July 26, 2023 • 36 mins
EPISODE 254: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: There are no signs that the Jack Smith Grand Jury actually did indict Donald Trump yesterday in Washington. So why and how - just minutes after the Grand Jurors went home for the day - did Trump write and post: They "Are now indicting me"? Does Trump know something we don't? Or is it just that if you send out 60 social media posts in a nine-hour span, your odds of being actually pertinent and right, begin to approach 100%?
Meanwhile: Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy beclowns himself. First he says of President Biden "this is RISING to the level of impeachment inquiry." But by morning he has switched to: It "would rise to the level." And finally, to "We wouldn't HAVE to rise."
B-Block (15:59) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: One part of the Climate Catastrophe that we forgot about. When it hit 115 degrees in Catania in Sicily, all the underground electrical cables melted. Texas A&M goes full on McCarthy, punishing a lecturer who dared to criticize the Lieutenant Governor. And Trump's top legal advisor has his first Biden scalp: he's proved the DOG is guilty of deep personal corruption (21:27) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Sean Hannity and Elon Musk lead the chorus jumping to the conclusion that LeBron James' son suffered cardiac arrest because of Covid vaccine because no athlete ever went into cardiac arrest before Covid except all those other ones who died. Andy Ogles demands the media stop "sensationalizing" mass murderers - unless they were to pose with long guns on their Christmas cards. And Greg Gutfeld defends the Fox/DeSantis claim that slavery helped slaves by teaching them all to become blacksmiths, by saying that those in the Nazi death camps who had useful skills survived and all the other unskilled ones didn't. He has not been fired. Not yet.
C-Block (26:53) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Tomorrow is Uma Thurman Day. I was supposed to have coffee with her, then dinner with the network president who had a plan for us to save the network from the idiot who owned it. And then plans changed...
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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. There
is absolutely no indication that the Jack Smith grand Jury
(00:25):
actually indicted Donald Trump yesterday, well other than Trump's cryptic
social media post at four point thirty three Eastern, literally
minutes after the grand jury went home for the day,
reading quote, so let's get this straight. The Democrats slimeballs
in Congress impeached me and are now indicting me over
(00:48):
their continuing, illegal, and long running witch hunt. Unquote. Saner
people than you and I have gone mad trying to
parse Trump's three quarters of a century long tortured relationship
with both the English language and all of human speech.
But Trump posted that, complete with those four keywords, are
(01:12):
now indicting me? And then an hour later he reposted
it would Trump know more about what was going on
in that grand jury room yesterday than the rest of us? Well,
presumably only if when he was offered in the second
Target letter the opportunity to testify to or ask for
others to testify to the DC grand Jury, he had
(01:34):
actually availed himself of it and sent an attorney with
a witness or with evidence to submit, and they happened
to be there yesterday. It is still damned fascinating, though,
that he would post such a thing literally minutes after
the grand jury broke for the day. Then again, the
odds against that happening drop significantly when you realize the
(01:56):
volume of crap Trump can post in one day. The
last time I looked, about nine pm Eastern last night,
he had posted fifty six different things, and he had
not started posting yesterday until twelve thirty yesterday afternoon fifty six.
(02:18):
Trump posted an article yesterday about how somebody thought he
did real good in the CNN town Hall, which was
Check's sundial just seventy seven days ago. Trump also posted
a claim that Joe Biden stole documents while he was
a senator and that John Durham was the victim of
a cover up, and there were also a dozen or
(02:39):
so ads warning about the horrible fate of Chong from
Cheech and Chong. Trump did not post for the first
time in several days, and he of a series of
memes that read the January sixth was quote the day
the government staged a riot, and there is speculation that
somebody finally pointed out to him that on January sixth
(03:00):
he was the government, and that just because the meme
was posted by an authoritative source like Ted Nugent, that
was no reason anybody should believe it back on this planet.
The New York Times has reported it has confirmed Monday's
report that the former acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donahue
(03:21):
had confirmed on the record that he did subject himself
to an interview with Smith's attorneys. Topics he wouldn't say, individuals,
he wouldn't say. We can only hope Donahue was asked
what the House Committee asked him about the possible appointment
of Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General so he could make
up the fraud Trump wanted and seize the voting machines
as Trump wanted, And we can only hope Donahue told
(03:43):
them what he told the committee and what he told
Clark in the time quote, you're an environmental lawyer. How
about you go back to your office and we'll call
you when there's an oil spill. It was also a
minor development in the Georgia case, but of course Georgia
may hinge on whether or not charges specifically about Georgia
(04:04):
are included in Jack Smith's charges, and presumably in that case,
Jack Smith actually would go first. The Guardian, whichever the
case is, quotes two sources briefed Onne the matter is
saying that Fani Willis has narrowed potential charges against Trump
in Georgia and or other defendants in Georgia to quote
criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit
(04:27):
election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or
political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation
to destroy, to face or remove ballots. And there was
also a minor development from Erie, Pennsylvania. Trump is holding
one of his clan rallies there Saturday, and Erie's mayor
(04:48):
wants as much as thirty five thousand dollars up front
because a twenty eighteen Trump Clan rally in Erie ran
up that much in extra costs for the city that
had to be picked up by its taxpayers. And Trump's
campaign is still stiffing the good citizens of Erie for
a reimbursement on that thirty five large and Erie mayor
(05:11):
Joe Schember assumes Trump is going to do it again,
so there is no reason to expect news of any
indictments today. The first set the stolen documents indictments were
revealed to Trump right after they were handed up on
Thursday Thursday, June eighth, and the Washington Grand Jury has
(05:32):
also met Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we have the day off.
There is a hearing scheduled today though, an Oversight Subcommittee
hearing on UFOs, whereas they are now called UAPs. And
what a plot twist it would be if the UFO
hearing is really about Trump, or at least we might
(05:56):
hold out hope that we will get to the bottom
of why Congressoan Tim Burchett of Tennessee is not sharing
that hearing as planned, and what did the aliens do
with Burchett's beard? Trump did come up yesterday at the
sentencing of one of his stochastic Patsy's, Ryan Gunderson, the
nimrod who wore his high school letterman's jacket to the
(06:19):
coup pro tip don't prosecutors asked Quote, what happens the
next time a criminal indictment comes down against someone he likes,
and noted that the person for whom Gunderson stormed the
capitol quote is still out there telling lies about the election.
