Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Here's
Speaker 1: the latest worldwide bribe news. It is now revealed that
Speaker 1: at a Thanksgiving Eve dinner on a patio at the
Speaker 1: Marilago Crapshack, Trump had his minions play the recording of
Speaker 1: the national anthem as sung by the January sixth terrorists.
Speaker 1: His dinner companions and remember, dinner companions, always keep your
Speaker 1: hands away from Trump's mouth stood at attention. Some of
Speaker 1: them at Trump's table put their hands over their hearts
Speaker 1: as the people who stormed our capital intending to take
Speaker 1: over our government and kill our leaders, saying words the
Speaker 1: actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal, one of those who stood up and
Speaker 1: put his hand over his heart during this travesty was
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg. Presumably this was the visit during which Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: in part helped to provide the answer to the question
Speaker 1: where has all your money gone? The answer is it
Speaker 1: has gone to Trump's inaugural committee. Zuckerberg, the Facebook clown,
Speaker 1: gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Jeff Bezos, that's blackmail
Speaker 1: me once. I'll fight you. Blackmail me a second time.
Speaker 1: I'll do whatever you want. Jeff Bezos. He gave Trump's
Speaker 1: committee one million dollars. On Friday. Sam Altman of Open
Speaker 1: AI was almost did us the favor of killing off
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Bank of
Speaker 1: America has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, that amount was one million dollars. Goldman
Speaker 1: Sachs has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount.
Speaker 1: Google's Sundar Peacheye dined with trumpet Mari Lago. I wonder
Speaker 1: what Trump called him. PITCHI bought Sergey Brinn's influence with him.
Speaker 1: Sergei Brinn is why this idiot Nicole Shanahan has money.
Speaker 1: She's his ex. She became RFK Junior's running mate political
Speaker 1: running mate, as opposed to his FaceTime masturbation mate or
Speaker 1: his actual spousal mate. The next day, Tim Cook of
Speaker 1: Apple or has Trump in his dotage has called him
Speaker 1: Tim Apple went to the same patio at which Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: put his hand over his heart during the sedition. Anthem
Speaker 1: and Tim Cook dined with Trump last Friday. No word
Speaker 1: of donations, but the New York Times reports that Trump
Speaker 1: and Tim iPhone Boy discussed fighting the fine with which
Speaker 1: European regulators have hit Tim FaceTime. The fine is two
Speaker 1: billion dollars. And now ABC News has settled with True
Speaker 1: because George Stephanoppolis said on air that judges and Juries
Speaker 1: had quoting George found him Trump liable for rape unquote
Speaker 1: when literally the judge said, the verdict did not mean
Speaker 1: that Egen Carroll quote failed to prove that Trump raped her,
Speaker 1: as many people commonly understned the word rape unquote, and
Speaker 1: Trump sued A million in Trump's legal expenses and a
Speaker 1: fifteen million dollar donation from ABC to Trump's presidential foundation
Speaker 1: and museum. I expect the Trump Presidential Museum will feature
Speaker 1: a life sized model of Trump's ego. It will thus
Speaker 1: be twice the size of the sphere in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: And of course, in the saddest and most egregious of these,
Speaker 1: the saddest of these from Mark Bennioff, chief executive of
Speaker 1: a company called Sales Force. He gave Trump Times Person
Speaker 1: of the Year award. Benyoff also owns Time Magazine. He
Speaker 1: posted the cover of Time magazine and wrote of quote,
Speaker 1: a time of great promise for our nation and prosperity
Speaker 1: for everyone with Trump getting the award, and he did
Speaker 1: not write that the Time magazine Person of the Year
Speaker 1: award is your annual reminder that owner Benioff has yet
Speaker 1: defined a sports gambling website willing to buy the magazine's
Speaker 1: useless brand name from them. In any other world, these
Speaker 1: would be bribes. These, whatever you call them, are not
Speaker 1: necessarily illegal, certainly aren't unprecedented. There certainly is no evidence
Speaker 1: that similar or at least parallel ones have not been
Speaker 1: made to democratic presidents elect, nor to presidents elect in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, nor even in the nineteenth. But these
Speaker 1: are slightly different. These come with unspoken promises from these worthless, greedy,
Speaker 1: voracious billionaires to not lift a finger nor make a
Speaker 1: sound as Trump prepares to pillage this country morally, financially,
Speaker 1: culturally in the next four years or however much time
Speaker 1: he has left in his worthless, greedy, voracious life. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned previously in this series, the point of corporations
