum. But wait,
there's more about this guy. Slayton Representative Brian Slayton. He
(18:41):
has previously introduced bills in the Texas legislature to make
all abortions in Texas illegal and punishable by death. We're
right to life. We're gonna kill you. It was also
another bill of his criminalized gender affirming care for kids,
and last month he introduced a tax credit for quote,
qualifying married couples as would be ones who were straight
(19:04):
and had never been divorced. All of this holier than now.
Interference in people's private lives led a Texas Observer reporter
named Stephen Manicelli to do a little digging on Representative Slayton.
Let me just read you what Monicelli said he found,
quote did not expect to learn today that a Texas
State representative's wife of only a few years advertised herself
(19:27):
on a dating website that promotes itself as an alternative
to Thailand and Philippines mail order bride agencies. Unless there's
another woman, he went on who looks similar, is the
same age and has the same name as Slayton's wife.
It seems that Brian Slayton's wife had a profile on
(19:48):
find love Asia, where she was friends with a now
defunct account named Irish Ranger. Manicelli of The Texas Observer
observes that the profile bore the name Sharman sagaray Yabo,
and the representative's wife ca yourself, Sharman, why Slayton man?
Lookie here? They each had the same jobs listed on
(20:10):
their LinkedIn pages, And yeah, who cares. Love is love?
But Slayton thinks that should only be true for him,
and he's legislating against it being true for anybody else.
So fim Texas Representative Brian. I can't remember if I
cried when I read about his mail order bride Slayton
(20:32):
two days worst person and still ahead on countdown? Boy
was he a schmuck? Somebody asked me recently. Where in
(20:53):
the world is Matt Lauer. I should have known it
was far worse than we did know at NBC. One
time I got a great scoop, opened a door for
him to get a greater scoop, and so he tried
to get my scoop killed. My show canceled, and me fired.
The Matt Lauer Terry Shibo story next. First in each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need. You
(21:15):
can help every dog as its day to New York
and Basil an eighty eight pound ten and white pity mix,
and this is simply he doesn't like other dogs. When
he's calm and not at a kill pound, he'll ignore
other dogs, but under stress, he becomes terrified of them.
He needs to be the solo dog in a home.
But he's great with people, fun, gentle, a big goofball.
They call him the pup for absolutely everybody. The New
(21:38):
York Pound has put him on death row and time
is running out. Our pledges to help defray or rescues,
expenses to get him out of there or his only chance.
You can find Basil on my Twitter feed. There's a
video of him not reacting to other dogs, and your
pledges and retweets could save him. I thank you, and
Basil thanks you to the number one story on the
(22:11):
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell. And somebody asked me the other day,
whatever happened to Matt Lauer? And I said, I don't know,
but I hope it was unpleasant. If the name Matt
Lauer is remembered at all today, it is for two facts.
One but he was the face of NBC News until
November twenty ninth, seventeen, when the network suddenly announced there
(22:33):
were credible allegations against him of sexual misconduct and that
he had been fired, effective immediately. And two the lesser
known fact that everybody at NBC knew he was an
evil figure who dominated all of management at thirty Rock
and in many cases coerced them into looking the other way,
despite decades of abuse of women employees and of bullying
(22:56):
and retribution against male employees, including other people on TV.
This was so well known inside NBC News that even
some of us who had left and had been gone
for years knew in advance he was to be fired.
I found out like four days before it happened, and
much of the bad conduct at least the bad conduct
(23:16):
in the office involving the mail employees I saw happen
in real time. When I returned to NBC in February
two thousand and three, I was one of Lower's favorites.
For some reason. My show Countdown was the last program
he watched before he went to sleep, or maybe more correctly,
before he went to bed. He used to do these
(23:37):
moronic where in the world is Matt Lower segments in
which he created video clues as to his whereabouts that
would run on the Today Show. And one day one
of his producers called and said, Lauer was such a
fan of Countdown he wanted to do a special clue,
just four countdown. Well, we had like two hundred thousand
viewers in night. We took whatever we could get some
(23:57):
free Matt Lauer. Sure. By the way, I was reminded
recently that one MSNBC wag used to answer that rhetorical
question where in the world is Matt Lower by answering
in the bedroom of somebody else's wife. Anyway, Lower, if
you think the Republican's ability to turn any tragedy into
a political issue is something new, or that television's ability
(24:20):
to turn any tragedy into ratings is something new, or
that Matt Lower's ability to make anything worse was something new.
Consider the case of Terry Shivo. Terry Shivo was a
woman in Florida, twenty six years old, struck by cardiac arrest.
It did not kill her, but it left her in
a living nightmare. She was in a quote persistent vegetative state,
(24:44):
not brain dead, but neither was she conscious. And worse,
her eyes were open and her head moved constantly and
involuntarily and in a regular pattern. Her parents, I guess,
understandably unwilling to accept this terrible fate, quickly discovered that
if you moved a balloon through her hospital room, Terry
(25:05):
Shibo's head and gaze would seem to follow the balloon. Unfortunately,
if you did not move a balloon through her hospital room,
Terry Shibo's head and gaze would still follow the same
exact path as it did when there was a balloon.