I wonder who they mean? Gunderson eighteen months. However, Trump
(06:40):
stayed mostly off stage. He did manage to underscore from
off stage just how much he owns much of the
House Republican Fascist Caucus and how much they in turn
own Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. So, thus how
much he Trump owns Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri has
(07:04):
filed a brief in Federal District Court in Delaware seeking
to prevent the plea deal that the Justice Department and
Hunter Biden agreed to which the judge in the case
was to consider today. Smith and others are still pushing
the testimony of that DOJ agent who set his demands
for more serious tax prosecutions of the President's son were
(07:26):
suspiciously rejected by the department's actual tax experts, and he
was then forced to admit under oath that nearly all
of his demands for more serious tax prosecutions of everybody
he investigated were rejected by the Department's tax experts. If
the Trumpian fascination with Hunter Biden is not explicable to
(07:50):
you here, it is in brief. Trump is corrupt. He
was impeached twice his adult sons are corrupt, and at
least one is widely publicly suspected of rampant substance use.
In Trump's world for half a century. The best defense
against truths like that is to locate your most dangerous
rival and fabricate evidence that he and his family are
(08:13):
just as guilty as you are or more guilty, or
permit your cultists to believe the other guys are guilty
and you aren't, and that the claims about you have
been fabricated to deflect the evidence against them. So that's
the Chairman of Ways and Means, as to the Speaker
of the House, reduced from being second in the presidential
(08:34):
line of succession to diverting attention from Trump's poop stains
by spreading other poop in other directions, even as his
House caucus continues to spectacularly self own on these keystone
cops likes investigations of Biden and son continually stepping on
rakes like one secret witness turning out to be a
(08:55):
fugitive Chinese agent running guns to Iran, and another secret
witness who keeps forgetting to show up to testify and
now will not testify under oath if he shows up,
even though the entirety of the billion dollar right wing
imitation news machine has been devoted and dedicated to this
cause and has managed to move nothing into the actual
(09:16):
news media. Despite all that, Kevin McCarthy continues to try
to play Renfield to Trump's dracula by impeaching or seeming
to impeach Joe Biden and to somehow unimpeach Trump. Monday night,
McCarthy told Sean Hannity that, quote, this is rising to
(09:36):
the level of impeachment inquiry. But by yesterday morning, McCarthy
was saying that when he said this is rising to
the level of impeachment inquiry, he wasn't saying it is
rising to the level of impeachment inquiry. He was saying
it would be rising quote the actions that I'm seeing
by this administration withholding the agencies from being able to
(09:59):
work with us, that would rise to the level of
an impeachment inquiry. And then he posited if evidence continues
to rise to the level and impeachment inquiry, House Republicans
will act just in case this was still too clear.
(10:22):
McCarthy then added, We've got a number of people coming
in they could come forward with all the information these
committees are requesting, and we wouldn't have to rise to
that it is rising. It might rise, it doesn't have
to rise. So even for the notoriously wind blown Kevin McCarthy,
(10:45):
the man with the perpetual look of a low rent
bald eagle who can't quite figure out whether gusts are
coming in from the southeast or the northwest, this is Amazingly,
eat your cake and keep it too, Fox's congressional reporter writes, quote,
Fox is told those are something of high level trial balloons.
(11:07):
The reason is that McCarthy wants to get a sense
of what gopeers want to do, to ask those go peers,
and most importantly, where the votes may lie for impeaching anyone. Unquote, Look, Kevin,
(11:29):
you're missing the obvious. You've got this UFO hearing today,
This would be perfect for an impeachment. Think of all
the aliens you can impeach. Also of interest here, so,
of course, climate change is worse than we thought, or
(11:51):
anybody thought, or anybody saw it coming. In one way,
we are discovering how in Italy, where it is not
only one hundred and fifteen degrees on the coast, but
the way to serve ve that which we call air
conditioning is not working there because one hundred and fifteen
(12:12):
degrees also will collapse your electrical infrastructure. And speaking of collapsing,
there's this guy Greg Gutface on Fox who just defended
his network's agreement with Ron DeSantis that slavery really helped
the slaves by teaching them skills. He defended that by
(12:36):
saying that those with useful skills were the ones who
survived the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps. And no,
the entirety of what he said is actually far worse
than I am describing it right now. That's next. This
is countdown, you know, this is countdown with you know,
(13:00):
Keith Olberman. Most scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions, date line Catania in Italy. All right,
you can tell me you've thought about this. As the
climate crisis worsens and gets out of hand and the
(13:23):
atmosphere dies, you are not going to be the one
who voluntarily gives up the last air conditioner, are you.
I've thought about it. Well, we can let ourselves off
the gilt hook, because the air conditioning will probably die
long before we will in Catania, on the Sicilian coast,
(13:45):
it hit one hundred and fifteen degrees over the weekend,
and the city was not built for one hundred and
fifteen degrees, literally not built that way. Much of the
underground electrical grid melted. It is called underground climate change.
There is evidence of it under shak right now. But
(14:06):
to what happened over the weekend in Italy, three hundred
thousand residents without air conditioning or anything else electrical for
a while or water. The wiring for the pumping stations
also melted. Power ration throughout most of the city. They
did fix the water pumps, but the best so far
in the ac is special air conditioned rooms for the elderly, which,
(14:29):
if you have seen the movie, is something predicted in
the seventies climate disaster and inforest government organized cannibalism film
Soilent Green with Charlton Heston.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
You know you tell everybody, you gotta tell them Silent
Greenner's people, it's paper, Thank you, Nancy Faust Yum Yum
(15:11):
dateline Galveston, Texas full on McCarthyism at Texas A and
M University, Professor Joy Alonso had given a routine lecture,
but One of the students was the daughter of the
Texas State Land Commissioner, and she narked on Professor Alonso
to her mother because the professor had allegedly, and we
don't know how, but had allegedly disparaged Texas Lieutenant Governor
(15:34):
Dan Patrick.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Within hours, the professor had been placed on administrative leave
for being critical of the Lieutenant governor. Couple things. Wasn't
that the guy who said he was willing to die
to preserve the Texas economy for his grandchildren during COVID, Well,
we're waiting. Also, the creeping fascism in Texas can be addressed.
(15:57):
Colleges and universities in other states simply should not recognize
Texas high school diplomas, and employers in other states should
not recognize Texas college and university degrees. Also this sidebar.