Speaker 1: is to absolve a moral people of any criminal or
Speaker 1: ethical responsibility for the worst of human actions, so that
Speaker 1: investors can get more money and not have to worry
Speaker 1: about what laws they or others might be breaking doing it,
Speaker 1: But this parade of the pathetic to mar Lago, this
Speaker 1: succession of ninth rate alfreed Krupps to kiss the ring
Speaker 1: of a tenth rate fewer. This is as much about
Speaker 1: symbolism and acquiescence and reassuring him that the necessary financial
Speaker 1: component of fascism, including the financial component of media fascism
Speaker 1: at the Washington Post, on Facebook, even at ABC, that
Speaker 1: it will all be ready to salute whenever he decides
Speaker 1: to pull the switch. It's like Romney having dinner last
Speaker 1: time to beg to become Secretary of State. It cannot
Speaker 1: be erased, and it must not be forgotten. Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 1: Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Sergei Brynn, Sundar Piche
Speaker 1: and the Bush leaguer who actually bought what used to
Speaker 1: be Time magazine. Remember them, and simply deny them your
Speaker 1: dollars wherever you can. Boycotts are impossible and ineffective, and
Speaker 1: inconvenience you way more than they inconvenience these men, for
Speaker 1: whom the acquisition of unnecessary wealth has replaced in importance
Speaker 1: actual human life. But every time you do not give
Speaker 1: them your money, you will be protesting this nauseating subservience,
Speaker 1: even if you are the only one who knows you
Speaker 1: have done so. Two caveats here. You will notice I
Speaker 1: have not even mentioned Elon Musk and as The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal made a point of noting when they played
Speaker 1: the January sixth insurrectionist choir version of the National Anthem
Speaker 1: and everybody stood and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly put his hand
Speaker 1: over where his heart should be. They didn't tell Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: in advance that it was the January sixth insurrectionist choir version.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I wonder why anybody thinks it
Speaker 1: would have made any goddamn difference. Let me revisit the
Speaker 1: ABC News News. On March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: I was ushered into the small office of a vice
Speaker 1: president at the ABC television series The Wide World of Sports.
Speaker 1: This man was the product of Ithac College, and so
Speaker 1: as a senior at Cornell, I had a vague connection
Speaker 1: to him. We at least knew similar bits of geography.
Speaker 1: He had started life as a sportscaster who actually did
Speaker 1: on air work on a couple of Upstate New York
Speaker 1: TV newscasts. And then there was the real reason I
Speaker 1: was actually in there with him. His wife had been
Speaker 1: an assignment editor at the local New York TV station
Speaker 1: I had interned at the previous summer, though we were
Speaker 1: not there Simultaneously, he and the missus and my friends
Speaker 1: from the local station all warned me this gentleman would
Speaker 1: not have a job for me, nor even any job leads,
Speaker 1: just advice.
Speaker 2: His name was.
Speaker 1: Robert Eiger. Call me Bob, he insisted, you may recognize Bob.
Speaker 1: Within fifteen years of our visit, he had become president
Speaker 1: of the ABC Television network, then COO of its parent company,
Speaker 1: cap Cities ABC before Disney bought it, then President of Disney,
Speaker 1: then CEO of Disney. Then he retired in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: and then he did a jay leno and unretired in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and guy rid of the guy who
Speaker 1: had succeeded him, and he's CEO of Disney again, and
Speaker 1: he made about thirty one million a year ago. And
Speaker 1: on three separate occasions he has been my boss and
Speaker 1: all of my boss's boss. And oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: he divorced the wife I knew, and married the model
Speaker 1: and sportscaster and newscaster will Obey but that's another story.
Speaker 1: And Bob now is the boss of all the bosses
Speaker 1: at ABC News, which just settled an apparently winnable case
Speaker 1: against Trump because they were offered the fig leaf of
Speaker 1: not paying Trump damages per se, but making a quote
Speaker 1: donation to his presidential museum, which could easily just be
Speaker 1: an empty warehouse or perhaps a sinkhole somewhere. And on
Speaker 1: March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, bobb Iger, whose unique
Speaker 1: experience on air and with economics was already evident he
Speaker 1: was in charge of budgeting for Wide World of Sports,
Speaker 1: did give me great advice, the greatest advice I have
Speaker 1: ever received, which I have repeated a thousand times over.
