1 00:00:04,795 --> 00:00:21,395 Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. I'd 2 00:00:21,435 --> 00:00:26,435 Speaker 1: like to apologize for what MSNBC has become again. I'd 3 00:00:26,435 --> 00:00:30,475 Speaker 1: like to apologize again for what MSNBC has become. They 4 00:00:30,595 --> 00:00:34,395 Speaker 1: fired Maydi Hassan yesterday. He hosted one hour a week 5 00:00:34,435 --> 00:00:37,155 Speaker 1: on Sunday nights and did streaming shows, and it might 6 00:00:37,195 --> 00:00:39,955 Speaker 1: have been the best hour on that network because while 7 00:00:39,955 --> 00:00:41,875 Speaker 1: I don't know that I agreed with even most of 8 00:00:41,875 --> 00:00:44,955 Speaker 1: what he said, he was not doctrinaire, and he didn't 9 00:00:44,995 --> 00:00:47,715 Speaker 1: simply repeat what Matdow says. And he didn't pretend to 10 00:00:47,715 --> 00:00:50,315 Speaker 1: be a moderate because being a Trump propagandist didn't work 11 00:00:50,355 --> 00:00:52,755 Speaker 1: out that well for him like Scarborough does. And he 12 00:00:52,795 --> 00:00:55,355 Speaker 1: didn't struggle to read a prompter full of Democratic Party 13 00:00:55,395 --> 00:00:58,355 Speaker 1: talking points like Joy Reid does. And to my knowledge, 14 00:00:58,795 --> 00:01:01,675 Speaker 1: he never fell asleep on the air like Andrea Mitchell does, 15 00:01:01,955 --> 00:01:04,075 Speaker 1: nor caused the viewer to fall asleep like Hayes and 16 00:01:04,115 --> 00:01:09,515 Speaker 1: o'donnald and because they fired him, an Englishman of Indian 17 00:01:09,595 --> 00:01:13,075 Speaker 1: Muslim descent in the middle of a war and terrorism 18 00:01:13,115 --> 00:01:16,515 Speaker 1: between Israel and Hamas that sometimes seems like only thirty 19 00:01:16,515 --> 00:01:18,955 Speaker 1: percent of it is being fought on the ground and 20 00:01:19,035 --> 00:01:21,275 Speaker 1: the rest of it is being fought in the world's media. 21 00:01:21,555 --> 00:01:24,755 Speaker 1: MSNBC at least appears to have made up a story 22 00:01:25,035 --> 00:01:28,675 Speaker 1: about reshuffling its weekend lineup to make more room for 23 00:01:28,875 --> 00:01:34,075 Speaker 1: Michael Steele, former GOP chairman Michael Steele, and for Alicia Melendez, 24 00:01:34,435 --> 00:01:37,955 Speaker 1: whose father you may know, and who in any ethical 25 00:01:37,995 --> 00:01:40,555 Speaker 1: news shop in the world, could not be on the 26 00:01:40,595 --> 00:01:45,035 Speaker 1: air again until her father's situation was resolved. And now 27 00:01:45,955 --> 00:01:50,155 Speaker 1: Hassan will be a fill in anchor because hell damn it, 28 00:01:50,235 --> 00:01:54,155 Speaker 1: they had forty nine great hours of weekend programming and 29 00:01:54,195 --> 00:01:58,155 Speaker 1: they had to cut one of them, didn't they. MSNBC 30 00:01:58,275 --> 00:02:02,155 Speaker 1: does not have forty nine great hours of programming a year. 31 00:02:03,715 --> 00:02:06,715 Speaker 1: I do not know for certain why they fired him. 32 00:02:06,875 --> 00:02:09,195 Speaker 1: I do not know if he said something about the 33 00:02:09,235 --> 00:02:11,835 Speaker 1: Middle East they did not like, although he said a 34 00:02:11,835 --> 00:02:14,155 Speaker 1: lot about the Middle East, I think they did not like. 35 00:02:14,395 --> 00:02:17,795 Speaker 1: I do not know if the timing was coincidental. I 36 00:02:17,875 --> 00:02:23,595 Speaker 1: do know the people running MSNBC now, saysar Conde, Rebecca 37 00:02:23,635 --> 00:02:26,555 Speaker 1: Blumenstein from The Wall Street Journal, and Rashida Jones, who 38 00:02:26,595 --> 00:02:30,075 Speaker 1: was only in charge of scheduling associate producers for midday 39 00:02:30,115 --> 00:02:33,715 Speaker 1: shows but is now MSNBC president and as such is 40 00:02:34,355 --> 00:02:37,755 Speaker 1: only in charge of scheduling associate producers for midday shows. 41 00:02:38,435 --> 00:02:43,075 Speaker 1: They are just dumb enough to have fired Mehdi Hassan 42 00:02:43,715 --> 00:02:48,755 Speaker 1: during a Middle East conflict, but for something other than 43 00:02:48,755 --> 00:02:52,355 Speaker 1: his opinions about it. They really are that dumb. Let's 44 00:02:52,395 --> 00:02:55,395 Speaker 1: put it this way. They either fired him for his 45 00:02:55,435 --> 00:02:58,595 Speaker 1: Middle East opinions during conflict in the Middle East, or 46 00:02:59,275 --> 00:03:02,235 Speaker 1: they fired him for something else during conflict in the 47 00:03:02,275 --> 00:03:05,355 Speaker 1: Middle East and thus made themselves look guilty of firing 48 00:03:05,435 --> 00:03:12,955 Speaker 1: him for his Middle East opinions. Anyway, However, just as 49 00:03:13,195 --> 00:03:18,075 Speaker 1: important as the continuing asinine and ignorant and sometimes flat 50 00:03:18,155 --> 00:03:22,635 Speaker 1: out comical conduct of the management of MSNBC and NBC 51 00:03:22,715 --> 00:03:27,435 Speaker 1: and NBC News, in fact, probably much more important, is 52 00:03:27,475 --> 00:03:30,315 Speaker 1: the issue of personal integrity of the people at what 53 00:03:30,555 --> 00:03:33,595 Speaker 1: is God help Us, the closest thing to a liberal 54 00:03:33,635 --> 00:03:37,435 Speaker 1: news network in this country, while there are what fifteen 55 00:03:37,555 --> 00:03:42,435 Speaker 1: conservative ones and much of CNN and part of MSNBC. 56 00:03:43,595 --> 00:03:47,315 Speaker 1: More important than the firing of Meidi Hassan is the 57 00:03:47,395 --> 00:03:53,275 Speaker 1: response from MSNBC stars about the firing of Media Hassan. 58 00:03:54,195 --> 00:03:56,755 Speaker 1: You want to hear what Mattow and O'Donnell and Hayes 59 00:03:56,795 --> 00:03:59,395 Speaker 1: and Wagner and Reed and everybody else there said about this. 60 00:04:03,555 --> 00:04:07,515 Speaker 1: Want to hear it again, Well, at least it sounds familiar. 61 00:04:07,835 --> 00:04:10,235 Speaker 1: It's the same thing Mattow and O'Donnell, at Hayes and 62 00:04:10,315 --> 00:04:13,155 Speaker 1: Wagner and Reid said when Tiffany Cross was fired a 63 00:04:13,235 --> 00:04:15,635 Speaker 1: year and a month ago right before the midterms, largely 64 00:04:15,675 --> 00:04:19,315 Speaker 1: because Tucker Carlson was mad at her and at NBC. 65 00:04:21,075 --> 00:04:23,035 Speaker 1: And it's the same thing that Mattow and O'Donnell and 66 00:04:23,035 --> 00:04:25,075 Speaker 1: Hayes and Wagner and Reid said when they actually put 67 00:04:25,115 --> 00:04:28,635 Speaker 1: Trump on the first edition of Kristen Welker's Chuck Todd 68 00:04:28,635 --> 00:04:31,635 Speaker 1: approved version of Meet the Press, and somehow they wound 69 00:04:31,715 --> 00:04:33,995 Speaker 1: up fact checking him for less than a minute on TV, 70 00:04:34,275 --> 00:04:36,595 Speaker 1: and they held all the real corrections for one lonely 71 00:04:36,715 --> 00:04:39,315 Speaker 1: post on their website. And all of it happened just 72 00:04:39,395 --> 00:04:43,315 Speaker 1: weeks after Welker let herself be whined and dined by 73 00:04:43,395 --> 00:04:47,115 Speaker 1: Trump's scum like Jason Miller right before the Republican debate 74 00:04:47,235 --> 00:04:54,395 Speaker 1: in Milwaukee. Silence. I have told the story before that 75 00:04:54,475 --> 00:04:56,755 Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, the chairman of GE who 76 00:04:56,795 --> 00:05:01,315 Speaker 1: bruised like he had the skin of an immature grape 77 00:05:01,995 --> 00:05:07,635 Speaker 1: was ready to take the network offline, shut it down 78 00:05:09,355 --> 00:05:11,955 Speaker 1: because in trying to silence me, Fox News had turned 79 00:05:11,995 --> 00:05:17,675 Speaker 1: to attacking him. Jeff Immelt and his mommy. Mommy Immelt 80 00:05:17,995 --> 00:05:21,555 Speaker 1: was a bill O'Reilly viewer, and she called up and 81 00:05:21,715 --> 00:05:25,195 Speaker 1: yelled at her son. At in the crisis meeting in 82 00:05:25,235 --> 00:05:28,115 Speaker 1: Jeff Zuocker's office on the fifty second floor of thirty Rock, 83 00:05:28,195 --> 00:05:31,395 Speaker 1: I was, and boy did this surprise me. I was 84 00:05:31,475 --> 00:05:35,155 Speaker 1: the moderate who said, well, just let just let's not 85 00:05:35,355 --> 00:05:38,475 Speaker 1: mention Fox News for a few weeks and in the interim, 86 00:05:38,515 --> 00:05:40,995 Speaker 1: see if we can figure something else out. And Rachel 87 00:05:40,995 --> 00:05:43,315 Speaker 1: Maddow made it quite loudly clear that if they tried 88 00:05:43,315 --> 00:05:47,475 Speaker 1: to change a word of her scripts, she would quit 89 00:05:47,595 --> 00:05:54,035 Speaker 1: on the spot because no one would ever believe that 90 00:05:54,075 --> 00:05:59,675 Speaker 1: what she was saying had not been censored. Again. And 91 00:05:59,715 --> 00:06:02,155 Speaker 1: I had a quick internal meeting with myself about that, 92 00:06:02,235 --> 00:06:04,075 Speaker 1: and then I had a real life meeting with Rachel 93 00:06:04,435 --> 00:06:07,275 Speaker 1: and I said, you're right, but if we draw that 94 00:06:07,395 --> 00:06:10,875 Speaker 1: line right now in the sand, we're gonna lose. Just 95 00:06:11,075 --> 00:06:13,835 Speaker 1: give me just as long as the French held out 96 00:06:14,035 --> 00:06:16,715 Speaker 1: against the Nazis in nineteen forty, just give me thirty 97 00:06:16,835 --> 00:06:19,795 Speaker 1: three days and if I can't come up with something workable, 98 00:06:19,835 --> 00:06:22,635 Speaker 1: we can both quit on the air together and then 99 00:06:22,795 --> 00:06:26,835 Speaker 1: go get really drunk. And then we hugged and I 100 00:06:26,875 --> 00:06:31,235 Speaker 1: went to work and I found something workable, and that 101 00:06:31,395 --> 00:06:34,195 Speaker 1: Rachel Maddow has been dead for a long time now. 102 00:06:35,515 --> 00:06:38,155 Speaker 1: I mean, this is not an exaggeration. They are paying 103 00:06:38,195 --> 00:06:40,435 Speaker 1: her thirty one million dollars a year basically for her 104 00:06:40,515 --> 00:06:42,995 Speaker 1: name and for one show a week. And by the 105 00:06:43,035 --> 00:06:45,195 Speaker 1: way to that, I say, good work, Rache. Next time, 106 00:06:45,235 --> 00:06:47,955 Speaker 1: get forty one million. But if they are paying you 107 00:06:48,075 --> 00:06:50,315 Speaker 1: thirty one million dollars a year and you are not 108 00:06:50,475 --> 00:06:53,795 Speaker 1: okay with them firing Medi Hassan or Tiffany Cross or 109 00:06:53,795 --> 00:06:56,555 Speaker 1: putting Trump on Meet the Press without fact checking, guess what. 110 00:06:56,835 --> 00:06:59,835 Speaker 1: They are not going to fire Meidi Hassan or Tiffany Cross, 111 00:07:00,075 --> 00:07:01,475 Speaker 1: and they are not going to put Trump on Meet 112 00:07:01,515 --> 00:07:04,595 Speaker 1: the Press without fact checking. And you think that's too 113 00:07:04,835 --> 00:07:08,115 Speaker 1: much of a reach, and that management will always protect 114 00:07:08,195 --> 00:07:15,955 Speaker 1: other managers first, and profits and products last. Okay, we'll 115 00:07:15,955 --> 00:07:18,915 Speaker 1: try it this way. If Rachel Maddow wanted to just say, 116 00:07:19,635 --> 00:07:23,155 Speaker 1: I'm not okay with them firing Medi Hassan or firing 117 00:07:23,155 --> 00:07:25,475 Speaker 1: Tiffany cross or putting Trump on Meet the Press, say 118 00:07:25,515 --> 00:07:28,235 Speaker 1: it publicly, put it out in a tweet, leave it 119 00:07:28,275 --> 00:07:33,155 Speaker 1: at that, do nothing, just say one sentence. Do you 120 00:07:33,315 --> 00:07:38,355 Speaker 1: think they would fire her? The thirty one million dollars 121 00:07:38,435 --> 00:07:41,795 Speaker 1: isn't for one show that she does or for any 122 00:07:41,835 --> 00:07:45,675 Speaker 1: of the special coverage that she hosts. It's because they 123 00:07:45,715 --> 00:07:49,035 Speaker 1: have made the same mistake with her that they made 124 00:07:49,075 --> 00:07:52,235 Speaker 1: with me nearly twenty years ago. They let first me 125 00:07:52,435 --> 00:07:56,795 Speaker 1: and then her become the entirety of the MSNBC brand. 