Imagine my surprise when I read the Texas Tribune headline
for this story quote Texas A and M put professor
on leave for allegedly criticizing Dan Patrick. Go on dateline
(16:24):
the White House. Well, the secret is out. The Great
Biden scandal has been proved. It is time to impeach
Commander Commander the first German shepherd. He is gone on
a one dog rampage against the Secret Service, and all
of it has been on earthed by America's top defender
of truth, justice and something. Tom Fitten, the non lawyer
(16:49):
chief of Judicial Watch, the guy who ironically given his name,
can't find a shirt that fits him.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Judicial Watch President Tom fitting here with some news. The
Secret Service just gave us documents that show that Joe
Biden's dog commander has a tax Secret Service personnel repeat
at the White House at least ten incidents, one of
which led to a uniform Secret Service officer being sent
to the hospital. I don't know what's going on over
(17:15):
there in the Biden White House that the family thinks
that their dogs should be able to attack ten or
so Secret Service agents, the folks who are defending their lives,
without much being done about it.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, something was done about it. The Secret Service tried
to cover it up, and it was Judicial Watch heavy
lifting in court that exposed this scandal of abuse of
Secret Service personnel by the Biden family. And now we
know by the Secret Service itself some terrible personal, dark
corruption going on over there in the Biden White House.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's Tom Fitton doing the Lord's work. That's the non
lawyer Trump gets his key legal advice from. And I
just want to say this once again, Tom keep telling
Trump exactly what he wants to hear. You are our
best hope still ahead on countdown. Tomorrow is Uma Thurman Day,
(18:22):
twelve years to the day of the day that looked
like it was going to be one of the best
days of my life but turned out to be one
of the most underwhelming, imaginable things I promised not to
tell I had first time for the daily round up
of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute two days worse persons in the world. Lebron's shared
(18:45):
by Elon Musk and Sean Hannity, And when you think
of them together like that, at least Hannity knows he's
an idiot. After Lebron James's son Bronni, suffered cardiac arrest
while at a college basketball practice. He's apparently fine now.
Both Musk and Hannity suggested it was caused by the
COVID vaccine, because no basketball player ever suffered cardiac arrest
(19:08):
before COVID or the vaccine other than Reggie Lewis. When
he died in nineteen ninety three, Hank Gathers in nineteen
ninety Pete Marivitch in nineteen eighty eight, Len Bias in
nineteen eighty six, John Postly in nineteen seventy. It never
happened before. The runner up, Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee,
co author with Senator Mike I didn't do. January sixth,
(19:28):
lee of a resolution trying to prevent the media from
quote sensationalizing mass murderers. Try to keep the media from
giving them the publicity they crave when they're dead. The
Breitbart article complementing these two slugheads on this resolution uses
the term glorification of mass murderers, as Tennessee State Rep.
(19:51):
Justin Jones noted on Twitter or whatever it's called this week.
Last Christmas, Congressman don't sensationalize mass murderers, Ogles posted a
Christmas card showing himself, his wife, and two of his
three children carrying long guns. The smallest child instead carries
a sign saying peace, which I presume has meant ironically. Incidentally,
(20:13):
neither the resolution nor the bright Bart article about mass
murderers and this resolution mentions the word gun, but the
winner Greg Guttfeld, the new ten PM host on Fox
quote news unquote. First, Fox defended slavery in this country
because it supposedly taught useful skills to the slaves who
(20:33):
didn't die, and all the slaves became blacksmiths, just like
Ron DeSantis says, hundreds and thousands of blacksmiths in the
nineteenth century. Now Fox has moved on to this Gutfeld idiot,
implying that Jews who were tortured and murdered in the
death camps had simply failed to become quote useful, and
(20:56):
thus they did not survive the Holocaust, while the useful
Jews did quote did you ever read Man's search were meaning?
Gutfeld asked. Another Fox loser, Victor Frankel, talks about how
you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills.
You had to be useful utility. Utility kept you alive unquote,
(21:19):
which is not at all what Frankel says. Frankel noted
that when it came to Jews and others that the
Nazis could use as slave labor or slave servants, they
killed them. Last, The Daily Beast quotes a Fox staffer
saying that in any other television outlet, Gutfeld, who poses
as an intellectual by perching his glasses at the end
(21:40):
of his nose and also amazingly considers himself a comedian,
would have been fired and his career would have been
over Greg, but not at Fox Fox rationalizing the Holocaust
since nineteen ninety six. Gutfeld two days, worst person in
(22:02):
the world, and now to the number one story on
(22:24):
the Countdown and my favorite topic me and I saw
her on TV recently, so I flashed back and shuddered
all over again. Yes, it's things I promised not to tell.
I suspect that until the day I actually die. No
day will have started so well with such promise, yet
ended so badly with such a clanging thud as Wednesday,
(22:47):
July twenty seventh, twenty and eleven did. Near midnight two
nights earlier, I had just entered my New York apartment
back from a New York Yankees game, when the last
landline telephone I ever owned began to ring. Hi, Keith,
it's Uma, Yeah, how many UMAs could there be? It
(23:08):
was the actress Uma Thurman. We had texted briefly, we
had never met. We had never spoken. We spoke for
ninety minutes, and she was self deprecating and vulnerable and
razors sharp and warm, and she invited me to coffee.
On the afternoon of D Day, Wednesday, July twenty seven,
twenty eleven, one of the producers I had hired to
do the new version of Countdown on Al Gore's network,
(23:31):
Current TV, happened to know Uma Thurman from the gym.
Erica Ferrari was her name, and she was great, and
she and Uma Thurman had become close enough that Uma
had unloaded all her relationship issues on Erica. And the
next thing I knew, Erica was in my office explaining
to me that when she explained to Uma where she
worked and with whom Uma said, the Keith Alderman. And
(23:51):
now I was being set up for drinks or dinner
or coffee or something with Uma Thurman. So this seemed
like a good day. Then two nights earlier we had
finally had had this marvelous, warm conversation and whom A
Thurman had suggested coffee and Wednesday in two thirty or
so in one of the two or three places in
Midtown near my studio, and she'd text me with details
(24:14):
and she couldn't wait. Simultaneously with this, the CEO of
the Current TV network, Mark Rosenthal, called me up and
invited me to dinner on Wednesday, July twenty seventh, twenty eleven,
going to be a busy day. Al Gore and Current
had hired me even before I left MSNBC. That was
what that was all about. And I had met and
gotten to know everybody in the organization over the following
(24:37):
six months before we finally got the show on the
air in June. We got off to a good start,
even though Current TV was available only in low def
digital cable. On its first night, Countdown on Current beat
both MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell's Show and CNN's Elliott Spitzer Show,
and the so called demo ratings measuring viewers eighteen to
(24:57):
fifty four. But by July twenty seventh, twenty eleven, so
like two months later, it was evident to me that
the network was run by four kinds of people. One
the CEO Rosenthal, who used to be at MTV and
knew what he was doing. Two some dilettants who did
not know how to plug in a television, let alone
put stuff on one. Three co owner Al Gore, who
(25:20):
meant well but who had absolutely no judgment when it
came to business partners. And four in a class by himself,
Gore's business partner Joel Hyatt, who had made one superb
business decision in nineteen seventy seven that earned him billions
of dollars and he sold everything and then earned him
billions of dollars again. But he had literally never gotten
(25:43):
anything right since nineteen seventy seven, while at the same
time thinking he had never gotten anything wrong since nineteen
seventy seven. He was a liberal. Unfortunately he was a
liberal Donald Trump. What was worse was that of all
these people, only Mark Rosenthal understood how ruinously incompetent Joel
Hyatt really was. Rosenthal had been president of MTV from
(26:06):
nineteen ninety six through two thousand and four, and whatever
you thought of all those reality shows and the Real
World and stuff like that, they were successes. He knew
what he was doing, and he knew Joel Hyatt didn't.