Speaker 1: In brief, Bob said, if you want to be on
Speaker 1: the air, be on the air. Do not do He
Speaker 1: said what I did. I was offered a job as
Speaker 1: a sportscaster in Syracuse for ten thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: and I was also offered a job as a production
Speaker 1: assistant here at Wide World of Sports for ten five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a year. And I figured I could live
Speaker 1: at home with my folks and stay in the city
Speaker 1: and move laterally at work, And now I make one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars a year, and I still want to
Speaker 1: be a sportscaster, and to do that, I now have
Speaker 1: to quit this job and move me and my wife
Speaker 1: and my kids to Syracuse where they are now paying
Speaker 1: eleven thousand dollars a year for sports casters, and I
Speaker 1: have priced myself out of my dream. If you want
Speaker 1: to be on the air, Keith, be on the air,
Speaker 1: take the job in Syracuse and suck it up. Brilliant advice, truly,
Speaker 1: And now, after forty five and a half years, I
Speaker 1: would like to repay Bob Eiger and give him my advice.
Speaker 1: Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the
Speaker 1: future of news and the future of journalism and the
Speaker 1: future of this country. Because you guys at Disney ain't
Speaker 1: it anymore? What do you think you bought for yourself here?
Speaker 1: Bob Trump's gratitude? Trump somehow remembering you fondly or at
Speaker 1: least neutrally the next time ABC News does something he
Speaker 1: doesn't like, like say, accurately reporting how many people show
Speaker 1: up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons,
Speaker 1: or how many people died during the migrant roundups into
Speaker 1: the migrant concentration camps. Even if Trump can still remember,
Speaker 1: you think he will remember, or that all the mini
Speaker 1: Trumps will. The New York Times now reports based on
Speaker 1: four sources at the magazines in question and email evidence,
Speaker 1: that the lawyer for Pete Hegseth made litigation threats before
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and Vanity Fair published articles about his
Speaker 1: conduct after an appearance on MSNBC in which she called
Speaker 1: Cash Patel a quote delusional liar unquote. Former Trump staffer
Speaker 1: Olivia Troy was threatened with a suit by Patel's lawyer.
Speaker 1: No word if MSNBC was threatened. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson
Speaker 1: of North Carolina and Nude Africa Fame actually sued CNN. Trump,
Speaker 1: of course, sues as frequently as he overeats. He has
Speaker 1: a lawsuit going against c News about a Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: interview nothing to do with him. He has a live
Speaker 1: threat for suits against The New York Times. He has
Speaker 1: a libel suit pending against the board that gives out
Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prizes it honored work that criticized him. Trump's complain
Speaker 1: about law fair and weaponizing government against enemies is to me,
Speaker 1: not about the morals or legalities or appropriateness of any
Speaker 1: of that. It's that he wants to be the only
Speaker 1: one allowed to do any of that, and so in
Speaker 1: this environment, ABC News just handed him a win. The
Speaker 1: headline on this isn't the donation to some campaign or
Speaker 1: possibly museum. It's Trump awarded fifteen million dollars from ABC
Speaker 1: after lawsuit. That's the way it's playing around the world.
Speaker 1: I don't know that my old acquaintance, Bob, asked.
Speaker 2: Them to do this.
Speaker 1: I also know Bob literally since I was twenty years
Speaker 1: and one month old, and I know they damned well
Speaker 1: didn't do it without telling him first. The saddest part
Speaker 1: is media law experts believe that even now, even on
Speaker 1: the eve of a Trump reducts, his case against ABC,
Speaker 1: did not stand a flipping chance. Trump is not only
Speaker 1: a public figure, but according to no less an authority
Speaker 1: than himself, he is the public figure, and thus the
Speaker 1: bar for damaging his reputation is higher than it is
Speaker 1: for anybody else in the world. Also, how do you
Speaker 1: damage his reputation? The Media Law Resource Center reported a
Speaker 1: few years ago. Now, Trump and his companies have been
Speaker 1: involved in at least four thousand lawsuits dating back to
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four at least, and the media law RESORTCE Centers.
Speaker 1: Susan E. Sager concluded that Trump quote and his companies
Speaker 1: have never won a single speech related case filed in
Speaker 1: a public courtot He or his extensions have sued for libel.
Speaker 1: The architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune have sued for libel.