Her husband, Michael, spent seven years in the courts trying
to get his wife's feeding tube removed and thus release
(25:27):
her and him and everybody in the family from this
living hell. And her parents fought him and finally in
two thousand and three, the parents went public. They showed
video of their daughter her head following that balloon around
the hospital room. They contacted every politician who would take
their call. The Republican leader in the Senate, doctor Bill
(25:49):
Frist of Tennessee, a heart surgeon, said on the Senate
floor that, of course he could not diagnose a patient
just from a videotape. And then he proceeded to diagnose
a patient just from a videotape. He said on the
Senate floor. She should not be taken off life support.
The Shivo's eventually got Republicans to pass a bill in
(26:10):
the House and send it taking her case away from
the Florida courts and putting it into the federal courts.
And President George W. Bush actually flew back from vacation
in Texas to Washington just to sign that law on camera.
Of course, this was a topic for all of tabloid television,
and for all of tabloid television that pretends it is
(26:32):
not tabloid television, like the Today Show, and it went
on for months. Eventually there was a pack of guests
willing to appear on your show and imply cleverly that
Michael Shibo had caused his wife's vegetative state and was
now trying to quote finish the job from my own network.
Joe Scarborough, who had been a lawyer, put on Terry
(26:54):
Shivo's brother and sister, and they both implied there was
quote foul play. Joey scars put it this way. I
am quoting him. They can attack every last person who
is trying to save this young woman from starvation. But
in the end Americans shocked by this mccabre chapter in
American politics. We'll see the Democrats as the party on
(27:16):
the side of death and see George Bush as the
defender of defenseless une. Joe Scarborough MSNBC, Joe Scarborough's a
jackass and a fraud. If you watch his show, you
are getting hustled. If you go on his show, there's
another word for that anyway. Finally, sanity prevailed. A court
(27:39):
ordered the feeding tube removed in March two thousand and five.
Two weeks later, Terry Shivo died. The autopsy showed her
brain was half its normal size. It had been irreversibly
damaged fifteen years earlier. There were no signs of physical trauma,
not the slightest indication of foul play. In January of
two thousand and six, I got a phone call. It
(28:01):
was Michael Shivo. He said rather matter of acte that
he had tried to avoid watching as the tragedy he
and his wife endured was turned into a multi network
soap opera. But he found that there was one reporter
who tried to balance the hysteria and to treat him fairly,
and that that was me. And he wanted to know
if I wanted to be the first person to interview him.
(28:23):
Nothing fancy, he said. This guy, Matt Lauer, he said,
had been calling him once a week and wanted to
walk with him on the beaches of Florida and do
a three hour interview for Today in Nightly News and
Dateline and MSNBC. Michael Shibo didn't want to do any
of that, and he didn't like Matt Lauer at all,
and he was thinking if he had to sit down
with one of the celebrity interviewers, it would probably be
Diane Sawyer, but he hadn't made up his mind yet.
(28:47):
What Michael Shivo wondered was if he could just go
to a studio in Tampa one morning before work and
have me go to a studio in New York and
I could interview him remotely well naturally, I said yes.
So on February first, two thousand and six, I got
up way earlier than usual. I went to thirty Rock.
I got into a studio. I taped an interview with
(29:07):
Michael Shibo. Bluntly, he was as dull an interviewee as
I could imagine, and my questions were deliberately not hysterical.
But it was a good factual interview, and for a
network that struggled as much as MSNBC, it was a
big deal for journalistic credibility, just to balance what we
had been playing on the Scarborough Show. Everybody at NBC
(29:30):
News knew we were doing it. We recorded it at
NBC News using NBC News control rooms and videotape. Everybody knew,
including the President of NBC News, Steve Kappus, and the
executive producers of Today Nightly News Dateline, all of whom
were interested in using clips of the interview. After I finished,
I went and visited the executive in charge of MSNBC
(29:51):
in his office at thirty Rock. Then I went home
and I took a nap before I went into MSNBC
in the late afternoon to prepare my eight pm show.
When the phone rang there, it was Steve cappus president
of NBC News. Look, you've interfered with the Today Show's
long standing plans and commitments. We have signed contracts with
(30:12):
Michael Shivo. Matt Lower is furious, but I understand Shivo
offered you this interview, so you couldn't have known how
you were violating the Today Show. And Matt I pointed
out that Shivo had said specifically that he had not
signed anything with anybody. The president of NBC News ignored this.
Here's the offer, Matt and I will make you. You
don't run the interview tonight. We will run a segment
(30:33):
of it tomorrow on Today, giving a full plug to countdown.
Then tomorrow night you can run a four minute segment.
The rest of your interview can run. And I think,
despite what you've done to us, your interview should run
after Matt Lowers does sometime next month. I think this
is a great idea, since Matt wants me to fire you.
I said this was the dumbest thing I had ever heard,
(30:55):
which was saying a lot. Since I had spent nearly
three years working at Fox. There was nothing about our
interview that risked Matt Lower's prospects of getting his own interview.
In fact, it probably increased them. I could now pitch
Michael Shivo on Lour's behalf. Michael Shibo did not like Louer.
On the other end of the phone, Kappus gasped, doesn't
(31:16):
like Louer. Don't say that. But to bury our interview
for a month was crapping all over MSNBC and me
and Michael Shibo, and journalistically it was indefensible and it
made me feel like walking out. Steve Kappus, whose later
boss at NBC told me that she fired him for
(31:37):
telling her that he would never take orders from a woman,
began to scream, as I noted at the time in
my diary, like a twelve year old. I offer you
a way out and not getting fired and not get
Matt Lauer on your ass, and you threatened to quit.