And Mark Rosenthal had invited me to dinner as soon
as my show was over on Wednesday night, July twenty seven,
(26:27):
twenty eleven, about seven hours after I was scheduled to
have coffee with Uma Thurman as a dry run for
a date, and Rosenthal told me he had figured out
how we could in effect take control of the Current
TV network away from this Joel Hyatt and not only
exploit the good start Countdown had made, but build on
(26:47):
it and make Current TV into the liberal news network
we had been intending to create and knew would be
a success. Dinner would be our chance for him to
explain it to me, to hatch our plan. It was
a big, big day. Without me going into detail, you
intuitively get the Uma Thurman part of what July twenty seventh,
(27:10):
twenty eleven was supposed to be. But I need to
put a little bit more meat on the bones of
why it was so important at Current TV. This is
who this guy Hyatt was, that same producer who was
doing her best to set up Uma Thurman and me Erica.
She walked in one day, white as the sheet of
paper she was carrying at arm's length, as if it
(27:31):
had been printed in bubonic plague. She had found while
surfing around internet archives a New York Times article about
this Joel Hyatt, an article from April thirteen, nineteen ninety.
You remember the movie Philadelphia where the evil head of
law firm portrayed by the actor Jason Robards had fired
the head of his Philadelphia office played by Tom Hanks
(27:53):
because the Hanks character had AIDS and Hanks's character got
as his lawyer, a character played by Denzel Washington. Well,
this guy who co owned Current TV with Al Gore,
he was the Jason Robard's character he had fired from
his law firm Hiatt Legal Services, the head of his
Philadelphia office, Clarence B. Kin, after finding out Clarence B.
(28:16):
Kin had AIDS. In fact, reality was actually worse than
the Philadelphia movie. In real life, Clarence B. Kane was
also African American. The time story that Erica Ferrari handed
me like it was printed on razor blades, recounted how
a federal judge had not only ordered Hyatt Legal Services
to pay mister Kane one hundred and fifty seven thousand
dollars plus costs, but how it had ordered them to
(28:39):
pay him immediately, like in the next couple days. This
was harrowing enough, but the final paragraph made my head swim. Quote.
What pained him most, mister Hyatt said, was the notion
that his firm discriminated. He noted how it had, after all,
named a gay black man to run one of its
major offices, something no law firm its size has ever
(29:02):
knowingly done. Quote it's totally lost in the shuffle is
that this is an organization in which anyone can succeed,
he said. No one has written about that. That was
this guy Hyatt in a nutshell. He fired a gay
black man who was dying of AIDS. But he knew
who the real victim here was himself. And it's not
(29:24):
like Hyatt had improved over the years. As I mentioned.
The Night Countdown premiered on Current TV June twentieth, twenty eleven.
We beat MSNBC and CNN in the ratings, but we
didn't know it. The next day, our ratings showed that
we had beaten CNN and just missed beating O'Donnell on MSNBC.
A few weeks later, one of those networks got a
(29:45):
friendly reporter to write a story about how since the debut,
our ratings on Current had sunk, which was to be
expected and which was a totally legitimate competitive thing for
the MSNBC guys to do. But the numbers were all wrong.
The ratings for Countdown that were included in the pro
CNN pro MSNBC story were somehow well higher than the
(30:06):
ratings we saw every day at current. If I'm not
clear about this, the story said that, say, on Monday
July eleventh, we had one hundred thousand demo viewers, but
our ratings, the ratings we got from the Nielsen company,
they said that on Monday July seventh, we didn't have
one hundred thousand demo viewers when we had seventy five
thousand demo viewers. Well, something was really really wrong here.
(30:29):
So when Hyatt called me for our weekly phone chat,
I said, look, there's something wrong with the ratings. And
I explained the article to him and he said, oh,
I knew they were going to do that, show how
your ratings had dropped. And I said, no, you're missing
my point. They say we had higher ratings than we
actually did.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I knew they were going to do that too, he said,
with even more condescension. And I said, why would they
do that? Why would they try to make us look better?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I knew they were going to do that too, just too.
Then there was a long pause while Joel Hyatt made
something up just to mess with us. I asked him,
since he had personally purchased the ratings package from the
Nielsen Company, the first ratings in the history of current TV,
if he could just review for me what he remembered
of the process. Well, I went in and made an
(31:15):
excellent deal. I saved two thousand dollars on their initial
price point. This man was worth a couple of billion dollars.
They wanted us to buy not just the live ratings,
but something called live plus Divver. I thought for a moment, Divver,
I said, you mean live plus DVR. He laughed, Yes,
(31:39):
that's it Divver. What the hell is divver? You just
use the live ratings and TV everybody knows that. I
explained to him that divver ratings were comparatively new, about
three four years old at that point. They added to
the live rating people who would watch the show on
their DVR within twenty four hours of having recorded it.
(32:01):
He had bought the ratings that did not include all
of those people, so that when we got what we
thought were our ratings for our premier night when we
beat CNN and almost beat MSNBC but just missed, we
didn't just miss. The ratings package this idiot Hiatt had
bought did not include anybody who watched the show on
their DVRs, And that cost us the chance to come
(32:21):
out and say we beat CNN at MSNBC the first
night with this crappy, low deaf picture down on CHA
channel hundred and three. But more importantly, it saved this
billionaire idiot Hiatt two thousand dollars. So Mark Rosenthal was
taking me to dinner hours after I was to have
(32:43):
coffee with Uma Thurman to explain how we could get
rid of this idiot who thought DVR meant divver. Thus
was July twenty seventh, twenty eleven going to be one
of the turning points in my life. And then about
one forty five, just when Uma said she was going
(33:04):
to text me to tell me where to meet her
for coffee, she texted me. All right, She texted me
to explain her rehearsal was running along and she had
to postpone. And while I was reading between those lines
and knowing that that actually met she was going back
with her boyfriend or her husband or whoever he was,
a company email came into all of our inboxes and
Even before I opened it, I could hear mass groaning
(33:25):
coming from my newsroom, Mark Rosenthal seven hours before our
dinner to plot how to root around Joel Divver slash
Jason Robard's in Philadelphia slash. I saved two thousand dollars Hyatt.
Mark Rosenthal had been fired and he'd been replaced as
CEO of Current TV, effective immediately by co owner Joel Hyatt. Well,
(33:52):
Holy Divver. It'd be a better story if I never
saw Mark Rosenthal or Uma Thurman again in my life,
but it wouldn't be true. I saw Mark many times.
And then years later, I was at a New York
recording studio doing the voice of the newsman character Tom
Jumbo Grumbo on the Great animated series BoJack Horseman when
(34:13):
one of the other studio doors opened and outstepped Uma Thurman, radiant, elegant.