126 00:07:58,355 --> 00:08:01,875 Speaker 1: This info was from inside the twenty twenty one negotiations 127 00:08:02,075 --> 00:08:04,355 Speaker 1: to keep her there rather than let her go do 128 00:08:04,435 --> 00:08:09,235 Speaker 1: something with Sirius or with Jeff Zucker. Somewhere this was 129 00:08:09,275 --> 00:08:12,715 Speaker 1: the message. Yeah, thirty million is a lot of money. 130 00:08:12,795 --> 00:08:16,635 Speaker 1: If she leaves, we lose three hundred million in brand value. 131 00:08:17,155 --> 00:08:22,395 Speaker 1: Three hundred million is more than thirty million. So she 132 00:08:22,595 --> 00:08:26,235 Speaker 1: is in fact in a better position now to defend 133 00:08:26,235 --> 00:08:28,835 Speaker 1: her own principles than she was in two thousand and 134 00:08:28,875 --> 00:08:31,315 Speaker 1: nine when she threatened to quit on the spot if 135 00:08:31,315 --> 00:08:34,075 Speaker 1: they edited out stories about Fox News, and by the way, 136 00:08:34,115 --> 00:08:38,475 Speaker 1: she never did stories about Fox News. She is in 137 00:08:38,515 --> 00:08:40,875 Speaker 1: a better spot. In fact, so are Hayes and O'Donnell. 138 00:08:41,475 --> 00:08:44,595 Speaker 1: I mean, look, I was lead sled dog at MSNBC 139 00:08:44,715 --> 00:08:47,395 Speaker 1: when we spun Rachel off from being my guest host 140 00:08:47,635 --> 00:08:52,075 Speaker 1: to doing the nine PM show replacing Dan Abrams. I 141 00:08:52,235 --> 00:08:54,395 Speaker 1: was still in the front harness when we then spun 142 00:08:54,435 --> 00:08:57,755 Speaker 1: off my next guest host, O'Donnell, to his own show 143 00:08:57,795 --> 00:09:00,315 Speaker 1: at ten PM. I was still there when we put 144 00:09:00,355 --> 00:09:02,875 Speaker 1: Chris Hayes in as my last guest host, and I 145 00:09:02,955 --> 00:09:04,635 Speaker 1: tried to take him with me when I left for Kerr. 146 00:09:05,155 --> 00:09:07,475 Speaker 1: I wanted him to co host a second hour of 147 00:09:07,555 --> 00:09:11,635 Speaker 1: Countdown with Eugene Robinson, and then once they both had 148 00:09:11,755 --> 00:09:15,315 Speaker 1: enough anchoring experience, spin them both off into primetime shows. 149 00:09:15,355 --> 00:09:18,315 Speaker 1: Me at eight, Chris Hayes at nine, Gene Robinson at ten, 150 00:09:18,475 --> 00:09:20,195 Speaker 1: and then this other kid that I just put on 151 00:09:20,235 --> 00:09:23,275 Speaker 1: TV for the first time nationally, some nervous kid from 152 00:09:23,395 --> 00:09:29,995 Speaker 1: Jersey at eleven. His name was Steve Kornaki. The point 153 00:09:30,195 --> 00:09:34,835 Speaker 1: is that not only should one of them, or two 154 00:09:34,875 --> 00:09:38,395 Speaker 1: of them, or all of them be saying something right 155 00:09:38,435 --> 00:09:42,595 Speaker 1: now today about what is going on at MSNBC. The 156 00:09:42,675 --> 00:09:47,835 Speaker 1: replacement of original thought and anti establishment, pro contrarian opinion 157 00:09:48,035 --> 00:09:53,595 Speaker 1: with Pasteuriyes processed Liberal TV trademark copyright Comcast NBC, twenty 158 00:09:53,635 --> 00:09:59,635 Speaker 1: twenty three. Not only should Madow or Hayes or O'Donnell 159 00:10:00,075 --> 00:10:05,155 Speaker 1: or Kornaki or somebody go out on a limb, but 160 00:10:05,235 --> 00:10:08,555 Speaker 1: they could all go out on that same limb with 161 00:10:08,715 --> 00:10:13,715 Speaker 1: absolutely no fear of it falling down or being sawed 162 00:10:13,755 --> 00:10:17,115 Speaker 1: off behind them. It's not just that MSNBC has not 163 00:10:17,235 --> 00:10:20,635 Speaker 1: launched a successful new show since they put Hayes into 164 00:10:20,635 --> 00:10:24,435 Speaker 1: the primetime lineup in March twenty thirteen. It's that cable 165 00:10:24,475 --> 00:10:27,835 Speaker 1: news has not launched a successful new show since MSNBC 166 00:10:27,875 --> 00:10:32,075 Speaker 1: put Hayes on in March of twenty thirteen. CNN Chris 167 00:10:32,115 --> 00:10:36,195 Speaker 1: Cuomo fired just yesterday, he said he saw no difference 168 00:10:36,235 --> 00:10:42,035 Speaker 1: between Biden and Trump. Don Lemon fired Fox. Tucker Carlson 169 00:10:42,235 --> 00:10:49,155 Speaker 1: fired MSNBC Best of Morning Joe Weekend edition, the world's 170 00:10:49,155 --> 00:10:55,355 Speaker 1: only seventeen second long television show. When I spent a 171 00:10:55,475 --> 00:10:59,755 Speaker 1: literal year trying to talk my bosses into giving Rachel 172 00:10:59,755 --> 00:11:04,115 Speaker 1: Maddow a show on MSNBC, when their responses were, nobody 173 00:11:04,155 --> 00:11:07,835 Speaker 1: will watch a woman anchor, and why do you want competition? 174 00:11:07,955 --> 00:11:11,275 Speaker 1: You're a monopoly. Now you're our tent Pole when they 175 00:11:11,315 --> 00:11:13,395 Speaker 1: lied to me and they said they had hired her 176 00:11:13,395 --> 00:11:15,875 Speaker 1: as a contributor, but they hadn't, and I had to 177 00:11:15,875 --> 00:11:18,635 Speaker 1: hand her four hundred and thirty seven dollars in cash 178 00:11:19,355 --> 00:11:21,715 Speaker 1: out of my wallet to keep her from going to 179 00:11:21,755 --> 00:11:24,875 Speaker 1: CNN for two hundred and fifty dollars. After all that, 180 00:11:25,075 --> 00:11:27,875 Speaker 1: I finally convinced them all. But I had one last 181 00:11:27,915 --> 00:11:30,755 Speaker 1: person to convince who did not think a Rachel Matdow 182 00:11:30,835 --> 00:11:34,675 Speaker 1: TV show would work. Her name was Rachel Maddow. Look, 183 00:11:34,755 --> 00:11:38,515 Speaker 1: she said, I lived downtown in his studio apartment with 184 00:11:38,675 --> 00:11:42,195 Speaker 1: no TV and with no real window, and a couple 185 00:11:42,235 --> 00:11:44,235 Speaker 1: of years ago I was dancing in a cell phone 186 00:11:44,275 --> 00:11:47,155 Speaker 1: costume in front of a cell phone store in Massachusetts. 187 00:11:47,715 --> 00:11:52,875 Speaker 1: I'm not certain what success might do to me. It 188 00:11:52,995 --> 00:11:58,995 Speaker 1: might make me a terrible person. I talked her off 189 00:11:58,995 --> 00:12:03,795 Speaker 1: that ledge. I'm not sure I should have. I am 190 00:12:03,995 --> 00:12:07,835 Speaker 1: a cap list. I once calculated how much I made 191 00:12:07,875 --> 00:12:10,115 Speaker 1: for my twelve thirteen years in cable news compared to 192 00:12:10,115 --> 00:12:14,555 Speaker 1: sports sports five million, News seventy million, and as you know, 193 00:12:14,835 --> 00:12:17,275 Speaker 1: if you have ever seen my real life wardrobe, I 194 00:12:17,315 --> 00:12:21,835 Speaker 1: still have most of it. Money is great. When I 195 00:12:21,875 --> 00:12:25,515 Speaker 1: slammed Musk Thursday, for telling advertisers and others trying to 196 00:12:25,555 --> 00:12:29,275 Speaker 1: control him with money to go f themselves. I have 197 00:12:29,355 --> 00:12:32,755 Speaker 1: to confess I felt a little guilt because the point 198 00:12:32,915 --> 00:12:36,355 Speaker 1: of having the money is that you should say that 199 00:12:36,395 --> 00:12:40,075 Speaker 1: to somebody at least once in your life, not like 200 00:12:40,275 --> 00:12:43,355 Speaker 1: Musk did saying it to people who for some reason 201 00:12:43,435 --> 00:12:49,155 Speaker 1: don't want their advertisements next to anti Semitic and pizzagate posts. No, 202 00:12:50,635 --> 00:12:53,675 Speaker 1: say that once in your life in defense of something 203 00:12:53,795 --> 00:12:58,475 Speaker 1: or someone, or for someone or something. When I finally 204 00:12:58,555 --> 00:13:01,995 Speaker 1: left MSNBC in twenty eleven, after they breached my contract 205 00:13:02,075 --> 00:13:05,835 Speaker 1: over that suspension, they had to rescind I could have stayed. 206 00:13:07,035 --> 00:13:09,475 Speaker 1: There were a thousand reasons to go. There was one 207 00:13:09,555 --> 00:13:12,315 Speaker 1: reason to stay, and that was, as Rachel said when 208 00:13:12,355 --> 00:13:14,635 Speaker 1: she did not quit two years earlier over the Fox 209 00:13:14,675 --> 00:13:17,315 Speaker 1: News thing, Keith, this is the best platform we will 210 00:13:17,315 --> 00:13:23,515 Speaker 1: ever see. And I quieted that thought because I knew, well, 211 00:13:23,635 --> 00:13:26,715 Speaker 1: I'm gone, but Rachel will always stand up when it counts. 212 00:13:29,195 --> 00:13:34,675 Speaker 1: Always is a relative term. But the primary reason I 213 00:13:34,715 --> 00:13:37,435 Speaker 1: booked and took the chance and the money a lot 214 00:13:37,435 --> 00:13:41,435 Speaker 1: of money again again money good. The reason I took 215 00:13:41,475 --> 00:13:44,755 Speaker 1: the chance with al Gore's network was the writing was 216 00:13:44,795 --> 00:13:48,675 Speaker 1: on the wall for me at MSNBC for five years 217 00:13:48,715 --> 00:13:51,195 Speaker 1: by that point, maybe more like six or seven, they 218 00:13:51,195 --> 00:13:53,875 Speaker 1: had been trying to wear me out and trying to 219 00:13:53,915 --> 00:13:57,875 Speaker 1: box me in, Like Edward R. Murrow's producer Fred Friendley 220 00:13:57,915 --> 00:14:00,635 Speaker 1: once said, and no undue comparisons are being made here. 221 00:14:01,195 --> 00:14:04,035 Speaker 1: When you live in a world of controversy, you will 222 00:14:04,275 --> 00:14:07,035 Speaker 1: take fire from in front of you. When the fire 223 00:14:07,835 --> 00:14:11,195 Speaker 1: is from those you have targeted, from your opponents, from 224 00:14:11,195 --> 00:14:14,795 Speaker 1: your enemies. If it doesn't hit you, it is amazingly energizing, 225 00:14:14,875 --> 00:14:18,435 Speaker 1: it keeps you going. On the other hand, friendly said, 226 00:14:18,915 --> 00:14:22,435 Speaker 1: if the fire is coming from behind you, it doesn't 227 00:14:22,475 --> 00:14:26,075 Speaker 1: even really have to come near you to wound you. 228 00:14:27,555 --> 00:14:32,995 Speaker 1: It is exhausting being shot at by your own side. Gradually, 229 00:14:33,115 --> 00:14:36,075 Speaker 1: MSNBC peeled off the producers with whom I was comfortable. 