Speaker 1: An author who wrote Trump Wasn't a billionaire have sued
Speaker 1: a former Trump University student, Une Vision, because it wouldn't
Speaker 1: carry one of his shows after he called Mexican's rapists.
Speaker 1: He sued Bill Maher over a joke wait, Bill Martell's jokes.
Speaker 1: He sued unions organizing against him. So ABC News gave in.
Speaker 1: And unless there's a secret rider in this in which
Speaker 1: Trump has sworn never to file another suit against ABC
Speaker 1: nor harassed the company, all this will mean to him
Speaker 1: is next time he wants to threaten ABC News or
Speaker 1: any part of Disney, it will fold. And then there
Speaker 1: is the chilling effect at ABC News, at all the
Speaker 1: ABC stations around the country, at all the newsrooms associated
Speaker 1: with ABC, at ESPN, at every company ABC and Disney own,
Speaker 1: but specifically at ABC News I worked there, wants to
Speaker 1: do a special one off report for Nightline. I worked
Speaker 1: two and a half years there as a commentator on
Speaker 1: radio and as Paul Harvey's backup. I am grateful that
Speaker 1: I am doing this podcast now rather than either of
Speaker 1: those ABC series, and that dark gratitude and the fear
Speaker 1: your people, Bob have created inside their own newsrooms is
Speaker 1: part of the process by which freedom of the press
Speaker 1: and freedom in the nation dissolve. My advice offered again
Speaker 1: in gratitude for your advice in nineteen seventy nine, Bob
Speaker 1: Sell ABC News to somebody who still cares onto the
Speaker 1: subject of the Batman. Special guest villains, or if you preferred,
Speaker 1: Trump's cabinet nominees. They were all at the Army Navy
Speaker 1: football game Saturday, along with Daniel Penny the quote Subway
Speaker 1: good Samaritan unquote, and Russell Brand check his ticket, Dave
Speaker 1: Portnoy from Barstool Sports, Darry to look me in the eye, Dave,
Speaker 1: and Joe Mansion was there. I'll let you rank them specifically.
Speaker 1: Cash Patel has new problems. Cash Pateel insists he had
Speaker 1: a key role in the Department of Justice investigation into
Speaker 1: the Benghazi mess. In twenty twelve, that, quoting him on
Speaker 1: a podcast, I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for
Speaker 1: Benghazi for a while. The New York Times reports sadly no,
Speaker 1: it says Patel quote has both exaggerated his own importance
Speaker 1: and misleadingly distorted the department's broader effort. According to public
Speaker 1: documents and interviews with several current and former law enforcement
Speaker 1: officials familiar with the matter, Politico described Patel's job on
Speaker 1: the Benghazi case as quote grunt work. Quote turns out
Speaker 1: the lawyer helping RFK Junior staff out the Department of
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services once petitioned the government to revoke
Speaker 1: its approval of the polio vaccine. You're probably not, but
Speaker 1: I am old enough to have been in the first
Speaker 1: grade with a kid who had a leg brace from
Speaker 1: having gotten polio. There is a sitting Senator and a
Speaker 1: sitting congressman right now who contracted polio as children. Polio
Speaker 1: is not gone. It is waiting for someone, someone evil
Speaker 1: like Robert F. Kennedy Junior. May he burn in hell.
Speaker 1: There are new problems for Hegseeth, for whom this is
Speaker 1: turning into hell on Earth. Besides the drinky assaulty problems.
Speaker 1: CNN notes that in a book he wrote, they wrote
Speaker 1: this year, heg Seth said the repeal of Don't Ask,
Speaker 1: Don't Tell was a quote gateway and a quote camouflage
Speaker 1: as part of a quote Marxist unquote agenda to deprioritize
Speaker 1: combat readiness. Heg Seth insists he did not and does
Speaker 1: not oppose the repeal and all this is quote false reporting, which,
Speaker 1: if he really believes that, raises far more important questions
Speaker 1: like or not Pete Hegseth can remember what he did
Speaker 1: earlier this year, and if not, why not. But Trump
Speaker 1: likes his hair. We just don't know if there's anything
Speaker 1: under his hair. Tulsey Gabbard. Meanwhile, maybe soon finding out.