I introduced myself. She smiled, she said she was a fan.
She laughed, and she said, you know, we must have
coffee sometime. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(34:44):
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of
the music arrange produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schanelle They are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian ray All, orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Shanel, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged unperformed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(35:04):
Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown now also
available on YouTube. That's countdown for this the nine hundred
(35:25):
and thirty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest
him again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(35:56):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app app podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts,
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. There
is absolutely no indication that the Jack Smith grand Jury
(00:25):
actually indicted Donald Trump yesterday, well other than Trump's cryptic
social media post at four point thirty three Eastern, literally
minutes after the grand jury went home for the day,
reading quote, so let's get this straight. The Democrats slimeballs
in Congress impeached me and are now indicting me over
(00:48):
their continuing, illegal, and long running witch hunt. Unquote. Saner
people than you and I have gone mad trying to
parse Trump's three quarters of a century long tortured relationship
with both the English language and all of human speech.
But Trump posted that, complete with those four keywords, are
(01:12):
now indicting me? And then an hour later he reposted
it would Trump know more about what was going on
in that grand jury room yesterday than the rest of us? Well,
presumably only if when he was offered in the second
Target letter the opportunity to testify to or ask for
others to testify to the DC grand Jury, he had
(01:34):
actually availed himself of it and sent an attorney with
a witness or with evidence to submit, and they happened
to be there yesterday. It is still damned fascinating, though,
that he would post such a thing literally minutes after
the grand jury broke for the day. Then again, the
odds against that happening drop significantly when you realize the
(01:56):
volume of crap Trump can post in one day. The
last time I looked, about nine pm Eastern last night,
he had posted fifty six different things, and he had
not started posting yesterday until twelve thirty yesterday afternoon fifty six.
(02:18):
Trump posted an article yesterday about how somebody thought he
did real good in the CNN town Hall, which was
Check's sundial just seventy seven days ago. Trump also posted
a claim that Joe Biden stole documents while he was
a senator and that John Durham was the victim of
a cover up, and there were also a dozen or
(02:39):
so ads warning about the horrible fate of Chong from
Cheech and Chong. Trump did not post for the first
time in several days, and he of a series of
memes that read the January sixth was quote the day
the government staged a riot, and there is speculation that
somebody finally pointed out to him that on January sixth
(03:00):
he was the government, and that just because the meme
was posted by an authoritative source like Ted Nugent, that
was no reason anybody should believe it back on this planet.
The New York Times has reported it has confirmed Monday's
report that the former acting Deputy Attorney General Rich Donahue
(03:21):
had confirmed on the record that he did subject himself
to an interview with Smith's attorneys. Topics he wouldn't say, individuals,
he wouldn't say. We can only hope Donahue was asked
what the House Committee asked him about the possible appointment
of Jeffrey Clark as Attorney General so he could make
up the fraud Trump wanted and seize the voting machines
as Trump wanted, And we can only hope Donahue told
(03:43):
them what he told the committee and what he told
Clark in the time quote, you're an environmental lawyer. How
about you go back to your office and we'll call
you when there's an oil spill. It was also a
minor development in the Georgia case, but of course Georgia
may hinge on whether or not charges specifically about Georgia
(04:04):
are included in Jack Smith's charges, and presumably in that case,
Jack Smith actually would go first. The Guardian, whichever the
case is, quotes two sources briefed Onne the matter is
saying that Fani Willis has narrowed potential charges against Trump
in Georgia and or other defendants in Georgia to quote
criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and conspiracy to commit
(04:27):
election fraud, as well as solicitation of a public or
political officer to fail to perform their duties and solicitation
to destroy, to face or remove ballots. And there was
also a minor development from Erie, Pennsylvania. Trump is holding
one of his clan rallies there Saturday, and Erie's mayor
(04:48):
wants as much as thirty five thousand dollars up front
because a twenty eighteen Trump Clan rally in Erie ran
up that much in extra costs for the city that
had to be picked up by its taxpayers. And Trump's
campaign is still stiffing the good citizens of Erie for
a reimbursement on that thirty five large and Erie mayor
(05:11):
Joe Schember assumes Trump is going to do it again,
so there is no reason to expect news of any
indictments today. The first set the stolen documents indictments were
revealed to Trump right after they were handed up on
Thursday Thursday, June eighth, and the Washington Grand Jury has
(05:32):
also met Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we have the day off.
There is a hearing scheduled today though, an Oversight Subcommittee
hearing on UFOs, whereas they are now called UAPs. And
what a plot twist it would be if the UFO
hearing is really about Trump, or at least we might
(05:56):
hold out hope that we will get to the bottom
of why Congressoan Tim Burchett of Tennessee is not sharing
that hearing as planned, and what did the aliens do
with Burchett's beard? Trump did come up yesterday at the
sentencing of one of his stochastic Patsy's, Ryan Gunderson, the
nimrod who wore his high school letterman's jacket to the
(06:19):
coup pro tip don't prosecutors asked Quote, what happens the
next time a criminal indictment comes down against someone he likes,
and noted that the person for whom Gunderson stormed the
capitol quote is still out there telling lies about the election.
I wonder who they mean? Gunderson eighteen months. However, Trump
(06:40):
stayed mostly off stage. He did manage to underscore from
off stage just how much he owns much of the
House Republican Fascist Caucus and how much they in turn
own Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. So, thus how
much he Trump owns Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.
House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri has
(07:04):
filed a brief in Federal District Court in Delaware seeking
to prevent the plea deal that the Justice Department and
Hunter Biden agreed to which the judge in the case
was to consider today. Smith and others are still pushing
the testimony of that DOJ agent who set his demands
for more serious tax prosecutions of the President's son were
(07:26):
suspiciously rejected by the department's actual tax experts, and he
was then forced to admit under oath that nearly all
of his demands for more serious tax prosecutions of everybody
he investigated were rejected by the Department's tax experts. If
the Trumpian fascination with Hunter Biden is not explicable to
(07:50):
you here, it is in brief. Trump is corrupt. He
was impeached twice his adult sons are corrupt, and at
least one is widely publicly suspected of rampant substance use.