230 00:14:36,115 --> 00:14:39,795 Speaker 1: They banned my favorite guest, Marcos Malitsus because Scarborough demanded it. 231 00:14:39,915 --> 00:14:42,675 Speaker 1: They wouldn't carve my show out from the idiot NBC 232 00:14:42,715 --> 00:14:45,155 Speaker 1: News president Cappus, who had tried to suspend me and 233 00:14:45,195 --> 00:14:47,595 Speaker 1: nearly got fired by his own lawyers because he did that. 234 00:14:48,515 --> 00:14:53,595 Speaker 1: And they were beginning to review my guests and to suggest, hey, 235 00:14:54,075 --> 00:14:56,915 Speaker 1: we do one of those special comments would be great 236 00:14:56,915 --> 00:15:00,755 Speaker 1: if you had a Republican come on to reply. And 237 00:15:00,835 --> 00:15:04,035 Speaker 1: I said, we already do that. And the president of 238 00:15:04,035 --> 00:15:07,755 Speaker 1: the network, Film Griffin, looked stupidly at me more stupidly, 239 00:15:08,235 --> 00:15:10,875 Speaker 1: and he said, what do you mean, Buddy, And I said, 240 00:15:11,875 --> 00:15:15,955 Speaker 1: we call that Fox News. But they wanted Michael Steele 241 00:15:15,995 --> 00:15:20,115 Speaker 1: as a regular contributor to Countdown and more panels, as 242 00:15:20,155 --> 00:15:22,315 Speaker 1: they called them, four guests at a time. You used 243 00:15:22,355 --> 00:15:23,915 Speaker 1: to do that on the Old Show in ninety eight. 244 00:15:23,995 --> 00:15:26,795 Speaker 1: It's a good exchange of ideas. You know, have Pat 245 00:15:26,835 --> 00:15:29,235 Speaker 1: Buchanan on once a week, Buddy, just once a week, 246 00:15:29,715 --> 00:15:33,315 Speaker 1: or Joe. Joe would love something in primetime. You might 247 00:15:33,355 --> 00:15:36,355 Speaker 1: even find he'd be easier on you behind the scenes. 248 00:15:38,915 --> 00:15:41,355 Speaker 1: The next thing I thought, I did not say. The 249 00:15:41,395 --> 00:15:44,795 Speaker 1: next thing I thought was check please. The next thing 250 00:15:44,835 --> 00:15:47,915 Speaker 1: I saw was Michael Steele and Pat Buchanan as contributors 251 00:15:47,955 --> 00:15:53,235 Speaker 1: to the Rachel Madows Show. This has strayed further and further, 252 00:15:53,395 --> 00:15:55,835 Speaker 1: not just from the day's other news, but from the 253 00:15:55,875 --> 00:15:58,435 Speaker 1: cancelation of the Medi Hassan Show. And I'm sorry for that. 254 00:15:58,515 --> 00:16:01,035 Speaker 1: I just think the context is important. The context of 255 00:16:01,035 --> 00:16:05,355 Speaker 1: what began to happen at MSNBC in two thy ten 256 00:16:05,835 --> 00:16:09,635 Speaker 1: and twenty eleven, and which has continued very slowly and 257 00:16:09,755 --> 00:16:18,035 Speaker 1: almost imperceptibly into the approved liberal opposition, always insistent, always pleasant, 258 00:16:18,475 --> 00:16:21,755 Speaker 1: but never too loud like the guy who started all this, 259 00:16:24,075 --> 00:16:28,195 Speaker 1: And more importantly still is the context of what MSNBC 260 00:16:28,395 --> 00:16:33,075 Speaker 1: will do next time, because obviously there will be a 261 00:16:33,195 --> 00:16:35,995 Speaker 1: next time. And if you don't believe so, ask Meydi 262 00:16:36,075 --> 00:16:39,755 Speaker 1: Hassan or Tiffany Cross or whoever decided to cut a 263 00:16:39,795 --> 00:16:42,355 Speaker 1: deal with Trump over containing the fact checket, or worse still, 264 00:16:42,395 --> 00:16:45,275 Speaker 1: whoever decided that even though Trump didn't demand anything, they 265 00:16:45,275 --> 00:16:48,875 Speaker 1: should go do that anyway, preemptively, proactively, just to get 266 00:16:48,915 --> 00:16:52,715 Speaker 1: on Trump's good side. There will be a next time, 267 00:16:52,995 --> 00:16:55,875 Speaker 1: and god knows what it will consist of, and who 268 00:16:55,915 --> 00:16:58,795 Speaker 1: is going to stop them? Who will even stand up 269 00:16:58,795 --> 00:17:03,755 Speaker 1: and protest, just protest as Medi Hassan gets shot by 270 00:17:03,835 --> 00:17:07,475 Speaker 1: fire coming in from behind him. And that's the really, 271 00:17:07,715 --> 00:17:10,475 Speaker 1: really sad part. They could all get away with that, 272 00:17:11,275 --> 00:17:14,595 Speaker 1: and at least Matdow could walk in two day right 273 00:17:14,635 --> 00:17:18,915 Speaker 1: now to saize our conde, or to the president of 274 00:17:18,955 --> 00:17:21,355 Speaker 1: the whole company if she wanted to, and say I 275 00:17:21,515 --> 00:17:24,435 Speaker 1: just heard about Meddi Hassan. I don't like this. Put 276 00:17:24,515 --> 00:17:26,475 Speaker 1: him back on. In fact, put him on every day 277 00:17:26,515 --> 00:17:31,235 Speaker 1: at three o'clock. You have twenty minutes to obey, because 278 00:17:31,275 --> 00:17:34,395 Speaker 1: Mattow and Hayes and O'Donnell can keep those jobs until 279 00:17:34,435 --> 00:17:39,915 Speaker 1: they die. They are grandfathered in. They are literally irreplaceable. 280 00:17:40,875 --> 00:17:42,715 Speaker 1: They don't make the money for the network that they 281 00:17:42,795 --> 00:17:46,715 Speaker 1: used to. Nobody in cable does. But also nobody else 282 00:17:46,795 --> 00:17:50,035 Speaker 1: is going to make more or even as much. And 283 00:17:50,155 --> 00:17:54,275 Speaker 1: we know Matdow has previously flexed her muscle and decisions 284 00:17:54,275 --> 00:17:57,715 Speaker 1: that did not involve her show. People she didn't like 285 00:17:57,915 --> 00:18:02,115 Speaker 1: began to disappear from MSNBC air and from its ranks 286 00:18:02,155 --> 00:18:05,235 Speaker 1: of showrunners and producers within months of when I quit 287 00:18:05,275 --> 00:18:11,435 Speaker 1: in January twenty eleven. The reporter in the case told 288 00:18:11,475 --> 00:18:13,995 Speaker 1: me she threatened to bail out of a New York 289 00:18:14,035 --> 00:18:16,675 Speaker 1: Times profile in twenty eighteen or nineteen if I were 290 00:18:16,715 --> 00:18:18,835 Speaker 1: mentioned in it. And I've wasted a lot of your 291 00:18:18,875 --> 00:18:21,835 Speaker 1: time telling you how she vetoed my plan returned there 292 00:18:21,875 --> 00:18:25,715 Speaker 1: in twenty twenty and twenty one. But if there are 293 00:18:25,875 --> 00:18:29,035 Speaker 1: three people at NBC, hell, if there are three people 294 00:18:29,075 --> 00:18:31,715 Speaker 1: in news, if there are three people in television who 295 00:18:31,795 --> 00:18:34,675 Speaker 1: can at least get away with a loud pointed protest, 296 00:18:34,875 --> 00:18:38,115 Speaker 1: Hell can get away with saying if many Hassan goes, 297 00:18:38,475 --> 00:18:41,235 Speaker 1: or if Tiffany Cross goes, or if we keep diluting 298 00:18:41,275 --> 00:18:44,755 Speaker 1: our product down to badly rewritten Democratic Party press releases 299 00:18:45,115 --> 00:18:48,315 Speaker 1: the three of us, we're on strike. If there are 300 00:18:48,355 --> 00:18:53,115 Speaker 1: three people in media besides like Taylor Swift who can 301 00:18:53,155 --> 00:18:58,275 Speaker 1: say we are standing on our principles and who will 302 00:18:58,315 --> 00:19:02,515 Speaker 1: then live to tell about it, it's Chris Hayes and 303 00:19:02,635 --> 00:19:10,995 Speaker 1: Laurence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow. Of course, for that, you've 304 00:19:10,995 --> 00:19:18,635 Speaker 1: got to have principles. The Trump lawyer is cooperating just 305 00:19:18,715 --> 00:19:21,235 Speaker 1: this side of flipping with the prosecutors in Nevada about 306 00:19:21,235 --> 00:19:24,155 Speaker 1: the fake elector's scheme there and political rights. There's a 307 00:19:24,235 --> 00:19:26,795 Speaker 1: five hundred and forty three word editorial that may have 308 00:19:26,915 --> 00:19:30,115 Speaker 1: just upended the presidential campaign. And they don't mean it's 309 00:19:30,115 --> 00:19:33,275 Speaker 1: good news for Trump. But I do have to put 310 00:19:33,275 --> 00:19:36,635 Speaker 1: a PostScript to the Mehdi Hassan cancelation first, and then 311 00:19:36,635 --> 00:19:39,795 Speaker 1: I'll get to the actual news. A major comparison online 312 00:19:39,835 --> 00:19:43,155 Speaker 1: yesterday was wrong. It was to the cancelation of Phil 313 00:19:43,235 --> 00:19:46,635 Speaker 1: Donahue by MSNBC early in two thousand and three. And 314 00:19:46,675 --> 00:19:50,875 Speaker 1: guess what I was at that one too. I was 315 00:19:50,915 --> 00:19:53,715 Speaker 1: a witness, and I've never gone into that story at 316 00:19:53,795 --> 00:19:55,995 Speaker 1: length anywhere, So give me two minutes to do this now. 317 00:19:57,155 --> 00:20:00,435 Speaker 1: I went back there as a fill in to rebuild 318 00:20:00,475 --> 00:20:04,595 Speaker 1: bridges for one week three shows in February two thousand, 319 00:20:05,275 --> 00:20:08,875 Speaker 1: absolutely no expectation I would be staying or ever going 320 00:20:08,915 --> 00:20:11,755 Speaker 1: back there again. I had a full time gig with 321 00:20:11,875 --> 00:20:15,035 Speaker 1: NBC for the Olympics. I was just helping out. They 322 00:20:15,035 --> 00:20:18,715 Speaker 1: were short and anchored, They had no expectations. So people 323 00:20:18,755 --> 00:20:21,195 Speaker 1: I'd worked with just five years before they told me 324 00:20:21,235 --> 00:20:23,435 Speaker 1: the truth, and they had been planning to cancel Phil 325 00:20:23,515 --> 00:20:26,835 Speaker 1: Donahue for months. They would have fired him even if 326 00:20:26,875 --> 00:20:29,675 Speaker 1: Bush had suddenly left office, or if Sodom Hussein had 327 00:20:29,675 --> 00:20:34,155 Speaker 1: turned himself into Dick Cheney personally. Phil Donahue Show was 328 00:20:34,155 --> 00:20:36,675 Speaker 1: done at thirty Rock in New York with a live 329 00:20:36,755 --> 00:20:42,115 Speaker 1: audience in a live studio with a live studio union. 330 00:20:43,235 --> 00:20:47,955 Speaker 1: The rest of MSNBC before, during, and after not done 331 00:20:47,995 --> 00:20:52,435 Speaker 1: with unions. The only reason it cost less to do 332 00:20:52,515 --> 00:20:55,995 Speaker 1: the Phil Donahue Show than it did to do Saturday 333 00:20:56,075 --> 00:20:58,675 Speaker 1: Night live was that they didn't have to build twenty 334 00:20:58,715 --> 00:21:01,795 Speaker 1: new sets every week for the Phil Donahue Show. And yes, 335 00:21:01,835 --> 00:21:03,995 Speaker 1: it was the highest rated show on the network when 336 00:21:04,035 --> 00:21:06,635 Speaker 1: they canceled it, And yes they canceled it like hours 337 00:21:06,675 --> 00:21:09,955 Speaker 1: before Bush started bombing Iraq, But it only got those 338 00:21:10,075 --> 00:21:13,435 Speaker 1: ratings because they did carpet bombing of their own. They 339 00:21:13,475 --> 00:21:17,155 Speaker 1: advertised the show everywhere all the time, millions of dollars. 