Speaker 1: As my old Sports Center colleague Larry Beale used to say,
Speaker 1: Aloha means goodbye. The Hill reports that would be Director
Speaker 1: of National Intelligence is taking on water at her meetings
Speaker 1: with Republican senators, quoting one of two senate Republicans and
Speaker 1: other sources, quote, she was proving to be a little shallow,
Speaker 1: like a house member talking at a hearing, and not
Speaker 1: someone who needs to provide the president's daily intelligence briefing.
Speaker 1: And from a separate source to this publication, a Senator,
Speaker 1: they say, quote, I've heard that she's not very well prepared.
Speaker 1: I've heard not great things, Senate GOP members said, describing
Speaker 1: them as bs sessions. The Hill also quotes a GOP
Speaker 1: aid she's got some work to do if she wants
Speaker 1: the job. The more she meets with serious people, the
Speaker 1: more they'll see there's a competency deficit.
Speaker 2: Unquote, thank you.
Speaker 1: Nancy Faust, a second senator cited by the Hill in
Speaker 1: its report on Telsea Gabbard's flailing, says anonymously and deliciously
Speaker 1: that there have been a lot of.
Speaker 2: Irolls. Mahallow.
Speaker 1: Also of interest here, Van Jones plus Chris Salisa equals
Speaker 1: extra large stupid with a double order of stupid toppings
Speaker 1: to go, speaking of which there's Abby Phillip and Scott
Speaker 1: Jennings and CNN. And when we tried this same nonsense
Speaker 1: at MSNBC twenty years ago, it was Michael Savage and
Speaker 1: I have solved the baseball playoff crisis. This is not hyperbole.
Speaker 1: I have actually solved the baseball playoff crisis where all
Speaker 1: the good teams lose early. I alone can fix it.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I'll do it for free. That's Next,
Speaker 1: This is countdown.
Speaker 2: This is countdown with Keith old Woman.
Speaker 1: Still ahead. I have solved Baseball's crisis. Yes, I know
Speaker 1: it's not baseball season. It's probably, at least symbolically the
Speaker 1: furthest point from baseball season. I've soured on baseball. I
Speaker 1: hate the management structure and they're not fond of me either.
Speaker 1: And no, by baseball crisis, I do not mean the
Speaker 1: recent spectacle of New York Yankees fans hating on Juan
Speaker 1: Soto for signing with the New York Mets and claiming
Speaker 1: he showed no loyalty and just went where the money was,
Speaker 1: as if that had not been the creed of the
Speaker 1: New York Yankees since the year nineteen twenty. I mean
Speaker 1: baseball's playoff crisis coming up. I will tell you this
Speaker 1: full story. The other night, as I was falling asleep,
Speaker 1: it came to me, this crazy playoff structure, in which
Speaker 1: the best team in the game has been eliminated in
Speaker 1: three of the last four years in the first round,
Speaker 1: is broken and I alone can fix it. I am
Speaker 1: giving away for free the way for baseball to get
Speaker 1: out of its el stinko playoffs structure. Next in the countdown,
Speaker 1: Sportsball Report.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 1: After that interminable tease, believe it or not, there's still
Speaker 1: more new idiots to talk about. The daily roundup of
Speaker 1: the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute
Speaker 1: today's other worst persons in the world, the brons, worse
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen. For years, for decades, there has been
Speaker 1: a push to stop the annual switchback from daylight savings
Speaker 1: to standard time in October or November. So, as you're
Speaker 1: probably aware, Trump has posted the republic Look Party will
Speaker 1: use its best efforts to eliminate daylight Saving time, which
Speaker 1: has a small but strong constituency. But shouldn't exclamation point
Speaker 1: daylight saving time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.