In Trump's world for half a century. The best defense
against truths like that is to locate your most dangerous
rival and fabricate evidence that he and his family are
(08:13):
just as guilty as you are or more guilty, or
permit your cultists to believe the other guys are guilty
and you aren't, and that the claims about you have
been fabricated to deflect the evidence against them. So that's
the Chairman of Ways and Means, as to the Speaker
of the House, reduced from being second in the presidential
(08:34):
line of succession to diverting attention from Trump's poop stains
by spreading other poop in other directions, even as his
House caucus continues to spectacularly self own on these keystone
cops likes investigations of Biden and son continually stepping on
rakes like one secret witness turning out to be a
(08:55):
fugitive Chinese agent running guns to Iran, and another secret
witness who keeps forgetting to show up to testify and
now will not testify under oath if he shows up,
even though the entirety of the billion dollar right wing
imitation news machine has been devoted and dedicated to this
cause and has managed to move nothing into the actual
(09:16):
news media. Despite all that, Kevin McCarthy continues to try
to play Renfield to Trump's dracula by impeaching or seeming
to impeach Joe Biden and to somehow unimpeach Trump. Monday night,
McCarthy told Sean Hannity that, quote, this is rising to
(09:36):
the level of impeachment inquiry. But by yesterday morning, McCarthy
was saying that when he said this is rising to
the level of impeachment inquiry, he wasn't saying it is
rising to the level of impeachment inquiry. He was saying
it would be rising quote the actions that I'm seeing
by this administration withholding the agencies from being able to
(09:59):
work with us, that would rise to the level of
an impeachment inquiry. And then he posited if evidence continues
to rise to the level and impeachment inquiry, House Republicans
will act just in case this was still too clear.
(10:22):
McCarthy then added, We've got a number of people coming
in they could come forward with all the information these
committees are requesting, and we wouldn't have to rise to
that it is rising. It might rise, it doesn't have
to rise. So even for the notoriously wind blown Kevin McCarthy,
(10:45):
the man with the perpetual look of a low rent
bald eagle who can't quite figure out whether gusts are
coming in from the southeast or the northwest, this is Amazingly,
eat your cake and keep it too, Fox's congressional reporter writes, quote,
Fox is told those are something of high level trial balloons.
(11:07):
The reason is that McCarthy wants to get a sense
of what gopeers want to do, to ask those go peers,
and most importantly, where the votes may lie for impeaching anyone. Unquote, Look, Kevin,
(11:29):
you're missing the obvious. You've got this UFO hearing today,
This would be perfect for an impeachment. Think of all
the aliens you can impeach. Also of interest here, so,
of course, climate change is worse than we thought, or
(11:51):
anybody thought, or anybody saw it coming. In one way,
we are discovering how in Italy, where it is not
only one hundred and fifteen degrees on the coast, but
the way to serve ve that which we call air
conditioning is not working there because one hundred and fifteen
(12:12):
degrees also will collapse your electrical infrastructure. And speaking of collapsing,
there's this guy Greg Gutface on Fox who just defended
his network's agreement with Ron DeSantis that slavery really helped
the slaves by teaching them skills. He defended that by
(12:36):
saying that those with useful skills were the ones who
survived the Holocaust and the Nazi death camps. And no,
the entirety of what he said is actually far worse
than I am describing it right now. That's next. This
is countdown, you know, this is countdown with you know,
(13:00):
Keith Olberman. Most scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,
some snarks, some predictions, date line Catania in Italy. All right,
you can tell me you've thought about this. As the
climate crisis worsens and gets out of hand and the
(13:23):
atmosphere dies, you are not going to be the one
who voluntarily gives up the last air conditioner, are you.
I've thought about it. Well, we can let ourselves off
the gilt hook, because the air conditioning will probably die
long before we will in Catania, on the Sicilian coast,
(13:45):
it hit one hundred and fifteen degrees over the weekend,
and the city was not built for one hundred and
fifteen degrees, literally not built that way. Much of the
underground electrical grid melted. It is called underground climate change.
There is evidence of it under shak right now. But
(14:06):
to what happened over the weekend in Italy, three hundred
thousand residents without air conditioning or anything else electrical for
a while or water. The wiring for the pumping stations
also melted. Power ration throughout most of the city. They
did fix the water pumps, but the best so far
in the ac is special air conditioned rooms for the elderly, which,
(14:29):
if you have seen the movie, is something predicted in
the seventies climate disaster and inforest government organized cannibalism film
Soilent Green with Charlton Heston.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
You know you tell everybody, you gotta tell them Silent
Greenner's people, it's paper, Thank you, Nancy Faust Yum Yum
(15:11):
dateline Galveston, Texas full on McCarthyism at Texas A and
M University, Professor Joy Alonso had given a routine lecture,
but One of the students was the daughter of the
Texas State Land Commissioner, and she narked on Professor Alonso
to her mother because the professor had allegedly, and we
don't know how, but had allegedly disparaged Texas Lieutenant Governor
(15:34):
Dan Patrick.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Within hours, the professor had been placed on administrative leave
for being critical of the Lieutenant governor. Couple things. Wasn't
that the guy who said he was willing to die
to preserve the Texas economy for his grandchildren during COVID, Well,
we're waiting. Also, the creeping fascism in Texas can be addressed.
(15:57):
Colleges and universities in other states simply should not recognize
Texas high school diplomas, and employers in other states should
not recognize Texas college and university degrees. Also this sidebar.
Imagine my surprise when I read the Texas Tribune headline
for this story quote Texas A and M put professor
on leave for allegedly criticizing Dan Patrick. Go on dateline
(16:24):
the White House. Well, the secret is out. The Great
Biden scandal has been proved. It is time to impeach
Commander Commander the first German shepherd. He is gone on
a one dog rampage against the Secret Service, and all
of it has been on earthed by America's top defender
of truth, justice and something. Tom Fitten, the non lawyer
(16:49):
chief of Judicial Watch, the guy who ironically given his name,
can't find a shirt that fits him.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
Judicial Watch President Tom fitting here with some news. The
Secret Service just gave us documents that show that Joe
Biden's dog commander has a tax Secret Service personnel repeat
at the White House at least ten incidents, one of
which led to a uniform Secret Service officer being sent
to the hospital. I don't know what's going on over
(17:15):
there in the Biden White House that the family thinks
that their dogs should be able to attack ten or
so Secret Service agents, the folks who are defending their lives,
without much being done about it.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, something was done about it. The Secret Service tried
to cover it up, and it was Judicial Watch heavy
lifting in court that exposed this scandal of abuse of
Secret Service personnel by the Biden family. And now we
know by the Secret Service itself some terrible personal, dark
corruption going on over there in the Biden White House.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
That's Tom Fitton doing the Lord's work. That's the non
lawyer Trump gets his key legal advice from. And I
just want to say this once again, Tom keep telling
Trump exactly what he wants to hear. You are our
best hope still ahead on countdown. Tomorrow is Uma Thurman Day,
(18:22):
twelve years to the day of the day that looked
like it was going to be one of the best
days of my life but turned out to be one
of the most underwhelming, imaginable things I promised not to
tell I had first time for the daily round up
of the miscrants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who
constitute two days worse persons in the world. Lebron's shared
(18:45):
by Elon Musk and Sean Hannity, And when you think
of them together like that, at least Hannity knows he's
an idiot. After Lebron James's son Bronni, suffered cardiac arrest
while at a college basketball practice. He's apparently fine now.