340 00:21:17,875 --> 00:21:20,555 Speaker 1: His staff was two or three times larger than that 341 00:21:20,595 --> 00:21:23,355 Speaker 1: of any other cable news show. So even as the 342 00:21:23,395 --> 00:21:28,675 Speaker 1: top rated show on MSNBC, Phil Donahue was hemorrhaging money. 343 00:21:28,715 --> 00:21:34,595 Speaker 1: Did Phil's anti Iraq war views help No, probably sped 344 00:21:34,675 --> 00:21:39,195 Speaker 1: up his cancelation. But they canceled all of prime time, 345 00:21:39,955 --> 00:21:43,275 Speaker 1: all of the shows they put on live war coverage. 346 00:21:43,955 --> 00:21:46,235 Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, if they canceled Phil Donahue 347 00:21:46,315 --> 00:21:48,675 Speaker 1: for being a liberal and anti war, why did they 348 00:21:48,715 --> 00:21:51,835 Speaker 1: give his time slot and half his producers to me? 349 00:21:54,435 --> 00:21:57,875 Speaker 1: The medi Hassan Phil Donahue comparison is wrong because Donahue 350 00:21:57,915 --> 00:22:06,715 Speaker 1: was canceled over money. Hassan was canceled over something he said. Okay, 351 00:22:06,755 --> 00:22:11,635 Speaker 1: no more postscripts, more trump scripts. Kenny the Cheese is 352 00:22:11,675 --> 00:22:15,195 Speaker 1: singing again. CNN reported last night that their sources say 353 00:22:15,235 --> 00:22:18,275 Speaker 1: state prosecutors have revealed that they have succeeded in quote, 354 00:22:18,595 --> 00:22:21,915 Speaker 1: securing the cooperation of a key witness who has agreed 355 00:22:21,915 --> 00:22:24,995 Speaker 1: to sit down with Nevada prosecutors in hopes of avoiding 356 00:22:25,035 --> 00:22:28,715 Speaker 1: prosecution there. It's not quite the same plea deal that 357 00:22:29,115 --> 00:22:31,995 Speaker 1: Ken Chesbrow took in the Georgia indictments, but it means 358 00:22:32,915 --> 00:22:35,595 Speaker 1: that thanks to Ken's help, the fake electors scheme is 359 00:22:35,595 --> 00:22:38,875 Speaker 1: now being prosecuted in those two states, and Arizona and 360 00:22:38,995 --> 00:22:43,555 Speaker 1: Michigan and New Mexico. The gag order is back in 361 00:22:43,595 --> 00:22:45,395 Speaker 1: effect in New York. And I hate to fall prey 362 00:22:45,395 --> 00:22:49,195 Speaker 1: to logical fallacy number one, but I keep thinking maybe 363 00:22:49,235 --> 00:22:54,035 Speaker 1: it was all those threats against Judge Angron's wife and 364 00:22:54,115 --> 00:22:57,915 Speaker 1: Judge Angron's clerk by Trump Wednesday that got the Appeals 365 00:22:57,955 --> 00:23:01,475 Speaker 1: Court in New York to realize, Hey, maybe we're enabling 366 00:23:01,515 --> 00:23:07,315 Speaker 1: madness and potential violence. Haunted by reality, Trump reposted all 367 00:23:07,355 --> 00:23:10,115 Speaker 1: of those anti Trump means. The idiot Laura Lumer has 368 00:23:10,195 --> 00:23:13,395 Speaker 1: falsely attributed to Angeron's wife, and now the two of 369 00:23:13,435 --> 00:23:16,555 Speaker 1: them have mixed in the judge's son. It would be 370 00:23:16,595 --> 00:23:20,675 Speaker 1: the highlight of my year if missus Engern now sues 371 00:23:20,755 --> 00:23:23,035 Speaker 1: Lumer and Trump for slander or comes out and says 372 00:23:23,315 --> 00:23:28,115 Speaker 1: she actually supports Republicans or something. Trump was also good 373 00:23:28,155 --> 00:23:31,955 Speaker 1: enough to repost video from the fascist Hodge Twins captioned 374 00:23:32,315 --> 00:23:34,995 Speaker 1: the Capitol cops beat the hell out of innocent J 375 00:23:35,475 --> 00:23:39,635 Speaker 1: six protesters. The cops should be charged and the protesters 376 00:23:39,635 --> 00:23:42,475 Speaker 1: should be freed. So file that for the next time 377 00:23:42,475 --> 00:23:46,755 Speaker 1: you hear any Republican mentioned law and order. And now 378 00:23:46,795 --> 00:23:50,795 Speaker 1: Alina Habba is in trouble. Alice Bianco, who used to 379 00:23:50,795 --> 00:23:54,675 Speaker 1: be a server at Trump's golf course and graveyard in Bedminster, 380 00:23:54,715 --> 00:23:58,915 Speaker 1: New Jersey, has sued for sexual harassment by the beverage 381 00:23:58,955 --> 00:24:03,915 Speaker 1: manager Povel. When a colleague wrote a letter about Bianco's plight, 382 00:24:04,035 --> 00:24:06,835 Speaker 1: it got to a haba and according to miss Bianco, 383 00:24:06,955 --> 00:24:11,035 Speaker 1: Habba quote pretending to be a friend, approached Bianco and 384 00:24:11,075 --> 00:24:14,515 Speaker 1: tricked her into signing a non disclosure agreement pretending to 385 00:24:14,515 --> 00:24:16,835 Speaker 1: be a friend. How about pretending to be a lawyer. 386 00:24:18,235 --> 00:24:22,675 Speaker 1: Habba gave this response to Politico. I always conduct myself ethically, 387 00:24:22,715 --> 00:24:25,715 Speaker 1: and I acted no differently in this circumstance. And if 388 00:24:25,715 --> 00:24:30,635 Speaker 1: that isn't a non denial, denial. My name ain't Ben Bradley, 389 00:24:30,795 --> 00:24:34,755 Speaker 1: speaking of which Washington Post offers a nice little slice 390 00:24:34,755 --> 00:24:39,195 Speaker 1: of life Shay Trump, Kevin McCarthy told friends. The Post 391 00:24:39,195 --> 00:24:42,275 Speaker 1: reports that after Trump sat on his hands while McCarthy's 392 00:24:42,275 --> 00:24:47,155 Speaker 1: speakerships was decapitated, Trump told McCarthy by phone that he 393 00:24:47,195 --> 00:24:50,435 Speaker 1: would have called Matt Gates off, but McCarthy had failed 394 00:24:50,435 --> 00:24:55,355 Speaker 1: to expunge Trump's impeachments. So McCarthy allegedly says he told Trump, quote, 395 00:24:55,755 --> 00:24:59,755 Speaker 1: F you only the full F the full evon Musk. 396 00:24:59,995 --> 00:25:06,475 Speaker 1: F McCarthy denies this or he doesn't rememb And then 397 00:25:06,555 --> 00:25:09,435 Speaker 1: there are these last two stories, and I do not 398 00:25:09,635 --> 00:25:13,275 Speaker 1: think they got the attention they deserved. The British magazine 399 00:25:13,275 --> 00:25:16,635 Speaker 1: The Economist teamed up with You Gov November twenty fifth, 400 00:25:16,675 --> 00:25:20,155 Speaker 1: twenty six, twenty seven polled fifteen hundred US citizens on 401 00:25:20,195 --> 00:25:24,795 Speaker 1: the presidential vote. The outcome forty four forty two. That's 402 00:25:24,835 --> 00:25:29,795 Speaker 1: forty four to forty two Biden. And lastly, there's what 403 00:25:29,995 --> 00:25:33,795 Speaker 1: Meredith McGraw and Adam Kancren wrote yesterday in Politico and 404 00:25:33,835 --> 00:25:35,875 Speaker 1: since it's basically what I said on the first episode 405 00:25:35,875 --> 00:25:37,875 Speaker 1: this week. But I'm just a guy with a podcast. 406 00:25:38,515 --> 00:25:41,675 Speaker 1: Let me read it part of it. Headline quote the 407 00:25:41,755 --> 00:25:44,315 Speaker 1: five hundred and forty three word editorial that may have 408 00:25:44,435 --> 00:25:49,235 Speaker 1: just upended the presidential campaign. Subheadline, the post by Trump 409 00:25:49,275 --> 00:25:53,715 Speaker 1: calling for Obamacare's replacement has lit a fire under Biden's 410 00:25:53,955 --> 00:25:58,875 Speaker 1: slow burn campaign. The editorial referred to, of course, is 411 00:25:58,915 --> 00:26:01,075 Speaker 1: the one from the Wall Street Journal last week, reminding 412 00:26:01,075 --> 00:26:05,835 Speaker 1: Trump that he did not kill Obamacare. Put it here thusly, 413 00:26:06,315 --> 00:26:08,675 Speaker 1: just when Trump and Biden and events had tilted the 414 00:26:08,835 --> 00:26:11,955 Speaker 1: entire profile of the election into things that favored Trump, 415 00:26:12,235 --> 00:26:15,315 Speaker 1: Trump just brought back from the dead what might be 416 00:26:15,355 --> 00:26:19,315 Speaker 1: the last issue in which Democrats completely kick republican ass 417 00:26:20,235 --> 00:26:23,435 Speaker 1: An NBC poll two months ago said Democrats are trusted 418 00:26:23,435 --> 00:26:26,755 Speaker 1: by two to one over Republicans on healthcare. To sum 419 00:26:26,795 --> 00:26:30,235 Speaker 1: it up, as an unnamed Biden advisor told NBC, it's 420 00:26:30,315 --> 00:26:36,155 Speaker 1: almost perfect. Politico quoted the chair of a Democratic support 421 00:26:36,195 --> 00:26:40,395 Speaker 1: group saying, Trump's quote opening up a Pandora's box of hurt. 422 00:26:41,075 --> 00:26:45,395 Speaker 1: It's a story that tells itself, and it not only 423 00:26:45,475 --> 00:26:50,075 Speaker 1: revivified the issue, it revivified Biden's campaign. That's the gist 424 00:26:50,155 --> 00:26:53,875 Speaker 1: of what Politico is reporting. Emails went out mass emails 425 00:26:54,075 --> 00:27:00,275 Speaker 1: to reporters, to sponsors to voters. Within hours, Nancy Pelosi 426 00:27:00,275 --> 00:27:02,795 Speaker 1: got on a press call Tuesday. Biden hit Trump on 427 00:27:02,915 --> 00:27:06,155 Speaker 1: video Wednesday. Commercials all are already running on the state 428 00:27:06,235 --> 00:27:11,315 Speaker 1: level Thursday. And if that were not enough good news, yesterday, 429 00:27:12,435 --> 00:27:16,155 Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal ran another editorial on Obamacare, and 430 00:27:16,235 --> 00:27:21,115 Speaker 1: in it it attacked Trump for his failure to repeal 431 00:27:21,635 --> 00:27:26,915 Speaker 1: and his failed response to their first editorial, whereupon Trump 432 00:27:26,955 --> 00:27:31,755 Speaker 1: replied by attacking the Wall Street Journal, called the paper 433 00:27:31,835 --> 00:27:36,395 Speaker 1: quote globalist and the editorial page a mess. That's the 434 00:27:36,555 --> 00:27:42,315 Speaker 1: editorial page whose editorial abouch Obamacare got him so excited 435 00:27:42,515 --> 00:27:46,315 Speaker 1: that he again vowed to replace Obamacare and thus revitalized 436 00:27:46,355 --> 00:27:48,275 Speaker 1: that issue and the Biden campaign. And I have not 437 00:27:48,955 --> 00:27:53,195 Speaker 1: fully diagrammed this bizarre confluence of events, but I think 438 00:27:53,275 --> 00:27:56,395 Speaker 1: the gist of it is, if Joe Biden is re elected, 439 00:27:56,435 --> 00:28:01,395 Speaker 1: we can now thank the Wall Street Journal editorial board. 