I pointed out that I had not threatened to quit.
I told him that if there really had been a
contract with Michael Shivo, even if he had not mentioned
(31:59):
it to me, any of the one hundred NBC executives
who had note about my interview with Michael Shivo for
like a week would have. I had even sent Brian
Williams a note asking if there were any specific questions.
He wanted me to ask Shivo so he could use
a clip on NBC Nightly News. Somehow, Cappus began to
scream again in an even higher pitched voice. Matt Lower
(32:22):
advises me to simply kill your interview with Michael Shivo,
and I'm trying to find a way out for you.
You start bringing up ancient history from a week ago.
He really said that ancient history from a week ago.
I said, why don't we do it this way? We
run a thirty second clip tonight, the Today Show runs
whatever it wants to tomorrow, then we run the rest
(32:43):
of the interview tomorrow night in the night after well,
Cappus resumed screaming. So let me see if I got
this straight. Matt Lower is incensed over you stepping in
on his interview. I'm offering you publicity on the Today's
Show and not getting fired, and your answer is we're
going to run seventeen minutes of it. I'm so impressed
with your professionalism, Keith. I will always remember how cooperative
(33:03):
you were. Fine, you do whatever you want, mister professional,
run the whole half hour tonight. Don't you understand television
Matt needs to be able to say in his first
interview since his wife's death. For the fifty third time
in my career at NBC News, I thought somebody was
secretly filming this and making a segment on it for
(33:26):
I don't know, punked or did they still run candid camera? Well?
Getting back to the interview here with Kappas, I said
that in a month, nobody was going to remember my
interview and Matt could still say in his first network
interview since his wife's death, while Kappas ignored that too,
I have been advised to kill the countdown piece outright,
but you do whatever you want for your little countdown show.
(33:50):
Go ahead, incur the enmity of Matt Lauer. You think
he'll forget this over the next two years, Matt Lauer
hired away two of my producers, then made a supposed
peace offering by running a segment that was to be
used by my show every Friday on the Today Show
that required two of my producers to stay up all
night editing and thus not work on my show on Friday.
(34:12):
By some strange coincidence. For four consecutive weeks, the Countdown
piece never ran. It was just more petty revenge. The
Datasio also booked me as a guest four times, canceled
all four times, once the morning of my interview as
I was shaving to go in and do the interview.
(34:34):
The punchline, of course, my little interview back then with
Michael Shibo ran over the next three nights. It did
not really affect our ratings. It did contribute some tiny
amount to the tiny amount of actual journalism MSNBC had
done on the Shibo story at counterbalanced that schmuck Scarborough.
And on March twenty six, two thousand and six, the
(34:56):
Matt Lauer interview aired with Michael Shibo, and as NBC
publicity phrased it, Michael and his New y sit down
for their first network interview with NBC News is Matt Lauer.
Just like I had suggested, Thank you for listening. Countdown
(35:29):
Episode number one fifty has come to you from the
studios of the Alberman Broadcasting Empire hiatt op its headquarters
in the Sports Capsule Building here in New York. Here
are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They
are the Countdown musical directors, produced by t Ko Brothers.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Schanel, guitarist, bass
(35:52):
and drums by Brian Ray. Other Beethoven selections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Alberman theme from ESPN two and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever
our announced today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
(36:12):
was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this the
seven hundred ninety third day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow, So until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(36:54):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Tucker
Carlson's Trump Derangement Syndrome Dance Party went into reruns last
(00:27):
night and was then canceled out of sheer boredom, whereupon
its star gave up and ran away, and Carlson, clearly
terrified and no longer in control of whatever it was
he had been trying to do with the January sixth
government video he had gained illicit access to, headed for
the hills, and before you could say Kevin McCarthy wasn't watching,
(00:48):
Carlson was reduced to playing a tape of an old
interview with Russell Brand, who used to be a comedian
or something, if you want to truly go conspiracy theory
on this week. The whole force could not have done
more damage to Tucker Carlson and Fox quote news unquote
if it had been designed to do so. The further
(01:10):
Carlson went out onto that limb, the more those who
helped him out there backed away. Before the day was over,
Kevin McCarthy was again revealing he didn't even watch a
prediction here. That was the last time you will hear
about January sixth from Tucker Carlson for a long long
time for one practical thing. Carlson apparently ran out of
(01:33):
new hidden January sixth video. He literally had to show
old hidden January sixth video the exact same tape last
night of the Qan on Shaman that he ran Monday night,
right down to the exact same narration that ran Monday Night.
Carlson also gave an amazingly tedious twenty minute monologue and listen,
(01:54):
I know a tedious twenty minute monologue when I hear one,
I have given one or two of them in my life.
It was fleshed out with vague demands for apologies from
Liz Haney and Anderson Cooper. Its tone lacked all of
the drama of Monday Night's sales job, and it sunk
quickly from frightening to cetchy. And it was highlighted by
(02:15):
the epitome of self unawareness, a Tucker Carlson lecture on
how to tell when terrified small men are lying to you. Then, tellingly,
twenty eight hours after the revelation of the text in
which he said of Trump, I hate him passionately, Tucker
Carlson ran a dead serious report from poor Kevin Cork
(02:38):
gushing about Trump's recent promise that if elected, we will
all get new freedom cities and flying cars and a pony.