Speaker 1: First off, it's savings ufing idiot daylight savings time. Yes,
Speaker 1: eliminate daylight savings time, so it starts getting light at
Speaker 1: like four am in June and there will never be
Speaker 1: another sunset later than about eight pm, exactly what everybody
Speaker 1: in the country wants. And when I say everybody, I
Speaker 1: mean nobody. There are a couple of theories here. One
Speaker 1: is he posted this just to divert attention from his
Speaker 1: truth leak in which one day last week he claimed
Speaker 1: he won the election based on the word groceries, which
Speaker 1: he invented, and the promise to reduce the cost of
Speaker 1: growth series, and then one other day last week he
Speaker 1: made an admission that he has actually no idea how
Speaker 1: to reduce the cost of groceries, which he invented. The
Speaker 1: likelier explanation is that Trump is too stupid and has
Speaker 1: deteriorated too far to realize that he is calling for
Speaker 1: the end of daylight savings when he actually wanted to
Speaker 1: call for the end of standard time. The problem now,
Speaker 1: of course, is that he will now have to admit
Speaker 1: he got it wrong or changed his mind, and he
Speaker 1: cannot do that because his brain is broken and he
Speaker 1: is infallible. So we might wind up eliminating all daylight
Speaker 1: savings time because this guy is crazy. By the way,
Speaker 1: I have hated that day that we go back to
Speaker 1: standard time since I was a kid. But I was
Speaker 1: a kid so long ago that I was there standing
Speaker 1: outside waiting for my school bus at seven forty am,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the energy crisis. Winner of nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three seventy four, when it was pitch black at
Speaker 1: seven forty am. It was not only the most depressing
Speaker 1: thing I ever experienced, certainly to that point, way more
Speaker 1: depressing than getting dark at four pm. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it starts getting dark later. As of what this is
Speaker 1: the sixteenth, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty Saturday of this week,
Speaker 1: this is the worst week of the year. Then it
Speaker 1: starts getting darker later. Anyway, it was way more depressing
Speaker 1: when we went on daylight savings time in the winter.
Speaker 1: We stayed on it that winter in a well meaning
Speaker 1: but ultimately disastrous attempt to cut back on energy costs
Speaker 1: during an energy crisis. While I was standing at that
Speaker 1: bus stop, literally dozens of other kids were getting killed
Speaker 1: walking to school in pitch black darkness or waiting for
Speaker 1: their school buses. Half a century of reflection on this
Speaker 1: and the answer to what to do about daylight savings
Speaker 1: time and the terrible month ending December twenty first, and
Speaker 1: the depression and the danger of too much darkness too
Speaker 1: early in the day, the answer of what to do
Speaker 1: about this has come to me, and it is leave
Speaker 1: it exactly the way it is now. Yes, for this month,
Speaker 1: it's really bad, and it gets worse every day. On
Speaker 1: the other hand. In the summer, when almost everybody can
Speaker 1: enjoy being outside after work for up to four hours,
Speaker 1: it is glorious to have light so late. And unless
Speaker 1: you've waited outside for a bus at seven forty am
Speaker 1: in utter darkness, you will never know. How imperfect as
Speaker 1: it is, the current system is the best option. Don't
Speaker 1: change it either way. We live with it. It does
Speaker 1: get dark earlier in the United States, and it will
Speaker 1: get dark earlier no matter what time we call it.
Speaker 2: You could call it eleventy billion o'clock and he'll still
Speaker 2: get dark early. It's winter.
Speaker 1: The sun is in a different position relative to us.
Speaker 1: I know you couldn't explain this to most Trump voters,
Speaker 1: but it's true. And by the way, if you missed it,
Speaker 1: somebody joked that Trump's unexpected sudden, defensive, permanent Standard Time.
Speaker 1: That must mean that Standard Time had donated a million
Speaker 1: dollars to his inauguration committee. The runner up worser. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was this idiot Van Jones. You know Van Jones.
Speaker 1: For a decade on CNN, Van Jones has been saying earnestly,
Speaker 1: with deep conviction and the most sincere performance of fake
Speaker 1: sincerity imaginable. He's been saying the stupidest things pretty much
Speaker 1: started with although this was not the first example, but
Speaker 1: his first all star announcement came early in twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: that Trump, in a speech to Congress, a kind of
Speaker 1: first State of the Union address, trump had just truly
Speaker 1: become president. I guess Van said this because Trump had
Speaker 1: not shot a guy during it or messed his diapers
Speaker 1: while saying it. These statements continued unobated through the assassination attempt,
Speaker 1: when Van Jones cried on the air and told Democrats
Speaker 1: to embrace Republicans to show we were all Americans, while
Speaker 1: Trump was already figuring out how to exploit the event
Speaker 1: by demanding that American owed him now and everybody should
Speaker 1: drop all criminal cases against him, even though he was
Speaker 1: a trader, and then he was fund raising off of it,
Speaker 1: used it to get elected again. But Van Jones wanted
Speaker 1: me to hug him, hug this fan and now more
Speaker 1: from Van Jones. There are a few more cynical, more dishonest,
Speaker 1: a few more ugly in their soul speakers than Sarah
Speaker 1: Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, just as her soul as
Speaker 1: father was governor of Arkansas. Later Trump's most virulent and angry,
Speaker 1: dyspeptic press sect Terry. She looked always like she just
Speaker 1: swallowed a mouse hole. She spoke at the Republican National
Speaker 1: Committee and made a tasteless ageist joke comparing her four
Speaker 1: year old son huck to President Biden, and Van Jones
Speaker 1: said after the speech on CNN, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she
Speaker 1: was incredibly compelling to me. She told personal stories that landed.