440 00:28:06,875 --> 00:28:11,195 Speaker 1: Also of interest here, it's almost as if I wrote 441 00:28:11,795 --> 00:28:16,355 Speaker 1: this next story. He is the head of the Florida 442 00:28:16,395 --> 00:28:20,955 Speaker 1: Republican Party. She is an unidentified friend who has just 443 00:28:21,115 --> 00:28:25,315 Speaker 1: alleged he raped and battered her and the other She 444 00:28:26,435 --> 00:28:29,715 Speaker 1: is his wife, the co founder of Moms for Liberty 445 00:28:30,475 --> 00:28:34,315 Speaker 1: and the first her. Her Other allegation is that they 446 00:28:34,875 --> 00:28:39,715 Speaker 1: had a long standing three way relationship and he used 447 00:28:39,715 --> 00:28:43,275 Speaker 1: his phone to take video of the two hers having sex. 448 00:28:44,115 --> 00:28:46,635 Speaker 1: But thank god we have moms for Liberty to make 449 00:28:46,675 --> 00:28:51,555 Speaker 1: sure nobody ever has two mommies. That's next. This is 450 00:28:51,595 --> 00:28:56,075 Speaker 1: an all new edition of Countdown? Are You Rolling? Take 451 00:28:56,115 --> 00:29:00,075 Speaker 1: two B one of December one, five four three two one. 452 00:29:00,435 --> 00:29:12,355 Speaker 1: This is Countdown with Keith Olberman host. Scripts to the news, 453 00:29:13,235 --> 00:29:20,075 Speaker 1: some headlines, some updates, some snark, some predictions. Dateline Washington 454 00:29:20,155 --> 00:29:23,555 Speaker 1: in a wonderfully contentious episode that Frank Cappra the Third 455 00:29:23,675 --> 00:29:26,195 Speaker 1: is not going to include in any remake he may 456 00:29:26,315 --> 00:29:29,675 Speaker 1: dream up of. Mister Smith goes to Washington. The Senate 457 00:29:29,755 --> 00:29:35,355 Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee actually did something about our corrupt Supreme Religious Court. 458 00:29:35,795 --> 00:29:39,395 Speaker 1: It has issued subpoenas to Harlan Crowe, the owner and 459 00:29:39,475 --> 00:29:43,035 Speaker 1: operator of Justice, Clarence Thomas, and Leonard Leo, owner and 460 00:29:43,075 --> 00:29:46,635 Speaker 1: operator of a whole string of justices from Sam Alito 461 00:29:46,715 --> 00:29:49,515 Speaker 1: to Brett Kavanaugh. And I'm not proud to say a 462 00:29:49,635 --> 00:29:52,915 Speaker 1: fellow member of our Cornell Alumni Association. Ah well, they 463 00:29:52,915 --> 00:29:56,915 Speaker 1: can't all be and coltergeist anyway. Republicans tried to stall 464 00:29:56,955 --> 00:29:59,955 Speaker 1: the subpoena votes, then tried to bury them under two 465 00:30:00,155 --> 00:30:03,315 Speaker 1: hundred amendments, then tried to shout down the roll call, 466 00:30:03,515 --> 00:30:06,315 Speaker 1: and then when they had nothing left, they all ran 467 00:30:06,395 --> 00:30:11,475 Speaker 1: away instead of voting. It's their ethos. Senator John Cornyn 468 00:30:11,635 --> 00:30:14,635 Speaker 1: told Chairman Dick Durbin, the man behind this new Democratic 469 00:30:14,715 --> 00:30:20,395 Speaker 1: idea of actually doing something. Quote, you just destroyed one 470 00:30:20,435 --> 00:30:23,075 Speaker 1: of the most important committees in the United States Senate. 471 00:30:23,395 --> 00:30:28,355 Speaker 1: Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. That, 472 00:30:28,515 --> 00:30:32,315 Speaker 1: mind you, was from a Republican senator. Republican, the party 473 00:30:32,315 --> 00:30:35,195 Speaker 1: that tried to destroy democracy in twenty twenty and is 474 00:30:35,275 --> 00:30:39,475 Speaker 1: trying it again as we speak. Shut up. For his part, 475 00:30:39,555 --> 00:30:44,075 Speaker 1: Leonard Leo Cornell eighty six. And it's always these guys 476 00:30:44,115 --> 00:30:47,395 Speaker 1: with that we were too poor to afford more syllables 477 00:30:47,675 --> 00:30:54,715 Speaker 1: names guys Hugh Hewitt, Eric Erickson, Leonard Leo anyway, Leonard 478 00:30:55,155 --> 00:31:00,035 Speaker 1: issued a statement too, quote Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats have 479 00:31:00,115 --> 00:31:04,155 Speaker 1: been destroying the Supreme Court. Now they are destroying the Senate. 480 00:31:04,715 --> 00:31:09,195 Speaker 1: I will not cooperate with this unlawful campaign of political 481 00:31:09,275 --> 00:31:16,075 Speaker 1: retribution unquote cool contempt to the Senate. Cool arrest him, 482 00:31:16,195 --> 00:31:24,555 Speaker 1: arrest Leonard Leo, drag him out by his freakin shoes. Dateline, Rome, Georgia. 483 00:31:24,635 --> 00:31:28,315 Speaker 1: The Blockbuster Marjorie Taylor Green Book, I Am not Barney 484 00:31:28,355 --> 00:31:31,115 Speaker 1: Rubble No, sorry, I got the title wrong. She went 485 00:31:31,155 --> 00:31:34,435 Speaker 1: with MTG, which is the acronym for the card game 486 00:31:34,515 --> 00:31:36,755 Speaker 1: Magic the Gathering. Why she chose that, I have no 487 00:31:36,835 --> 00:31:41,155 Speaker 1: idea any who. The book is just going Gangbusters. Published 488 00:31:41,155 --> 00:31:45,035 Speaker 1: by Trump Junior's new publishing house, Well out House. This 489 00:31:45,195 --> 00:31:47,875 Speaker 1: is one of those books that right wing groups usually 490 00:31:47,915 --> 00:31:50,915 Speaker 1: snap up by the tens of thousands and make into 491 00:31:50,995 --> 00:31:53,395 Speaker 1: a New York Times bestseller and then give away like 492 00:31:53,515 --> 00:31:57,275 Speaker 1: free pens. But something has come a cropper in this 493 00:31:57,715 --> 00:32:02,035 Speaker 1: ecosystem because the Circana Book scan system, which presents an 494 00:32:02,035 --> 00:32:05,355 Speaker 1: actual record of how many books were sold to the public, 495 00:32:05,795 --> 00:32:09,115 Speaker 1: has presented its data for MTG's first week on the 496 00:32:09,155 --> 00:32:14,475 Speaker 1: shelves short version. It's still on the shelves from November 497 00:32:14,595 --> 00:32:19,715 Speaker 1: nineteenth through November twenty fifth, Marjorie's story sold three hundred 498 00:32:19,755 --> 00:32:26,275 Speaker 1: and fifty two copies. Three hundred and fifty two. That's 499 00:32:26,315 --> 00:32:30,835 Speaker 1: fifty a day. Frankly, I didn't know that fifty a 500 00:32:30,915 --> 00:32:38,075 Speaker 1: day of her fans could read and dateline Kent, Connecticut. 501 00:32:38,115 --> 00:32:40,395 Speaker 1: He actually was a big sports fan, big enough that 502 00:32:40,395 --> 00:32:44,155 Speaker 1: the New York Yankees yesterday put out a statement lauding him, naturally, 503 00:32:44,235 --> 00:32:47,315 Speaker 1: because they are actually the New York Fascists. He also 504 00:32:47,395 --> 00:32:49,755 Speaker 1: once did a tourism commercial for the City of New 505 00:32:49,795 --> 00:32:52,355 Speaker 1: York in which a stunt double ran the bases and 506 00:32:52,435 --> 00:32:55,795 Speaker 1: slid headfirst into the plate at Yankee Stadium. And, in 507 00:32:55,835 --> 00:32:58,555 Speaker 1: the only endearing thing he ever did other than date 508 00:32:58,595 --> 00:33:01,795 Speaker 1: the actress Jill Saint John, he did a commercial for 509 00:33:01,875 --> 00:33:04,675 Speaker 1: the New York Times Sports section in which he claimed 510 00:33:04,835 --> 00:33:07,315 Speaker 1: his true goal in life was to have become a 511 00:33:07,435 --> 00:33:11,275 Speaker 1: National Football League play by play TV announcer so that 512 00:33:11,315 --> 00:33:15,475 Speaker 1: he could have called field goal attempts and say it's 513 00:33:15,595 --> 00:33:20,715 Speaker 1: up and it's good. Henry Kissinger is dead at age 514 00:33:20,715 --> 00:33:23,395 Speaker 1: one hundred, and I have only one other thing to say, 515 00:33:25,075 --> 00:34:04,995 Speaker 1: Are you sure? Don Kannanci houst Stella ahead us on 516 00:34:05,035 --> 00:34:07,595 Speaker 1: an all new edition of Countdown Fridays with Thurber, and 517 00:34:07,595 --> 00:34:11,915 Speaker 1: fittingly given that MSNBC stuff, James Thurber mostly stuck to 518 00:34:11,955 --> 00:34:16,595 Speaker 1: fiction or slightly fictionalized reality, but occasionally he ventured into 519 00:34:16,635 --> 00:34:22,595 Speaker 1: cultural criticism, even media criticism, and it is delightfully mean spirited. 520 00:34:23,155 --> 00:34:27,115 Speaker 1: Something I've never read aloud previously, The Secret Life of 521 00:34:27,235 --> 00:34:30,675 Speaker 1: James Thurber, which despite the title, is actually an attack 522 00:34:30,755 --> 00:34:36,515 Speaker 1: on of all people. The surrealist painter Salvador Dali coming 523 00:34:36,595 --> 00:34:38,635 Speaker 1: up first time for the daily roundup of the miss grants, 524 00:34:38,675 --> 00:34:41,835 Speaker 1: morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse 525 00:34:41,955 --> 00:34:45,995 Speaker 1: persons in the world. That was my dolly impression, the 526 00:34:46,075 --> 00:34:52,235 Speaker 1: bronze worse. Tucker Carlson, Remember Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson launched 527 00:34:52,235 --> 00:34:57,275 Speaker 1: his fascist website, The Daily Caller about thirteen fourteen years 528 00:34:57,315 --> 00:35:01,195 Speaker 1: ago with a bang. He opened another website using my name, 529 00:35:01,355 --> 00:35:05,515 Speaker 1: then impersonated me, stole my idea nity to do an 530 00:35:05,515 --> 00:35:09,075 Speaker 1: email interview with a rather gullible Philadelphia Daily News columnist 531 00:35:09,195 --> 00:35:13,675 Speaker 1: named Stu Baikovski. Baikovsky printed the interview as if it 532 00:35:13,795 --> 00:35:16,555 Speaker 1: was with me and Bikovsky, and the paper had to 533 00:35:16,595 --> 00:35:18,915 Speaker 1: retract it or I would have owned the Philadelphia Daily 534 00:35:18,955 --> 00:35:20,835 Speaker 1: News and I might have been my high school friend 535 00:35:20,875 --> 00:35:24,875 Speaker 1: Will Bunch's boss. Anyhow, the Daily Beast has found tax 536 00:35:24,955 --> 00:35:27,715 Speaker 1: documents that indicate Tucker Carlson has been kicked out of 537 00:35:27,755 --> 00:35:30,995 Speaker 1: the site. Is off the board of the Daily Caller, 538 00:35:31,715 --> 00:35:35,795 Speaker 1: and those initials were for Tucker Carlson TC, and it 539 00:35:35,875 --> 00:35:38,755 Speaker 1: may have happened as long ago as a year next week, 540 00:35:39,275 --> 00:35:43,635 Speaker 1: because even the fascists can smell a rotting corpse. By 541 00:35:43,635 --> 00:35:45,475 Speaker 1: the way, the Daily Beast also found that the Daily 542 00:35:45,515 --> 00:35:49,275 Speaker 1: Caller took seven hundred and seven thousand dollars in COVID 543 00:35:49,315 --> 00:35:52,715 Speaker 1: workplace loans and applied to have them forgiven by the 544 00:35:52,715 --> 00:35:58,875 Speaker 1: Biden administration, and they were forgiven, so thanks Biden. Wurser. 545 00:35:59,155 --> 00:36:02,635 Speaker 1: Lana Burkhardt, a twenty year old woman who we find 546 00:36:02,755 --> 00:36:06,755 Speaker 1: from the good folks at Popular Information, testified to the 547 00:36:06,795 --> 00:36:11,555 Speaker 1: school board in Conroe, Texas that seeing one drawing of 548 00:36:11,595 --> 00:36:16,235 Speaker 1: a kiss between two heterosexual cartoon characters in one of 549 00:36:16,275 --> 00:36:20,115 Speaker 1: those scholastic books for kids, seeing one kiss when she 550 00:36:20,275 --> 00:36:25,115 Speaker 1: was eleven years old led her to an addiction to pornography, 551 00:36:25,675 --> 00:36:28,995 Speaker 1: and that by the age of thirteen she was contemplating suicide. 