Probably Carlson did not say this was him begging for
mercy from Trump after the I hate him passionately text
was revealed, he didn't have to say that. So the
(02:59):
Carlson January sixth video gas lighting ended with a whimper
and not a bang. Something approaching or exceeding a third
of the whole thing was just footage of Jacob Chansley,
the quan On shaman, walking around the halls of Congress,
which to Carlson was supposed to be as dramatic and
decisive as the Zapruter film. And Carlson's conclusion was that
(03:19):
since Chansley didn't kill any police or melt anything inside
Congress with his eyes, clearly the violent insurrection was not
a violent insurrection. In conclusion, January sixth is a land
of contrasts. Thank you. Carlson may have exited stage rights
out of fear or under orders from his bosses, and
(03:42):
terminated early his quixotic quest to gaslight the coup and
lay the ground for the House Republicans to undermine the
January sixth committee on Trump's behalf, but while he bailed out,
America piled on Tucker Carlson and Fox quote news unquote
were attacked by everybody from Ben Shapiro to Joe Biden.
(04:02):
An ad hoc committee centered by former George W. Bush
Presidential ethics adviser, demanded the House investigate Speaker McCarthy and
others for the back room deal that gave Carlson access
to that video that turned out to be an utter
boring dud. Liz Cheney issued not an apology, but a dare.
If House Republicans want new jan six hearings, she wrote,
(04:24):
bring it on. Senator Cornin of Texas attacked his House
GOP colleagues, saying, I think they need to watch a
little less cable TV. And as Speaker McCarthy refused to
agree with, Carlson refused to disagree with Carlson, refused to
say if he was going to watch any of Carlson's segments,
(04:44):
later insisted he had not watched any of Carlson's segments
so far. Asked if Carlson was right when he said
January sixth was quote mostly peaceful, McCarthy instead answered something
about CNN and Congressman Eric Swalwell of California, while CNN
was unearthing a radio interview from January twenty twenty one
(05:05):
in which McCarthy said, the mob quote overtook the place.
People brought ropes straps, possibly to kidnap people inside the house.
Anybody that participated, McCarthy said, needs to go to court,
needs to go to jail. Unquote. Ben Shapiro clearing his
traditional people who own homes it might be flooded due
(05:28):
to climate change will have already sold them brain fog
told his audience that January sixth, quote wasn't a peaceful event.
Tucker also gave credence to the original falsehoods that I
think Trump was speaking from November fourth to January sixth,
which is that the election was capable of being overturned,
that Trump legitimately won the election. Shapiro was far more
(05:50):
critical even than the President and his spokesman. More than
one hundred and forty officers were injured on January sixth.
Biden wrote, I've said before, how dare anyone diminish or
deny the hell they went through? I stand with the
Capitol police. I hope house Republicans feel a shame for
what was done to undermine our law enforcement. The White
(06:10):
House press spokesman Andrew Bates was left to hit Carlson
directly and personally quote. We also agree with what Fox
News his own attorneys and executives have now repeatedly stressed
in multiple courts of law that Tucker Carlson is not credible.
The most significant blowback to this disaster, though, had a
(06:30):
little bit more meat on the bones. The appeal to
the House Ethics Committee I mentioned earlier. It was from
Richard Painter, who was Bush's ethics lawyer and wasn't too
busy while he did it, and Norm Eisen, Obama's ethics lawyer,
plus Lisa Gilbert and Craig Holman from the group Public Citizen.
They wrote, quote, the exclusive release of the January six
(06:52):
video footage appears to have been the result of a
political agreement between Speaker McCarthy, Tucker Carlson, and others in
McCarthy's bid to become speaker. They demanded an investigation. The
lang is formal and controlled. The insinuation is that there
may have been something that violated House rules, maybe even
laws governing McCarthy's decision to let Carlson have the video
(07:15):
that board everybody. Law Professor Lawrence Tribe went further, albeit
probably unrealistically. How about Tribe asked charging McCarthy with stealing
government property? Well, sure, why not? The feistiest response was
Liz Cheney's. And if McCarthy and the radical right who
still hold the power to oust him, even vaguely understand
(07:37):
that the video on the Tucker Carlson Show was less
gas light than it was stomach gas, this might give
them pause about the essential plan to send a new
January sixth committee to go and investigate the last January
sixth committee, tweeted Cheney. Bring it on. Let's replay every
(07:59):
witness and all the evidence from last year. But this
time those members who sought pardon and or hid from
subpoenas should sit on the dais so they can be
confronted on live TV with the unassailable evidence. And, of course,
invoking those January sixth hearings, the former congressman underscored why
(08:20):
the Carlson gaslight gambit went so horribly horribly wrong. Whatever
else you thought of them, the committee hearings last year
had drama and action and were forgive me good TV,
whatever else you thought of it. Carlson's video presentation was
boring as hell. From decades of having made daily decisions
(08:44):
about how to convey things viscerally through video on television,
I get it. I have a little empathy, if not sympathy,
for Carlson's producers. If you want to show that January
sixth was not a violent insurrection, that it was sightseers,
you have to show the audience whatever looks the most
like Grandma's Summer vacation home movies from nineteen sixty two.