Both Musk and Hannity suggested it was caused by the
COVID vaccine, because no basketball player ever suffered cardiac arrest
(19:08):
before COVID or the vaccine other than Reggie Lewis. When
he died in nineteen ninety three, Hank Gathers in nineteen
ninety Pete Marivitch in nineteen eighty eight, Len Bias in
nineteen eighty six, John Postly in nineteen seventy. It never
happened before. The runner up, Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee,
co author with Senator Mike I didn't do. January sixth,
(19:28):
lee of a resolution trying to prevent the media from
quote sensationalizing mass murderers. Try to keep the media from
giving them the publicity they crave when they're dead. The
Breitbart article complementing these two slugheads on this resolution uses
the term glorification of mass murderers, as Tennessee State Rep.
(19:51):
Justin Jones noted on Twitter or whatever it's called this week.
Last Christmas, Congressman don't sensationalize mass murderers, Ogles posted a
Christmas card showing himself, his wife, and two of his
three children carrying long guns. The smallest child instead carries
a sign saying peace, which I presume has meant ironically. Incidentally,
(20:13):
neither the resolution nor the bright Bart article about mass
murderers and this resolution mentions the word gun, but the
winner Greg Guttfeld, the new ten PM host on Fox
quote news unquote. First, Fox defended slavery in this country
because it supposedly taught useful skills to the slaves who
(20:33):
didn't die, and all the slaves became blacksmiths, just like
Ron DeSantis says, hundreds and thousands of blacksmiths in the
nineteenth century. Now Fox has moved on to this Gutfeld idiot,
implying that Jews who were tortured and murdered in the
death camps had simply failed to become quote useful, and
(20:56):
thus they did not survive the Holocaust, while the useful
Jews did quote did you ever read Man's search were meaning?
Gutfeld asked. Another Fox loser, Victor Frankel, talks about how
you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills.
You had to be useful utility. Utility kept you alive unquote,
(21:19):
which is not at all what Frankel says. Frankel noted
that when it came to Jews and others that the
Nazis could use as slave labor or slave servants, they
killed them. Last, The Daily Beast quotes a Fox staffer
saying that in any other television outlet, Gutfeld, who poses
as an intellectual by perching his glasses at the end
(21:40):
of his nose and also amazingly considers himself a comedian,
would have been fired and his career would have been
over Greg, but not at Fox Fox rationalizing the Holocaust
since nineteen ninety six. Gutfeld two days, worst person in
(22:02):
the world, and now to the number one story on
(22:24):
the Countdown and my favorite topic me and I saw
her on TV recently, so I flashed back and shuddered
all over again. Yes, it's things I promised not to tell.
I suspect that until the day I actually die. No
day will have started so well with such promise, yet
ended so badly with such a clanging thud as Wednesday,
(22:47):
July twenty seventh, twenty and eleven did. Near midnight two
nights earlier, I had just entered my New York apartment
back from a New York Yankees game, when the last
landline telephone I ever owned began to ring. Hi, Keith,
it's Uma, Yeah, how many UMAs could there be? It
(23:08):
was the actress Uma Thurman. We had texted briefly, we
had never met. We had never spoken. We spoke for
ninety minutes, and she was self deprecating and vulnerable and
razors sharp and warm, and she invited me to coffee.
On the afternoon of D Day, Wednesday, July twenty seven,
twenty eleven, one of the producers I had hired to
do the new version of Countdown on Al Gore's network,
(23:31):
Current TV, happened to know Uma Thurman from the gym.
Erica Ferrari was her name, and she was great, and
she and Uma Thurman had become close enough that Uma
had unloaded all her relationship issues on Erica. And the
next thing I knew, Erica was in my office explaining
to me that when she explained to Uma where she
worked and with whom Uma said, the Keith Alderman. And
(23:51):
now I was being set up for drinks or dinner
or coffee or something with Uma Thurman. So this seemed
like a good day. Then two nights earlier we had
finally had had this marvelous, warm conversation and whom A
Thurman had suggested coffee and Wednesday in two thirty or
so in one of the two or three places in
Midtown near my studio, and she'd text me with details
(24:14):
and she couldn't wait. Simultaneously with this, the CEO of
the Current TV network, Mark Rosenthal, called me up and
invited me to dinner on Wednesday, July twenty seventh, twenty eleven,
going to be a busy day. Al Gore and Current
had hired me even before I left MSNBC. That was
what that was all about. And I had met and
gotten to know everybody in the organization over the following
(24:37):
six months before we finally got the show on the
air in June. We got off to a good start,
even though Current TV was available only in low def
digital cable. On its first night, Countdown on Current beat
both MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell's Show and CNN's Elliott Spitzer Show,
and the so called demo ratings measuring viewers eighteen to
(24:57):
fifty four. But by July twenty seventh, twenty eleven, so
like two months later, it was evident to me that
the network was run by four kinds of people. One
the CEO Rosenthal, who used to be at MTV and
knew what he was doing. Two some dilettants who did
not know how to plug in a television, let alone
put stuff on one. Three co owner Al Gore, who
(25:20):
meant well but who had absolutely no judgment when it
came to business partners. And four in a class by himself,
Gore's business partner Joel Hyatt, who had made one superb
business decision in nineteen seventy seven that earned him billions
of dollars and he sold everything and then earned him
billions of dollars again. But he had literally never gotten
(25:43):
anything right since nineteen seventy seven, while at the same
time thinking he had never gotten anything wrong since nineteen
seventy seven. He was a liberal. Unfortunately he was a
liberal Donald Trump. What was worse was that of all
these people, only Mark Rosenthal understood how ruinously incompetent Joel
Hyatt really was. Rosenthal had been president of MTV from
(26:06):
nineteen ninety six through two thousand and four, and whatever
you thought of all those reality shows and the Real
World and stuff like that, they were successes. He knew
what he was doing, and he knew Joel Hyatt didn't.
And Mark Rosenthal had invited me to dinner as soon
as my show was over on Wednesday night, July twenty seven,
(26:27):
twenty eleven, about seven hours after I was scheduled to
have coffee with Uma Thurman as a dry run for
a date, and Rosenthal told me he had figured out
how we could in effect take control of the Current
TV network away from this Joel Hyatt and not only
exploit the good start Countdown had made, but build on
(26:47):
it and make Current TV into the liberal news network
we had been intending to create and knew would be
a success. Dinner would be our chance for him to
explain it to me, to hatch our plan. It was
a big, big day. Without me going into detail, you
intuitively get the Uma Thurman part of what July twenty seventh,
(27:10):
twenty eleven was supposed to be. But I need to
put a little bit more meat on the bones of
why it was so important at Current TV. This is
who this guy Hyatt was, that same producer who was
doing her best to set up Uma Thurman and me Erica.