552 00:36:29,435 --> 00:36:32,915 Speaker 1: And so the Conroe School Board must remove all scholastic 553 00:36:32,955 --> 00:36:36,795 Speaker 1: books from its schools and its school book fairs, and 554 00:36:36,795 --> 00:36:39,035 Speaker 1: that a good alternative for the school board would be 555 00:36:39,035 --> 00:36:45,195 Speaker 1: to switch to the nonprofit independent Skytree book fairs. Hell. 556 00:36:45,475 --> 00:36:49,635 Speaker 1: According to Popular Information. Turns out Ms Burkhardt's recommendation switched 557 00:36:49,635 --> 00:36:54,075 Speaker 1: to Skytree Books left out a couple of key details. One, 558 00:36:54,915 --> 00:36:58,915 Speaker 1: she was homeschooled, so it must have been mom who 559 00:36:58,955 --> 00:37:02,795 Speaker 1: gave her that deadly book, not the school district. Two 560 00:37:03,515 --> 00:37:06,355 Speaker 1: about Skytree book Books, it quote appears to be a 561 00:37:06,395 --> 00:37:11,195 Speaker 1: hastily assembled offshoot of Brave Books. Brave Books just happens 562 00:37:11,235 --> 00:37:13,835 Speaker 1: to publish kids books written by right wingers and religious 563 00:37:13,915 --> 00:37:17,395 Speaker 1: nuts and Chaia Raychik and Jack Pisovic and Kevin Sorbo 564 00:37:17,715 --> 00:37:21,515 Speaker 1: and other Trump felaters. The president of Skytree was an 565 00:37:21,515 --> 00:37:25,595 Speaker 1: executive assistant at Brave Books until earlier this year. And 566 00:37:25,675 --> 00:37:27,955 Speaker 1: as to poor miss Burkhardt and her story of going 567 00:37:27,995 --> 00:37:32,475 Speaker 1: to hell looking at a guy kissing a girl, she 568 00:37:32,675 --> 00:37:36,515 Speaker 1: turns out to be an employee at Brave Books. In fact, 569 00:37:36,555 --> 00:37:41,595 Speaker 1: she's public relations coordinator. In other words, the book banners 570 00:37:41,635 --> 00:37:47,115 Speaker 1: have mutated. They are now book banners for profit, which 571 00:37:47,235 --> 00:37:51,835 Speaker 1: leads to our winners the worst. Speaking of book banners, 572 00:37:52,355 --> 00:37:56,675 Speaker 1: Moms for Liberty, that's Moms for Hitler. Liberty co founder 573 00:37:56,995 --> 00:38:00,195 Speaker 1: Bridget Ziegler and her husband, the new chair of the 574 00:38:00,195 --> 00:38:05,035 Speaker 1: Florida GOP, Christian Ziegler, Bridget. Ziegler was also there by 575 00:38:05,075 --> 00:38:09,315 Speaker 1: the podium when Ron DeSantis signed Florida's Don't Say Gay laws. 576 00:38:10,355 --> 00:38:14,715 Speaker 1: For the Sarasota Herald Tribune and the Florida Trident, Sarasota 577 00:38:14,755 --> 00:38:19,795 Speaker 1: police are currently investigating allegations against Christian Ziegler. No charges yet, 578 00:38:20,315 --> 00:38:22,795 Speaker 1: but they've gotten missearch warrant and they are examining his 579 00:38:22,915 --> 00:38:27,075 Speaker 1: phone now. Allegations from a local woman accusing Christian Ziegler 580 00:38:27,355 --> 00:38:31,315 Speaker 1: of sexual battery and according to the Trident, rape and 581 00:38:31,355 --> 00:38:34,635 Speaker 1: the unredacted words in one part of the police report 582 00:38:34,715 --> 00:38:42,555 Speaker 1: are quote stated raped, stated that raped unquote. Sadly, this 583 00:38:42,635 --> 00:38:44,675 Speaker 1: part of the story is all too common. There is 584 00:38:44,715 --> 00:38:48,675 Speaker 1: a psychological condition in which really sick people often spend 585 00:38:48,755 --> 00:38:52,075 Speaker 1: their lives trying basically to make sure that they can 586 00:38:52,155 --> 00:38:54,595 Speaker 1: prove that other people are way more sick than they are, 587 00:38:55,235 --> 00:38:57,995 Speaker 1: and that their efforts to persecute those people more than 588 00:38:58,155 --> 00:39:00,915 Speaker 1: compensate for their own evil, at least in their own minds, 589 00:39:01,075 --> 00:39:03,395 Speaker 1: so that they can rationalize that they are in effect 590 00:39:03,795 --> 00:39:08,035 Speaker 1: not net evil. Don't know if either of the Zigglers 591 00:39:08,035 --> 00:39:11,915 Speaker 1: fit that description, but I haven't told you the kicker 592 00:39:11,915 --> 00:39:16,555 Speaker 1: to this story yet. Sit down, the alleged victim also 593 00:39:16,675 --> 00:39:20,475 Speaker 1: told police that she was not exactly a stranger either 594 00:39:20,595 --> 00:39:25,075 Speaker 1: to Florida Republican chairman mister Ziggler or Moms for Liberty 595 00:39:25,075 --> 00:39:29,875 Speaker 1: co founder Missus Ziggler. She quote alleged that she and 596 00:39:29,995 --> 00:39:34,355 Speaker 1: both Zigglers had been involved in a long standing, consensual 597 00:39:35,115 --> 00:39:42,795 Speaker 1: three ways sexual relationship prior to the incident. Unquote, Oh so, 598 00:39:43,635 --> 00:39:50,035 Speaker 1: Mom's for liberty, It's that kind of liberty. Huh waca, waca, waca. 599 00:39:50,635 --> 00:39:54,955 Speaker 1: Christian Florida Republican man Ziegler and his wife Bridget Ziegler. 600 00:39:55,035 --> 00:39:59,315 Speaker 1: Just remember in Florida, don't say gay, but if you 601 00:39:59,315 --> 00:40:03,475 Speaker 1: want to say bye bye, apparently it's okay. Today's worst 602 00:40:03,715 --> 00:40:18,555 Speaker 1: persons and the world fridays with Thurber now and as 603 00:40:18,595 --> 00:40:22,795 Speaker 1: I believe I mentioned, Thurber stuck mostly too. Besides the 604 00:40:22,995 --> 00:40:25,955 Speaker 1: cartoons and drawings that made him famous in one part 605 00:40:26,035 --> 00:40:29,635 Speaker 1: of the world, his short stories and other works of 606 00:40:29,675 --> 00:40:32,475 Speaker 1: fiction that made him famous in the rest of the world. 607 00:40:33,115 --> 00:40:35,355 Speaker 1: But every once in a while he would get really 608 00:40:35,475 --> 00:40:38,355 Speaker 1: ticked off by something going on in real life. He 609 00:40:38,395 --> 00:40:41,635 Speaker 1: would delve into cultural criticism. He wrote pieces about how 610 00:40:41,675 --> 00:40:45,075 Speaker 1: bad radio was in the nineteen forties, particularly as we began 611 00:40:45,075 --> 00:40:48,475 Speaker 1: to lose more and more of his vision, and periodically 612 00:40:48,835 --> 00:40:52,475 Speaker 1: he would have at other authors, especially if he thought 613 00:40:52,515 --> 00:40:56,915 Speaker 1: their work was crap. And in that context I bring 614 00:40:56,955 --> 00:41:03,835 Speaker 1: to you The Secret Life of James Thurber by James Thurber. 615 00:41:05,755 --> 00:41:09,835 Speaker 1: I have only dipped here and there into Salvador Dali's 616 00:41:10,075 --> 00:41:14,075 Speaker 1: The Secret Life of Salvador Dolli, with paintings by Salvador 617 00:41:14,155 --> 00:41:18,315 Speaker 1: Dolli and photographs of Salvador Dolli, because anyone afflicted with 618 00:41:18,355 --> 00:41:23,515 Speaker 1: what my grandmother's sister Abigail called the permanent jumps, should 619 00:41:23,515 --> 00:41:27,395 Speaker 1: do no more than skidder through such an autobiography, particularly 620 00:41:27,435 --> 00:41:31,995 Speaker 1: in these melancholy times. One does not have to skidder 621 00:41:32,235 --> 00:41:35,755 Speaker 1: far before one comes upon some vignette which gives the 622 00:41:35,795 --> 00:41:39,155 Speaker 1: full shape and flavor of the book. The youthful dreamer 623 00:41:39,195 --> 00:41:45,035 Speaker 1: of dreams, biting a sick bat or kissing a dead horse, 624 00:41:45,755 --> 00:41:50,115 Speaker 1: the slender stripling going into man's estate with the high 625 00:41:50,155 --> 00:41:53,835 Speaker 1: hope and fond desire of one day eating a live 626 00:41:54,355 --> 00:41:59,035 Speaker 1: but roasted turkey, and sighing lover covering himself with goat 627 00:41:59,115 --> 00:42:02,875 Speaker 1: dung and aspic, that he might give off the true 628 00:42:03,515 --> 00:42:09,235 Speaker 1: and noble odor of the ram in my flying trip 629 00:42:09,355 --> 00:42:12,755 Speaker 1: through Dolly, I caught other glimpses of the great man, 630 00:42:12,955 --> 00:42:16,675 Speaker 1: Salvador adoring a seed ball fallen from a plane tree, 631 00:42:17,035 --> 00:42:22,035 Speaker 1: Salvador kicking a tiny playmate off a bridge, Salvador caressing 632 00:42:22,115 --> 00:42:26,515 Speaker 1: a crutch, Salvador breaking the old family doctor's glasses with 633 00:42:26,635 --> 00:42:30,915 Speaker 1: a leather thonged mattress beater. There would appear to be 634 00:42:30,955 --> 00:42:33,795 Speaker 1: only two things in the world that revolt him, and 635 00:42:33,915 --> 00:42:38,475 Speaker 1: I don't mean a long dead hedgehog. He is squeamish 636 00:42:38,795 --> 00:42:46,035 Speaker 1: about skeletons and grasshoppers. Oh well, we all have our idiosyncrasies, 637 00:42:47,235 --> 00:42:50,715 Speaker 1: Senor Dolli's memories have set me to thinking, I find 638 00:42:50,715 --> 00:42:54,155 Speaker 1: myself muttering as I shave, and on two occasions I 639 00:42:54,155 --> 00:42:57,155 Speaker 1: have swung my crutch at a little neighbor girl on 640 00:42:57,195 --> 00:43:01,555 Speaker 1: my way to the post office. Senor Dolly's book sells 641 00:43:01,635 --> 00:43:05,675 Speaker 1: for six dollars. My own published person history, Harper and 642 00:43:05,715 --> 00:43:08,835 Speaker 1: Brothers nineteen thirty three, sold for a dollar seventy five. 643 00:43:09,795 --> 00:43:13,475 Speaker 1: At the time. I complained briefly about this unusual figure, 644 00:43:13,755 --> 00:43:16,755 Speaker 1: principally on the ground that it represented only fifty cents 645 00:43:16,755 --> 00:43:19,355 Speaker 1: more than the price asked for a book called The 646 00:43:19,435 --> 00:43:23,675 Speaker 1: Adventures of Horace the Hedgehog, published the same month. The 647 00:43:23,675 --> 00:43:28,195 Speaker 1: publishers explained that the price was a closely approximated vertical 648 00:43:28,955 --> 00:43:33,635 Speaker 1: prefigured on the basis of profitable sailing, which in turn 649 00:43:33,795 --> 00:43:36,795 Speaker 1: was arrived at by taking into consideration the effect on 650 00:43:37,035 --> 00:43:44,155 Speaker 1: diminishing returns of the horizontal factor. In those days, all 651 00:43:44,275 --> 00:43:48,315 Speaker 1: heads of business firms adopted a guarded kind of double talk, 652 00:43:48,915 --> 00:43:52,955 Speaker 1: commonly expressed in low muffled tones, because nobody knew what 653 00:43:53,035 --> 00:43:56,835 Speaker 1: was going to happen, and nobody understood what had. Big 654 00:43:56,875 --> 00:43:59,675 Speaker 1: business had been frightened by a sequence of economic phenomena 655 00:43:59,835 --> 00:44:02,715 Speaker 1: which had clearly demonstrated that our civilization was in greater 656 00:44:02,835 --> 00:44:06,595 Speaker 1: danger of being turned off than of gradually crumbling away. 657 00:44:07,515 --> 00:44:09,675 Speaker 1: The upshot of it all was that I accepted the 658 00:44:09,715 --> 00:44:12,835 Speaker 1: price of one dollar and seventy five cents. In so doing, 659 00:44:12,915 --> 00:44:15,195 Speaker 1: I accepted the state of the world as a proper 660 00:44:15,275 --> 00:44:17,875 Speaker 1: standard by which the price of books should be fixed. 