(09:08):
But there are two insurmountable problems with that. To borrow
from another set of old daily decisions of mine, you
could show highlights from that baseball game years ago in
which the Phillies beat the Cubs twenty three to twenty two,
and you could try to convince people that no, it
was actually a nothing, nothing, double no hit game. You
could show not the eleven home runs that were hit,
(09:31):
but the eleven strikeouts and the fifteen walks. The first
insurmountable problem is, no matter what highlights of calm and
serenity and in action you show, the final score still
was twenty three to twenty two, and there are lots
of peeled the people out there who just will not
join you in lying about the score. But the second
(09:53):
insurmountable problem is what did in Tucker Carlson, and by extension,
what did in Kevin McCarthy, and by extension, what did
in Donald Trump? That tape full of walks and strikeouts
is what we in television call a tough watch. Nobody
wants to see walks and strikeouts. Nobody will sit there
(10:16):
and watch walks and strikeouts. In this case, the Tucker
Carlson crowd was expecting I don't know, video of Nancy
Pelosi smashing open a Capitol window with her head, or
at least shots of this guy Ray Epps doing something
rather than just standing there and all Tucker Carlson and
(10:39):
ultimately all this will be remembered, as is Tucker Carlson
having just this three nights worth of video of this idiot,
the QAnon shaman, wandering around the Capitol halls looking like
he'd lost his wallets somewhere. It was not violent, Unfortunately
(11:02):
for Tucker Carlson and the gass. It also was not interesting.
(11:23):
Stell ahead of us in this edition of Countdown, the
one hundred and fiftieth edition of the podcast, a Texas
State Representative is now pushing a c session referendum there.
Earlier from him, he presented an offer for the death
penalty for abortions at another bill that would give a
tax break for straight married couples who've never been divorced.
(11:44):
But now an enterprising reporter has discovered that that Texas
State rep appears to have found his wife on a
website that fills itself as an alternative option to mail
order brides from the Philippines. In paste eating News, CNN's
president his troops to quote avoid the sugar high of
(12:07):
ratings that shouldn't be a problem, and he promises his
new show will stop people in their tracks because of
its new theme song. And the question used to be
NBC's biggest promotional catchphrase, where in the world is Matt Lauer? Well,
where in the world is Matt Lauer? The answer maybe hell.
(12:28):
A story from before the revelations that should have set
off more alarm bells than it did the day he
trying to get me fired from NBC for getting a
huge scoop interview with somebody everybody wanted to interview. The
problem was Lauer wanted to interview him first. That's next.
This is countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman. Postscripts
(13:00):
to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions.
They Line Washington Representatives Marjorie Trayer Green and James Comer
say they and the staff of the House Oversight Committee
are setting up a tour for a congressional delegation to
go see January sixth, insurrectionists in a DC jail one
(13:21):
way trip I hope. Date Line, Raleigh, North Carolina. After
a judge said his sexual battery suit against CEPAC major
Domo and theocratic hypocrite Matt Slap could not continue were
he to remain anonymous, thirty nine year old Carlton Hoffman
put his name on the suit. He is a longtime
aide to Republican campaigners, and you know what he accuses
(13:44):
Slap of doing. It is nice to be able to
put a name to the face. Thank you, Nancy Faust. Dateline,
(14:09):
New York. Puck News reports that CNN president and guy
who when we worked together at MSNBC, we all thought
eight paced Chris Licht has held a company town hall
in which he claims his new CNN programs have created
buzz and are driving the conversation and other cliches he
once heard a real television executive say. Licht added that
(14:32):
his new midday show quote will stop people in their
tracks because of the new set and the theme song.
Licht also told staffers, quote, no short term audience gain
is worth doing long term damage to our brand, and
advise them to quote avoid the sugar high of ratings,
(14:53):
which shouldn't be a problem at CNN. By late Tuesday night,
CNN's ratings had sunk to one third of MSNBC's and
MSNBC's ratings are terrible ahead in retrospect, boy, were MSNBC
(15:20):
and NBC banned places to work? A large part of
that was the presence then of Matt Lauer. If he
liked you, if you did what he told you to do,
it was a golden ticket. But if you crossed him,
he would try to destroy you. Well, first he liked me,
then he tried to destroy me. Coming up in Things
I Promised Not to Tell first time for the daily
roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effect specimens
(15:42):
who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The bronze.
Jesse Waters proof that if you hang around Fox quote
news unquote long enough, taking the manure out to fertilize
the lawns, eventually they'll give you your own show. Jesse Waters,
now part of two different hours devoted to distracting viewers
(16:03):
from reality, announced yesterday about doctor Anthony Fauci, who's helped
save countless American lives despite the best efforts of Trump
and idiots like Waters to kill them. He said a
fouchi quote, I always thought when we were going to
rast him, and then he said, it'll have to wait
until a Republican attorney general. Jesse Waters used to be
(16:24):
Bill O'Reilly's in house stalker, signed to harass women reporters
who had been critical of O'Reilly for you know, he's
lying in his fascism and his misogyny and his threats.