She walked in one day, white as the sheet of
paper she was carrying at arm's length, as if it
(27:31):
had been printed in bubonic plague. She had found while
surfing around internet archives a New York Times article about
this Joel Hyatt, an article from April thirteen, nineteen ninety.
You remember the movie Philadelphia where the evil head of
law firm portrayed by the actor Jason Robards had fired
the head of his Philadelphia office played by Tom Hanks
(27:53):
because the Hanks character had AIDS and Hanks's character got
as his lawyer, a character played by Denzel Washington. Well,
this guy who co owned Current TV with Al Gore,
he was the Jason Robard's character he had fired from
his law firm Hiatt Legal Services, the head of his
Philadelphia office, Clarence B. Kin, after finding out Clarence B.
(28:16):
Kin had AIDS. In fact, reality was actually worse than
the Philadelphia movie. In real life, Clarence B. Kane was
also African American. The time story that Erica Ferrari handed
me like it was printed on razor blades, recounted how
a federal judge had not only ordered Hyatt Legal Services
to pay mister Kane one hundred and fifty seven thousand
dollars plus costs, but how it had ordered them to
(28:39):
pay him immediately, like in the next couple days. This
was harrowing enough, but the final paragraph made my head swim. Quote.
What pained him most, mister Hyatt said, was the notion
that his firm discriminated. He noted how it had, after all,
named a gay black man to run one of its
major offices, something no law firm its size has ever
(29:02):
knowingly done. Quote it's totally lost in the shuffle is
that this is an organization in which anyone can succeed,
he said. No one has written about that. That was
this guy Hyatt in a nutshell. He fired a gay
black man who was dying of AIDS. But he knew
who the real victim here was himself. And it's not
(29:24):
like Hyatt had improved over the years. As I mentioned.
The Night Countdown premiered on Current TV June twentieth, twenty eleven.
We beat MSNBC and CNN in the ratings, but we
didn't know it. The next day, our ratings showed that
we had beaten CNN and just missed beating O'Donnell on MSNBC.
A few weeks later, one of those networks got a
(29:45):
friendly reporter to write a story about how since the debut,
our ratings on Current had sunk, which was to be
expected and which was a totally legitimate competitive thing for
the MSNBC guys to do. But the numbers were all wrong.
The ratings for Countdown that were included in the pro
CNN pro MSNBC story were somehow well higher than the
(30:06):
ratings we saw every day at current. If I'm not
clear about this, the story said that, say, on Monday
July eleventh, we had one hundred thousand demo viewers, but
our ratings, the ratings we got from the Nielsen company,
they said that on Monday July seventh, we didn't have
one hundred thousand demo viewers when we had seventy five
thousand demo viewers. Well, something was really really wrong here.
(30:29):
So when Hyatt called me for our weekly phone chat,
I said, look, there's something wrong with the ratings. And
I explained the article to him and he said, oh,
I knew they were going to do that, show how
your ratings had dropped. And I said, no, you're missing
my point. They say we had higher ratings than we
actually did.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I knew they were going to do that too, he said,
with even more condescension. And I said, why would they
do that? Why would they try to make us look better?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (30:53):
I knew they were going to do that too, just too.
Then there was a long pause while Joel Hyatt made
something up just to mess with us. I asked him,
since he had personally purchased the ratings package from the
Nielsen Company, the first ratings in the history of current TV,
if he could just review for me what he remembered
of the process. Well, I went in and made an
(31:15):
excellent deal. I saved two thousand dollars on their initial
price point. This man was worth a couple of billion dollars.
They wanted us to buy not just the live ratings,
but something called live plus Divver. I thought for a moment, Divver,
I said, you mean live plus DVR. He laughed, Yes,
(31:39):
that's it Divver. What the hell is divver? You just
use the live ratings and TV everybody knows that. I
explained to him that divver ratings were comparatively new, about
three four years old at that point. They added to
the live rating people who would watch the show on
their DVR within twenty four hours of having recorded it.
(32:01):
He had bought the ratings that did not include all
of those people, so that when we got what we
thought were our ratings for our premier night when we
beat CNN and almost beat MSNBC but just missed, we
didn't just miss. The ratings package this idiot Hiatt had
bought did not include anybody who watched the show on
their DVRs, And that cost us the chance to come
(32:21):
out and say we beat CNN at MSNBC the first
night with this crappy, low deaf picture down on CHA
channel hundred and three. But more importantly, it saved this
billionaire idiot Hiatt two thousand dollars. So Mark Rosenthal was
taking me to dinner hours after I was to have
(32:43):
coffee with Uma Thurman to explain how we could get
rid of this idiot who thought DVR meant divver. Thus
was July twenty seventh, twenty eleven going to be one
of the turning points in my life. And then about
one forty five, just when Uma said she was going
(33:04):
to text me to tell me where to meet her
for coffee, she texted me. All right, She texted me
to explain her rehearsal was running along and she had
to postpone. And while I was reading between those lines
and knowing that that actually met she was going back
with her boyfriend or her husband or whoever he was,
a company email came into all of our inboxes and
Even before I opened it, I could hear mass groaning
(33:25):
coming from my newsroom, Mark Rosenthal seven hours before our
dinner to plot how to root around Joel Divver slash
Jason Robard's in Philadelphia slash. I saved two thousand dollars Hyatt.
Mark Rosenthal had been fired and he'd been replaced as
CEO of Current TV, effective immediately by co owner Joel Hyatt. Well,
(33:52):
Holy Divver. It'd be a better story if I never
saw Mark Rosenthal or Uma Thurman again in my life,
but it wouldn't be true. I saw Mark many times.
And then years later, I was at a New York
recording studio doing the voice of the newsman character Tom
Jumbo Grumbo on the Great animated series BoJack Horseman when
(34:13):
one of the other studio doors opened and outstepped Uma Thurman, radiant, elegant.
I introduced myself. She smiled, she said she was a fan.
She laughed, and she said, you know, we must have
coffee sometime. I've done all the damage I can do here.
(34:44):
Thank you for listening. Here are the credits. Most of
the music arrange produced and performed by Brian Ray and
John Phillip Schanelle They are the Countdown musical directors. Guitars,
bass and drums by Brian ray All, orchestration and keyboards
by John Phillip Shanel, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven
selections have been arranged unperformed by the group No Horns Allowed.
(35:04):
Sports Music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two. It
was written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy of ESPN Inc.
Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever.
Our announcer today was my friend Richard Lewis, and everything
else was pretty much my fault. Remember. Countdown now also
available on YouTube. That's countdown for this the nine hundred
(35:25):
and thirty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup
against the democratically elected government of the United States. Arrest
him again while we still can. The next scheduled countdown
is tomorrow Bolton's as the news warrants till then, I'm
Keith Olderman, good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck.
(35:56):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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