661 00:44:17,875 --> 00:44:21,035 Speaker 1: And now, with the world in ten times as serious 662 00:44:21,075 --> 00:44:23,715 Speaker 1: a condition as it was in nineteen thirty three, Dolly's 663 00:44:23,715 --> 00:44:27,795 Speaker 1: publishers set a price of six dollars on his life story. 664 00:44:27,915 --> 00:44:31,075 Speaker 1: This brings me to the inescapable conclusion that the price 665 00:44:31,195 --> 00:44:34,795 Speaker 1: fixing principle in the field of literature is not global 666 00:44:35,315 --> 00:44:39,355 Speaker 1: but personal trouble, quite simply as that I told too 667 00:44:39,395 --> 00:44:42,075 Speaker 1: much about what went on in the house I lived in, 668 00:44:42,715 --> 00:44:49,435 Speaker 1: and not enough about what went on inside myself. Let 669 00:44:49,435 --> 00:44:51,515 Speaker 1: me be the first to admit that the naked truth 670 00:44:51,515 --> 00:44:55,075 Speaker 1: about me is to the naked truth about Salvador DOLLI 671 00:44:55,515 --> 00:44:58,635 Speaker 1: as an old ukulele in the attic is to a 672 00:44:58,675 --> 00:45:03,595 Speaker 1: piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts. 673 00:45:05,035 --> 00:45:07,875 Speaker 1: Dolly has the jump on me from the beginning. He 674 00:45:07,955 --> 00:45:11,235 Speaker 1: remembers and describes in detail what it was like in 675 00:45:11,275 --> 00:45:15,755 Speaker 1: the womb. My own earliest memory is of accompanying my 676 00:45:15,835 --> 00:45:19,675 Speaker 1: father to a polling booth in Columbus, Ohio, where he 677 00:45:19,755 --> 00:45:25,235 Speaker 1: voted for William McKinley. It was a drab and somewhat 678 00:45:25,315 --> 00:45:28,115 Speaker 1: battered tin shed set on wheels, and it was filled 679 00:45:28,115 --> 00:45:31,675 Speaker 1: with guffawing men and cigar smoke. All in all as 680 00:45:31,795 --> 00:45:36,995 Speaker 1: far removed from the paradisiacal placenta of Salvador Dolly's first recollection, 681 00:45:37,395 --> 00:45:42,195 Speaker 1: as could well be imagined, A fat jolly man dandled 682 00:45:42,235 --> 00:45:44,555 Speaker 1: me on his knee and said that I would soon 683 00:45:44,595 --> 00:45:48,115 Speaker 1: be old enough to vote against William Jennings Bryan. I 684 00:45:48,195 --> 00:45:50,675 Speaker 1: thought he meant that I could push a folded piece 685 00:45:50,675 --> 00:45:53,755 Speaker 1: of paper into the slot of the padlocked box as 686 00:45:53,755 --> 00:45:57,035 Speaker 1: soon as my father was finished. When this turned out 687 00:45:57,075 --> 00:45:59,715 Speaker 1: not to be true, I had to be carried out 688 00:45:59,715 --> 00:46:03,955 Speaker 1: of the place, kicking and screaming. In my struggles I 689 00:46:04,035 --> 00:46:07,715 Speaker 1: knocked my fond derby off several times. The Derby was 690 00:46:07,715 --> 00:46:12,595 Speaker 1: not a monstrously exciting love object to me, as practically 691 00:46:12,635 --> 00:46:16,595 Speaker 1: everything Salvador encountered was to him, and I doubt, if 692 00:46:16,635 --> 00:46:18,875 Speaker 1: I had that day to live over again, that I 693 00:46:18,875 --> 00:46:21,875 Speaker 1: could bring myself, even in the light of exotic dedication 694 00:46:22,075 --> 00:46:26,035 Speaker 1: as I now know it, to conceive an intense and 695 00:46:26,155 --> 00:46:30,715 Speaker 1: perverse affection for the Derby. It remains obstinately in my 696 00:46:30,795 --> 00:46:33,155 Speaker 1: memory is a rather funny hat, a little too large 697 00:46:33,155 --> 00:46:35,515 Speaker 1: in the crown, which gave my father the appearance of 698 00:46:35,555 --> 00:46:39,635 Speaker 1: a tired, sensitive gentleman who had been persuaded against his 699 00:46:39,755 --> 00:46:45,235 Speaker 1: will to take part in a game of charades. We 700 00:46:45,395 --> 00:46:48,235 Speaker 1: lived on Champion Avenue at the time, and the voting 701 00:46:48,235 --> 00:46:51,835 Speaker 1: booth was on Mound Street. As I set down these names, 702 00:46:51,875 --> 00:46:54,515 Speaker 1: I begin to perceive an essential and important difference between 703 00:46:54,555 --> 00:46:58,915 Speaker 1: the infant Salvador and the infant me. This difference can 704 00:46:58,955 --> 00:47:03,315 Speaker 1: be stated in terms of environment. Salvador was brought up 705 00:47:03,315 --> 00:47:06,835 Speaker 1: in Spain, a country colored by the legends of Hannibal 706 00:47:07,235 --> 00:47:13,515 Speaker 1: el Greco and Servantes. I was brought up in Ohio, 707 00:47:13,635 --> 00:47:17,515 Speaker 1: a region steeped in the traditions of Coxey's Army, the 708 00:47:17,635 --> 00:47:24,835 Speaker 1: Anti Saloon League, and William Howard Taft. It is only 709 00:47:24,955 --> 00:47:28,435 Speaker 1: natural that the weather in little Salvador's soul should have 710 00:47:28,475 --> 00:47:32,675 Speaker 1: been stirred by stranger winds and enveloped in more fantastic 711 00:47:32,755 --> 00:47:37,435 Speaker 1: mists than the weather in my own soul. But enough 712 00:47:37,475 --> 00:47:40,875 Speaker 1: of muling apology for my lackluster early years. Let us 713 00:47:40,875 --> 00:47:44,035 Speaker 1: get back to my secret life, such as it was, 714 00:47:44,715 --> 00:47:47,915 Speaker 1: stopping just long enough to have another brief look at 715 00:47:47,955 --> 00:47:53,755 Speaker 1: Segnor Dolly on our way. Salvador Dolly's mind goes back 716 00:47:53,795 --> 00:47:56,435 Speaker 1: to a childhood half imagined and half real, in which 717 00:47:56,435 --> 00:47:59,115 Speaker 1: the edges of actuality were sometimes less sharp than the 718 00:47:59,195 --> 00:48:02,395 Speaker 1: edges of dream. He seems, somehow to have got the 719 00:48:02,475 --> 00:48:07,795 Speaker 1: idea that this sets him off from Harry Spencer, Charlie Doakes, 720 00:48:07,915 --> 00:48:13,435 Speaker 1: I Finberg, JJ mcnabo, William Faulkner, Herbert Hoover, and me. 721 00:48:14,675 --> 00:48:17,355 Speaker 1: What Salvey had that the rest of us kids didn't 722 00:48:17,555 --> 00:48:21,835 Speaker 1: was the perfect scenery, characters, and costumes for his desperate 723 00:48:21,915 --> 00:48:26,195 Speaker 1: little rebellion against the clean, the conventional, and the comfortable. 724 00:48:27,355 --> 00:48:31,155 Speaker 1: He put perfume on his hair, which would have cost 725 00:48:31,235 --> 00:48:36,315 Speaker 1: him his life in say Bayonne, New Jersey, or Youngstown, Ohio. 726 00:48:37,075 --> 00:48:40,435 Speaker 1: He owned a lizard with two tails. He wore silver 727 00:48:40,475 --> 00:48:43,475 Speaker 1: buttons on his shoes, and he knew or imagined he 728 00:48:43,515 --> 00:48:49,835 Speaker 1: knew little girls called Galuchka and Dulita. Thus he was 729 00:48:49,875 --> 00:48:54,955 Speaker 1: born halfway along the road to paranoia. The soft expression 730 00:48:54,995 --> 00:48:58,915 Speaker 1: of his prayers, the melting ohs of his oblations, the 731 00:48:58,955 --> 00:49:00,755 Speaker 1: capital to put it so that you can see what 732 00:49:00,755 --> 00:49:05,075 Speaker 1: I'm trying to say of his heart's desire, or so 733 00:49:05,195 --> 00:49:08,395 Speaker 1: anyway it must seem to a native of Columbus, Ohio, 734 00:49:08,555 --> 00:49:11,315 Speaker 1: who has a youngster, bought his twelve dollars suits at 735 00:49:11,355 --> 00:49:14,595 Speaker 1: the F and R. Lazarus Company, had his hair washed 736 00:49:14,595 --> 00:49:18,555 Speaker 1: out with ivory soap, owned a bull terrier with only 737 00:49:18,635 --> 00:49:23,915 Speaker 1: one tail, and played nicely and a bit diffidently with 738 00:49:24,035 --> 00:49:31,595 Speaker 1: little girls named Irma and Betty and Ruby. Another advantage 739 00:49:31,635 --> 00:49:34,515 Speaker 1: that the young dolly had over me from the standpoint 740 00:49:34,555 --> 00:49:37,675 Speaker 1: of impetus towards paranoia lay in the nature of the 741 00:49:37,715 --> 00:49:41,435 Speaker 1: adults who peopled his real world. There was in Dolly's 742 00:49:41,435 --> 00:49:46,995 Speaker 1: hometown of Figeas a family of artists named Pi, show musicians, painters, 743 00:49:47,035 --> 00:49:50,955 Speaker 1: and poets, all of whom adored the ground that the 744 00:49:51,235 --> 00:49:55,835 Speaker 1: en Font Terrible walked on. If one of them came 745 00:49:55,915 --> 00:49:59,315 Speaker 1: upon him, throwing himself from a high rock, a favorite 746 00:49:59,355 --> 00:50:02,555 Speaker 1: relaxation of our hero, or hanging by his feet with 747 00:50:02,595 --> 00:50:05,755 Speaker 1: his head immersed in a pail of water, the wild 748 00:50:05,875 --> 00:50:08,995 Speaker 1: news was spread about the town that greatness and genius 749 00:50:09,235 --> 00:50:12,395 Speaker 1: had come to figet Us. There was a woman who 750 00:50:12,475 --> 00:50:15,955 Speaker 1: put on a look of maternal interest when Salvador threw 751 00:50:16,115 --> 00:50:19,235 Speaker 1: rocks at her. The mayor of the town fell dead 752 00:50:19,275 --> 00:50:22,035 Speaker 1: one day at the boy's feet. A doctor in the community, 753 00:50:22,235 --> 00:50:25,035 Speaker 1: not the one he had horse whipped, was seized of 754 00:50:25,075 --> 00:50:28,995 Speaker 1: a fit and attempted to beat him up. The contention 755 00:50:29,155 --> 00:50:31,315 Speaker 1: that the doctor was out of his senses at the 756 00:50:31,355 --> 00:50:37,035 Speaker 1: time of the assault is Dolly's, not mine. The adults 757 00:50:37,035 --> 00:50:39,155 Speaker 1: around me when I was in short pants were neither 758 00:50:39,195 --> 00:50:42,715 Speaker 1: so glamorous nor so attentive. They consisted mainly of eleven 759 00:50:42,795 --> 00:50:46,875 Speaker 1: maternal grain ants, all Methodists, who were staunch believers in 760 00:50:46,995 --> 00:50:50,875 Speaker 1: physic mustard, plasters and scripture, and it was part of 761 00:50:50,915 --> 00:50:54,355 Speaker 1: their dogma that artistic tendencies should be treated in the 762 00:50:54,395 --> 00:50:58,795 Speaker 1: same way as hiccups or hysterics. None of them was 763 00:50:58,835 --> 00:51:02,555 Speaker 1: an artist, unless she can count Aunt Lou, who wrote 764 00:51:02,595 --> 00:51:06,275 Speaker 1: sixteen stress verse with him hit and miss rhymes in 765 00:51:06,355 --> 00:51:10,435 Speaker 1: celebration of people's birthdays or on occasion of great national disaster. 766 00:51:11,955 --> 00:51:14,675 Speaker 1: Never occurred to me to bite a bat in my 767 00:51:14,835 --> 00:51:20,035 Speaker 1: aunt's presence, or to throw stones at them. There was 768 00:51:20,395 --> 00:51:26,995 Speaker 1: one escape though my secret world of idiom. Two years ago, 769 00:51:27,035 --> 00:51:28,795 Speaker 1: my wife and I, looking for a house to buy, 770 00:51:28,915 --> 00:51:31,555 Speaker 1: called on a firm of real estate agents in New Milford. 