Billow was convinced that Fox security could arrest people who
said things on his show that he didn't like, so naturally,
Waters would conflate the bubble in which he lives at
Fox with the Republican Party and with law enforcement. You
(16:49):
do that, little Jesse, you and your wee go arrest
doctor Fauci. Runners up the fascist school board at the
infamous Pennridge High School District in Pennsylvania, halfway between Philadelphia
and Allentown, halfway between twenty twenty three and the year
nine hundred. They're not satisfied with sneaking book bands into play.
(17:09):
The Bucks County Beacon has discovered that several titles made
controversial by the Republicans remained in the school library, sometimes
with as many eight or nine copies of each book available,
but each copy of each of these books had been
checked out. Eight or nine of each book checked out
for one year. You want to read John Green's Looking
(17:33):
for Alaska, The library computer system says the wait until
the book is available is between three hundred and fifty
seven and three hundred and fifty eight days. But our
winner Brian Slayton, Texas state representative, who has filed a
bill that would put a referendum on the next ballot
there asking voters to decide whether or not Texas should
(17:54):
investigate c session. Yeah, good idea. Every year Texas gets
around thirty six billion dollars more in funds and resources
from the federal government and from the Blue States, then
it gives to the federal government. Now imagine a Texas
without that thirty six billion a year, without any US
military basis, whose schools could not play sports against American colleges,
(18:19):
where the space center would be moved out. Without American funding,
Texas would be bankrupt in days, as one South Carolini
instead of his state as it started to ce sed
before the Civil War. Texas is too small for a
republic and too large for an insane asylum. But wait,
there's more about this guy. Slayton Representative Brian Slayton. He
(18:41):
has previously introduced bills in the Texas legislature to make
all abortions in Texas illegal and punishable by death. We're
right to life. We're gonna kill you. It was also
another bill of his criminalized gender affirming care for kids,
and last month he introduced a tax credit for quote,
qualifying married couples as would be ones who were straight
(19:04):
and had never been divorced. All of this holier than now.
Interference in people's private lives led a Texas Observer reporter
named Stephen Manicelli to do a little digging on Representative Slayton.
Let me just read you what Monicelli said he found,
quote did not expect to learn today that a Texas
State representative's wife of only a few years advertised herself
(19:27):
on a dating website that promotes itself as an alternative
to Thailand and Philippines mail order bride agencies. Unless there's
another woman, he went on who looks similar, is the
same age and has the same name as Slayton's wife.
It seems that Brian Slayton's wife had a profile on
(19:48):
find love Asia, where she was friends with a now
defunct account named Irish Ranger. Manicelli of The Texas Observer
observes that the profile bore the name Sharman sagaray Yabo,
and the representative's wife ca yourself, Sharman, why Slayton man?
Lookie here? They each had the same jobs listed on
(20:10):
their LinkedIn pages, And yeah, who cares. Love is love?
But Slayton thinks that should only be true for him,
and he's legislating against it being true for anybody else.
So fim Texas Representative Brian. I can't remember if I
cried when I read about his mail order bride Slayton
(20:32):
two days worst person and still ahead on countdown? Boy
was he a schmuck? Somebody asked me recently. Where in
(20:53):
the world is Matt Lauer. I should have known it
was far worse than we did know at NBC. One
time I got a great scoop, opened a door for
him to get a greater scoop, and so he tried
to get my scoop killed. My show canceled, and me fired.
The Matt Lauer Terry Shibo story next. First in each
edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need. You
(21:15):
can help every dog as its day to New York
and Basil an eighty eight pound ten and white pity mix,
and this is simply he doesn't like other dogs. When
he's calm and not at a kill pound, he'll ignore
other dogs, but under stress, he becomes terrified of them.
He needs to be the solo dog in a home.
But he's great with people, fun, gentle, a big goofball.
They call him the pup for absolutely everybody. The New
(21:38):
York Pound has put him on death row and time
is running out. Our pledges to help defray or rescues,
expenses to get him out of there or his only chance.
You can find Basil on my Twitter feed. There's a
video of him not reacting to other dogs, and your
pledges and retweets could save him. I thank you, and
Basil thanks you to the number one story on the
(22:11):
Countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised
not to tell. And somebody asked me the other day,
whatever happened to Matt Lauer? And I said, I don't know,
but I hope it was unpleasant. If the name Matt
Lauer is remembered at all today, it is for two facts.
One but he was the face of NBC News until
November twenty ninth, seventeen, when the network suddenly announced there
(22:33):
were credible allegations against him of sexual misconduct and that
he had been fired, effective immediately. And two the lesser
known fact that everybody at NBC knew he was an
evil figure who dominated all of management at thirty Rock
and in many cases coerced them into looking the other way,
despite decades of abuse of women employees and of bullying
(22:56):
and retribution against male employees, including other people on TV.
This was so well known inside NBC News that even
some of us who had left and had been gone
for years knew in advance he was to be fired.
I found out like four days before it happened, and
much of the bad conduct at least the bad conduct
(23:16):
in the office involving the mail employees I saw happen
in real time. When I returned to NBC in February
two thousand and three, I was one of Lower's favorites.