Speaker 1: It was moving, and it was powerful. She gave the
Speaker 1: speech of the night unquote. And now Van Jones has
Speaker 1: gone on a podcast and eliminated all doubt, the podcast
Speaker 1: in which Van Jones praises the smartest man in the
Speaker 1: world Trump.
Speaker 3: The problem is you have a framework in your mind
Speaker 3: that how could Donald Trump? Donald Trump? How can Donald Trump? Guys,
Speaker 3: can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an
Speaker 3: idiot Donald Trump. Let me just be very clear. Donald
Speaker 3: Trump is smarter than me, you and Paul critics. While
Speaker 3: I know because he has the White House, the Senate,
Speaker 3: the House totally agree for the popular vote. He has
Speaker 3: a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream, built around
Speaker 3: him and for him, and a religiously religious fervor in
Speaker 3: a political movement around him, and he is best Buddy
Speaker 3: is the richest person in the history of the world,
Speaker 3: and the most relevant Kennedy is with him. This dude
Speaker 3: is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on
Speaker 3: earth and in our lifetime. And we're still saying, well,
Speaker 3: how was this card?
Speaker 1: We look like idiots? You first, pal Man is using
Speaker 1: the royal us there, Van, He's made you look like
Speaker 1: an idiot. By the way, the podcast Van Jones was on,
Speaker 1: well it was the Crystali is a podcast, so one
Speaker 1: assumes it is mandatory if you go on the Crystal
Speaker 1: is a podcast to say something as idiotic as Crystal
Speaker 1: is a Van Jones certainly fulfilled the terms. And you
Speaker 1: thought Sali with Chuck Todd was bad enough, I think
Speaker 1: they should do a roundtable. I think Chuck Todd and
Speaker 1: Solissa and Van Jones should do a podcast every day
Speaker 1: just to give me more material. Even after that, still
Speaker 1: not the worst persons in the world. Our winners for
Speaker 1: that honor. Today wis ten ten Wins Radio here in
Speaker 1: Fun City. You may recall it is New York City's
Speaker 1: last surviving all news radio station after owners Odyssey inexplicably
Speaker 1: shuttered the good one WCBS in late summer. WIS now
Speaker 1: bills itself as New York's top news station, which is
Speaker 1: inarguably true since they killed off the other one. It
Speaker 1: has also used such new and laugh out loud funny
Speaker 1: IDs as the most important station for the most important
Speaker 1: listeners in the universe, or something like that. But WIONS
Speaker 1: has not made this list for any of that nonsense.
Speaker 1: In the last week, as you've probably heard, drones may
Speaker 1: or may not have been spotted over New Jersey and
Speaker 1: other areas vaguely considered part of the metropolitan New York area.
Speaker 1: I guess drones in New Jersey, how redundant any who
Speaker 1: buy New Jersey listeners. WIS has interrupted its regular programming,
Speaker 1: which is thirty five percent commercials, thirty five percent traffic
Speaker 1: reports all by the same person, twenty five percent news
Speaker 1: about Arianda Grande and other pop stars, and five percent
Speaker 1: actual news. It has interrupted that wheel to introduce what
Speaker 1: it actually bills as Drone Watch twenty twenty four. I
Speaker 1: cannot reduce this sounder as we call it in the business,
Speaker 1: for copyright reasons. Also, I have a reputation for actual
Speaker 1: news that I have to protect, so I will not
Speaker 1: reproduce what they are playing Onions, but there's music, and
Speaker 1: there is an announcer saying, with this combination of authority
Speaker 1: and dread in his voice, Drone Watch twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: Drone Watch twenty twenty four. It's like something out of
Speaker 1: The Daily Show. I was actually listening for ten minutes
Speaker 1: to WIONS yesterday and they played this sounder twice. There
Speaker 1: is no indication that WIONS has adopted this ironically or
Speaker 1: self mockingly, in which case it would actually be cool.