771 00:51:32,355 --> 00:51:34,835 Speaker 1: One of the members of the firm, scrabbling through a 772 00:51:34,835 --> 00:51:38,555 Speaker 1: metal box containing many keys, looked up to say, the 773 00:51:38,635 --> 00:51:44,235 Speaker 1: key to the Roxbury House isn't here. His partner replied, 774 00:51:45,035 --> 00:51:47,835 Speaker 1: it's a common lock. A skeleton will let you in. 775 00:51:49,395 --> 00:51:52,755 Speaker 1: I was suddenly, once again five years old, with a 776 00:51:52,835 --> 00:51:56,875 Speaker 1: wide eye and open mouth. I pictured the Roxbury House 777 00:51:57,035 --> 00:51:58,915 Speaker 1: as I would have pictured it as a small boy, 778 00:51:58,995 --> 00:52:02,115 Speaker 1: a house of such dark and nameless horrors as have 779 00:52:02,235 --> 00:52:06,755 Speaker 1: never crossed the mind of our little bat buyer. It 780 00:52:06,915 --> 00:52:10,195 Speaker 1: was of sentences like that nonchalantly tossed off by real 781 00:52:10,315 --> 00:52:14,955 Speaker 1: estate dealers, great aunts, clergymen, and other such prosaic persons. 782 00:52:15,235 --> 00:52:19,955 Speaker 1: That the enchanted private world of my early boyhood was made. 783 00:52:19,995 --> 00:52:23,715 Speaker 1: In this world. Businessmen who phoned their wives to say 784 00:52:23,715 --> 00:52:28,355 Speaker 1: that they were tied up at the office, sat roped 785 00:52:28,515 --> 00:52:32,395 Speaker 1: to their swivel chairs and probably gagged, unable to move 786 00:52:32,475 --> 00:52:39,395 Speaker 1: or speak, except somehow miraculously to telephone. Hundreds of thousands 787 00:52:39,435 --> 00:52:42,635 Speaker 1: of business men tied to their chairs in hundreds of 788 00:52:42,675 --> 00:52:47,195 Speaker 1: thousands of offices in every city of my fantastic cosmos. 789 00:52:49,155 --> 00:52:51,835 Speaker 1: An especially fine note about the binding of all the 790 00:52:51,875 --> 00:52:54,795 Speaker 1: businessmen in all the cities was that whoever did it, 791 00:52:55,675 --> 00:53:02,235 Speaker 1: always did it around five o'clock in the afternoon. Then 792 00:53:02,275 --> 00:53:04,555 Speaker 1: there was the man who left town under a cloud. 793 00:53:05,715 --> 00:53:07,955 Speaker 1: Sometimes I saw him all wrapped up in the cloud 794 00:53:07,995 --> 00:53:10,835 Speaker 1: and invisible, like a cat in a burlap sack. That 795 00:53:10,955 --> 00:53:13,795 Speaker 1: other times it floated about the size of a sofa, 796 00:53:14,395 --> 00:53:17,875 Speaker 1: three or four feet above his head, following him wherever 797 00:53:17,915 --> 00:53:21,235 Speaker 1: he went. One could think about the man under the 798 00:53:21,275 --> 00:53:24,795 Speaker 1: cloud before going to sleep. An image of him wandering 799 00:53:24,835 --> 00:53:31,115 Speaker 1: around from town to town was as sure soporific, not 800 00:53:31,355 --> 00:53:34,195 Speaker 1: so the mental picture of a certain Missus Houston, who 801 00:53:34,275 --> 00:53:37,355 Speaker 1: had been terribly cut up when her daughter died on 802 00:53:37,395 --> 00:53:40,835 Speaker 1: the operating table. I could see the doctors too vividly, 803 00:53:40,955 --> 00:53:43,435 Speaker 1: just before they set upon Missus Houston with their knives, 804 00:53:43,715 --> 00:53:46,555 Speaker 1: and I could hear them, now, Missus Houston, will we 805 00:53:46,595 --> 00:53:49,075 Speaker 1: get up on the table like a good girl, or 806 00:53:49,115 --> 00:53:52,955 Speaker 1: will we have to be put there? I could usually 807 00:53:52,995 --> 00:53:55,555 Speaker 1: fight off Missus Houston before I went to sleep, but 808 00:53:55,635 --> 00:53:58,995 Speaker 1: she frequently got into my dreams, and sometimes she still does. 809 00:54:00,555 --> 00:54:03,555 Speaker 1: I remember the grotesque creature that came to haunt my 810 00:54:03,635 --> 00:54:06,715 Speaker 1: meditations when one evening my father said to my mother, 811 00:54:07,875 --> 00:54:11,675 Speaker 1: what did missus Johnson say when you told her about Betty? 812 00:54:13,075 --> 00:54:20,555 Speaker 1: And my mother replied, as she was all ears. There 813 00:54:20,595 --> 00:54:24,515 Speaker 1: were many other wonderful figures in the secret, surrealistic landscapes 814 00:54:24,555 --> 00:54:26,515 Speaker 1: of my youth. The old lady was always up in 815 00:54:26,555 --> 00:54:29,315 Speaker 1: the air, the husband who did not seem to be 816 00:54:29,355 --> 00:54:31,995 Speaker 1: able to put his foot down, the man who lost 817 00:54:31,995 --> 00:54:34,515 Speaker 1: his head during a fire but was still able to 818 00:54:34,595 --> 00:54:37,275 Speaker 1: run out of the house yelling. The young lady who 819 00:54:37,395 --> 00:54:42,115 Speaker 1: was in reality a soiled dove. It was a world 820 00:54:42,115 --> 00:54:44,435 Speaker 1: that of necessity one had to keep to oneself and 821 00:54:44,475 --> 00:54:47,475 Speaker 1: brood over in silence, because it would fall to pieces 822 00:54:47,555 --> 00:54:51,235 Speaker 1: at the touch of words. If you brought it out 823 00:54:51,515 --> 00:54:54,035 Speaker 1: into the light of actual day and put it to 824 00:54:54,075 --> 00:54:56,955 Speaker 1: the test of questions, your parents would try to laugh 825 00:54:57,115 --> 00:55:00,355 Speaker 1: the miracles away, or they would take your temperature and 826 00:55:00,435 --> 00:55:03,715 Speaker 1: put you to bed. Since I always ran a temperature 827 00:55:03,795 --> 00:55:05,595 Speaker 1: whenever it was taken, and I was put to bed 828 00:55:05,595 --> 00:55:10,795 Speaker 1: and left there alone with missus Houston. Such a world 829 00:55:10,835 --> 00:55:15,195 Speaker 1: as the world of my childhood is alas not year proof. 830 00:55:16,155 --> 00:55:20,635 Speaker 1: It is a ghost that, to use Henley's words, gleams, flickers, 831 00:55:21,355 --> 00:55:25,195 Speaker 1: vanishes away. I think it must have been the time 832 00:55:25,555 --> 00:55:28,755 Speaker 1: my little cousin Francis came to visit us, that it began, 833 00:55:28,875 --> 00:55:32,595 Speaker 1: surely and forever to dissolve. I came into the house 834 00:55:32,675 --> 00:55:37,835 Speaker 1: one rainy dusk and ask where Francis was. She is, said, 835 00:55:37,875 --> 00:55:44,515 Speaker 1: our cook up in the front room, crying her heart out. 836 00:55:45,435 --> 00:55:48,635 Speaker 1: The fact that a person could cry so hard that 837 00:55:48,755 --> 00:55:51,635 Speaker 1: his heart would come out of his body as perfectly 838 00:55:51,755 --> 00:55:54,915 Speaker 1: shaped and glossy as a red velvet pin cushion was 839 00:55:55,035 --> 00:55:59,435 Speaker 1: news to me. For some reason, I had never heard 840 00:55:59,435 --> 00:56:02,715 Speaker 1: the expression so common in American families whose hopes and 841 00:56:02,835 --> 00:56:07,635 Speaker 1: dreams run so often counter to attainment. I went upstairs 842 00:56:07,675 --> 00:56:10,555 Speaker 1: and opened the door of the front room. Francis, who 843 00:56:10,635 --> 00:56:13,475 Speaker 1: was three years older than I, jumped off the bed 844 00:56:13,675 --> 00:56:18,555 Speaker 1: and ran past me, sobbing, and down the stairs. My 845 00:56:18,755 --> 00:56:24,835 Speaker 1: search for her heart took some fifteen minutes. I tore 846 00:56:24,915 --> 00:56:28,555 Speaker 1: the bed apart and kicked up the rugs, and even 847 00:56:28,595 --> 00:56:32,875 Speaker 1: looked in the bureau drawers. It was no good. I 848 00:56:32,915 --> 00:56:35,555 Speaker 1: looked out the window at the rain and the darkening sky. 849 00:56:35,995 --> 00:56:39,555 Speaker 1: My cherished mental image of the man under the cloud 850 00:56:39,675 --> 00:56:43,915 Speaker 1: began to grow dim and fade away. I discovered that, 851 00:56:44,035 --> 00:56:47,275 Speaker 1: all alone in a room, I could face the thought 852 00:56:47,315 --> 00:56:53,995 Speaker 1: of missus Houston with cold equanimity. Downstairs, in the living room, 853 00:56:54,955 --> 00:57:06,715 Speaker 1: Francis was still crying. I began to laugh. Ah, there, Salvador. 854 00:57:20,955 --> 00:57:25,035 Speaker 1: The Secret Life of James Thurber by James Thurber. I've 855 00:57:25,035 --> 00:57:26,795 Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you 856 00:57:26,795 --> 00:57:28,755 Speaker 1: for listening. Countdown has come to you from the Vin 857 00:57:28,795 --> 00:57:32,635 Speaker 1: Scully Studios at the Olderman Broadcasting Empire in New York. 858 00:57:33,195 --> 00:57:36,915 Speaker 1: Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle arranged, produced, 859 00:57:36,915 --> 00:57:40,355 Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration 860 00:57:40,395 --> 00:57:43,595 Speaker 1: and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums, 861 00:57:44,075 --> 00:57:47,475 Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Other music, including some of the 862 00:57:47,555 --> 00:57:50,275 Speaker 1: Beethoven compositions, were arranged and performed by the group No 863 00:57:50,395 --> 00:57:54,595 Speaker 1: Horns Allowed. Sports music courtesy VSPN Inc. Was written by 864 00:57:54,595 --> 00:57:56,795 Speaker 1: Mitch Warren Davis. We call it the Olderman theme from 865 00:57:56,995 --> 00:58:00,875 Speaker 1: ESPN two. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by 866 00:58:00,995 --> 00:58:04,235 Speaker 1: Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever our and 867 00:58:04,315 --> 00:58:07,155 Speaker 1: out through today with my friend John Dee. Everything else 868 00:58:07,235 --> 00:58:09,955 Speaker 1: was pretty much my fault. That's countdown for this the 869 00:58:09,955 --> 00:58:13,355 Speaker 1: one thousand and sixtieth day since dementia Jay Trump's first 870 00:58:13,355 --> 00:58:16,635 Speaker 1: attempted coup against the democratically elected government the United States. 871 00:58:17,235 --> 00:58:22,035 Speaker 1: Convict him now while we still can. The next scheduled 872 00:58:22,035 --> 00:58:26,155 Speaker 1: countdown is Tuesday, bulletins as the news warrants. Tomorrow. By 873 00:58:26,195 --> 00:58:30,235 Speaker 1: the way, is my dog Roses tenth birthday. Happy birthday Rose. 874 00:58:30,835 --> 00:58:33,435 Speaker 1: Maybe I can talk you into subscribing to the podcast 875 00:58:33,675 --> 00:58:37,435 Speaker 1: this year till the next one. I'm Keith Olberman. Good Morning, 876 00:58:37,435 --> 00:58:56,875 Speaker 1: good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith 877 00:58:56,875 --> 00:59:01,955 Speaker 1: Olberman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 878 00:59:02,115 --> 00:59:06,115 Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get 879 00:59:06,155 --> 00:59:07,075 Speaker 1: your podcasts.