For some reason. My show Countdown was the last program
he watched before he went to sleep, or maybe more correctly,
before he went to bed. He used to do these
(23:37):
moronic where in the world is Matt Lower segments in
which he created video clues as to his whereabouts that
would run on the Today Show. And one day one
of his producers called and said, Lauer was such a
fan of Countdown he wanted to do a special clue,
just four countdown. Well, we had like two hundred thousand
viewers in night. We took whatever we could get some
(23:57):
free Matt Lauer. Sure. By the way, I was reminded
recently that one MSNBC wag used to answer that rhetorical
question where in the world is Matt Lower by answering
in the bedroom of somebody else's wife. Anyway, Lower, if
you think the Republican's ability to turn any tragedy into
a political issue is something new, or that television's ability
(24:20):
to turn any tragedy into ratings is something new, or
that Matt Lower's ability to make anything worse was something new.
Consider the case of Terry Shivo. Terry Shivo was a
woman in Florida, twenty six years old, struck by cardiac arrest.
It did not kill her, but it left her in
a living nightmare. She was in a quote persistent vegetative state,
(24:44):
not brain dead, but neither was she conscious. And worse,
her eyes were open and her head moved constantly and
involuntarily and in a regular pattern. Her parents, I guess,
understandably unwilling to accept this terrible fate, quickly discovered that
if you moved a balloon through her hospital room, Terry
(25:05):
Shibo's head and gaze would seem to follow the balloon. Unfortunately,
if you did not move a balloon through her hospital room,
Terry Shibo's head and gaze would still follow the same
exact path as it did when there was a balloon.
Her husband, Michael, spent seven years in the courts trying
to get his wife's feeding tube removed and thus release
(25:27):
her and him and everybody in the family from this
living hell. And her parents fought him and finally in
two thousand and three, the parents went public. They showed
video of their daughter her head following that balloon around
the hospital room. They contacted every politician who would take
their call. The Republican leader in the Senate, doctor Bill
(25:49):
Frist of Tennessee, a heart surgeon, said on the Senate
floor that, of course he could not diagnose a patient
just from a videotape. And then he proceeded to diagnose
a patient just from a videotape. He said on the
Senate floor. She should not be taken off life support.
The Shivo's eventually got Republicans to pass a bill in
(26:10):
the House and send it taking her case away from
the Florida courts and putting it into the federal courts.
And President George W. Bush actually flew back from vacation
in Texas to Washington just to sign that law on camera.
Of course, this was a topic for all of tabloid television,
and for all of tabloid television that pretends it is
(26:32):
not tabloid television, like the Today Show, and it went
on for months. Eventually there was a pack of guests
willing to appear on your show and imply cleverly that
Michael Shibo had caused his wife's vegetative state and was
now trying to quote finish the job from my own network.
Joe Scarborough, who had been a lawyer, put on Terry
(26:54):
Shivo's brother and sister, and they both implied there was
quote foul play. Joey scars put it this way. I
am quoting him. They can attack every last person who
is trying to save this young woman from starvation. But
in the end Americans shocked by this mccabre chapter in
American politics. We'll see the Democrats as the party on
(27:16):
the side of death and see George Bush as the
defender of defenseless une. Joe Scarborough MSNBC, Joe Scarborough's a
jackass and a fraud. If you watch his show, you
are getting hustled. If you go on his show, there's
another word for that anyway. Finally, sanity prevailed. A court
(27:39):
ordered the feeding tube removed in March two thousand and five.
Two weeks later, Terry Shivo died. The autopsy showed her
brain was half its normal size. It had been irreversibly
damaged fifteen years earlier. There were no signs of physical trauma,
not the slightest indication of foul play. In January of
two thousand and six, I got a phone call. It
(28:01):
was Michael Shivo. He said rather matter of acte that
he had tried to avoid watching as the tragedy he
and his wife endured was turned into a multi network
soap opera. But he found that there was one reporter
who tried to balance the hysteria and to treat him fairly,
and that that was me. And he wanted to know
if I wanted to be the first person to interview him.
(28:23):
Nothing fancy, he said. This guy, Matt Lauer, he said,
had been calling him once a week and wanted to
walk with him on the beaches of Florida and do
a three hour interview for Today in Nightly News and
Dateline and MSNBC. Michael Shibo didn't want to do any
of that, and he didn't like Matt Lauer at all,
and he was thinking if he had to sit down
with one of the celebrity interviewers, it would probably be
Diane Sawyer, but he hadn't made up his mind yet.
(28:47):
What Michael Shivo wondered was if he could just go
to a studio in Tampa one morning before work and
have me go to a studio in New York and
I could interview him remotely well naturally, I said yes.
So on February first, two thousand and six, I got
up way earlier than usual. I went to thirty Rock.
I got into a studio. I taped an interview with
(29:07):
Michael Shibo. Bluntly, he was as dull an interviewee as
I could imagine, and my questions were deliberately not hysterical.
But it was a good factual interview, and for a
network that struggled as much as MSNBC, it was a
big deal for journalistic credibility, just to balance what we
had been playing on the Scarborough Show. Everybody at NBC
(29:30):
News knew we were doing it. We recorded it at
NBC News using NBC News control rooms and videotape. Everybody knew,
including the President of NBC News, Steve Kappus, and the
executive producers of Today Nightly News Dateline, all of whom
were interested in using clips of the interview. After I finished,
I went and visited the executive in charge of MSNBC
(29:51):
in his office at thirty Rock. Then I went home
and I took a nap before I went into MSNBC
in the late afternoon to prepare my eight pm show.
When the phone rang there, it was Steve cappus president
of NBC News. Look, you've interfered with the Today Show's
long standing plans and commitments. We have signed contracts with
(30:12):
Michael Shivo. Matt Lower is furious, but I understand Shivo
offered you this interview, so you couldn't have known how
you were violating the Today Show. And Matt I pointed
out that Shivo had said specifically that he had not
signed anything with anybody. The president of NBC News ignored this.
Here's the offer, Matt and I will make you. You
don't run the interview tonight. We will run a segment
(30:33):
of it tomorrow on Today, giving a full plug to countdown.
Then tomorrow night you can run a four minute segment.
The rest of your interview can run. And I think,
despite what you've done to us, your interview should run
after Matt Lowers does sometime next month. I think this
is a great idea, since Matt wants me to fire you.
I said this was the dumbest thing I had ever heard,
(30:55):
which was saying a lot. Since I had spent nearly
three years working at Fox. There was nothing about our
interview that risked Matt Lower's prospects of getting his own interview.
In fact, it probably increased them. I could now pitch
Michael Shivo on Lour's behalf. Michael Shibo did not like Louer.
On the other end of the phone, Kappus gasped, doesn't
(31:16):
like Louer. Don't say that. But to bury our interview
for a month was crapping all over MSNBC and me
and Michael Shibo, and journalistically it was indefensible and it
made me feel like walking out. Steve Kappus, whose later
boss at NBC told me that she fired him for
(31:37):
telling her that he would never take orders from a woman,
began to scream, as I noted at the time in
my diary, like a twelve year old. I offer you
a way out and not getting fired and not get
Matt Lauer on your ass, and you threatened to quit.
I pointed out that I had not threatened to quit.
I told him that if there really had been a
contract with Michael Shivo, even if he had not mentioned
(31:59):
it to me, any of the one hundred NBC executives
who had note about my interview with Michael Shivo for
like a week would have. I had even sent Brian
Williams a note asking if there were any specific questions.
He wanted me to ask Shivo so he could use
a clip on NBC Nightly News. Somehow, Cappus began to
scream again in an even higher pitched voice. Matt Lower
(32:22):
advises me to simply kill your interview with Michael Shivo,
and I'm trying to find a way out for you.
You start bringing up ancient history from a week ago.
He really said that ancient history from a week ago.
I said, why don't we do it this way? We
run a thirty second clip tonight, the Today Show runs
whatever it wants to tomorrow, then we run the rest
(32:43):
of the interview tomorrow night in the night after well,
Cappus resumed screaming. So let me see if I got
this straight. Matt Lower is incensed over you stepping in
on his interview. I'm offering you publicity on the Today's
Show and not getting fired, and your answer is we're
going to run seventeen minutes of it. I'm so impressed
with your professionalism, Keith. I will always remember how cooperative
(33:03):
you were. Fine, you do whatever you want, mister professional,
run the whole half hour tonight. Don't you understand television
Matt needs to be able to say in his first
interview since his wife's death. For the fifty third time
in my career at NBC News, I thought somebody was
secretly filming this and making a segment on it for
(33:26):
I don't know, punked or did they still run candid camera? Well?
Getting back to the interview here with Kappas, I said
that in a month, nobody was going to remember my
interview and Matt could still say in his first network
interview since his wife's death, while Kappas ignored that too,
I have been advised to kill the countdown piece outright,
but you do whatever you want for your little countdown show.
(33:50):
Go ahead, incur the enmity of Matt Lauer. You think
he'll forget this over the next two years, Matt Lauer
hired away two of my producers, then made a supposed
peace offering by running a segment that was to be
used by my show every Friday on the Today Show
that required two of my producers to stay up all
night editing and thus not work on my show on Friday.
(34:12):
By some strange coincidence. For four consecutive weeks, the Countdown
piece never ran. It was just more petty revenge. The
Datasio also booked me as a guest four times, canceled
all four times, once the morning of my interview as
I was shaving to go in and do the interview.
(34:34):
The punchline, of course, my little interview back then with
Michael Shibo ran over the next three nights. It did
not really affect our ratings. It did contribute some tiny
amount to the tiny amount of actual journalism MSNBC had
done on the Shibo story at counterbalanced that schmuck Scarborough.
And on March twenty six, two thousand and six, the
(34:56):
Matt Lauer interview aired with Michael Shibo, and as NBC
publicity phrased it, Michael and his New y sit down
for their first network interview with NBC News is Matt Lauer.
Just like I had suggested, Thank you for listening. Countdown
(35:29):
Episode number one fifty has come to you from the
studios of the Alberman Broadcasting Empire hiatt op its headquarters
in the Sports Capsule Building here in New York. Here
are the credits. Most of the music was arranged, produced
and performed by Brian Ray and John Philip Channel. They
are the Countdown musical directors, produced by t Ko Brothers.
All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Schanel, guitarist, bass
(35:52):
and drums by Brian Ray. Other Beethoven selections have been
arranged and performed by No Horns Allowed. The sports music
is the Alberman theme from ESPN two and it was
written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc. Musical
comments by Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever
our announced today was my friend Richard Lewis. Everything else
(36:12):
was pretty much my fault. Let's countdown for this the
seven hundred ninety third day since Donald Trump's first attempted
coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Arrest him now while we still can. The next scheduled
countdown is tomorrow, So until then, I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning,
good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman
(36:54):
is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
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