Speaker 1: They are leaning into drone Watch twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 1: way they and every other station radio television in this
Speaker 1: country trot out storm Watch twenty twenty four whenever it
Speaker 1: you know, rains, Drizzle Watch twenty twenty four. The most
Speaker 1: disturbing part of this, perhaps is that it is just
Speaker 1: two weeks until New Year's Day, and I'm thinking these
Speaker 1: drone sightings more likely two percent drones and ninety eight
Speaker 1: percent aircraft landings as seen by people who actually have
Speaker 1: chosen to live in towns with names like Nutley, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: These will continue into the New Year, at which point
Speaker 1: they will have to send their guy back into the
Speaker 1: Wins studio. Wins Radio in New York where the drone
Speaker 1: watch never stops. That's go Watch twenty twenty five, two
Speaker 1: days other worst. What'side?
Speaker 4: This is Sports Center? Wait, check that not anymore. This
Speaker 4: is Countdown with Keith.
Speaker 1: Aulberman in sports from the sports Balls Central Center News Desk, Tonight, Dateline,
Speaker 1: New York. Okay, I figured out how to fix baseball's
Speaker 1: broken playoff system. I understand it's it's the middle of winter.
Speaker 2: I know that.
Speaker 1: But this literally came to me as I was falling asleep,
Speaker 1: and it works. It's absolutely the solution. You're welcome. Not
Speaker 1: only that, not only have I figured out how to
Speaker 1: fix baseball's broken playoff system, but my fix, if they
Speaker 1: do it right, gives Major League Baseball Incorporated at least
Speaker 1: four more playoff games to sell to a cable network
Speaker 1: or a streaming service or pay per view, or just
Speaker 1: to passers by on the street. You got a dollar,
Speaker 1: here's a ballgame. In the four years since the COVID
Speaker 1: shortened season of twenty twenty, baseball has had twenty four
Speaker 1: division winners. There are six divisions. There's six division winners
Speaker 1: a year. It's been four years. Winning your division is
Speaker 1: supposed to be the point of the regular baseball season,
Speaker 1: and it's supposed to mean a lot going into the playoffs.
Speaker 1: These are the teams that have worked all year, and
Speaker 1: they are supposed to be given a leg up, an advantage.
Speaker 1: It gives you home field advantage in the playoffs. It
Speaker 1: gives you time to rest your pitchers, particularly after the
Speaker 1: incredibly grueling one hundred and sixty two game regular season.
Speaker 1: You have to run through the tape to win your division,
Speaker 1: so you should be at the top of your game,
Speaker 1: and you have to do that so you don't get
Speaker 1: stuck with the dreaded wild card games, in which now
Speaker 1: you may not play a home game in the wildcard round.
Speaker 1: You have to go to the better teams stadium and
Speaker 1: play all your playoff games. There twenty four division winners
Speaker 1: in the four years since COVID, and fourteen of them
Speaker 1: have lost in their first playoff round. That's fourteen have
Speaker 1: lost and only ten have won. With the supposed advantage
Speaker 1: of all advantages going into the playoffs, I think we
Speaker 1: have a big enough sample size here. They've screwed this up.
Speaker 1: You are literally better off not winning your division than
Speaker 1: winning your division, and whatever you do, do not become
Speaker 1: the team with the best record in baseball in the
Speaker 1: regular season, we've had four of those. Three of them,
Speaker 1: including the twenty twenty two Dodgers, who had one hundred
Speaker 1: and eleven wins out of one hundred and sixty two
Speaker 1: games played, tied for fourth most wins in any season
Speaker 1: all time. The three of the four best record teams
Speaker 1: in baseball in the last four years have been wiped
Speaker 1: out in the first round. The playoffs now prove only
Speaker 1: one thing. Season means almost nothing, especially if you've won
Speaker 1: the division. Now why is this the case, Well, principally,
Speaker 1: the theory goes, it's because Baseball has rewarded the division
Speaker 1: winners by giving them four or usually five days off
Speaker 1: between the end of their regular season and the start
Speaker 1: of their playoffs. The wild card teams and the worst
Speaker 1: of the division winners, the one with the worst record
Speaker 1: of the three division winners in each league, they have
Speaker 1: to play like with one day off, and then, of course,
Speaker 1: that means the pitchers are rested and ready to go
Speaker 1: after five days rest. Turns out that's not the case.
Speaker 1: Pitchers get rusty in five days, they get out of rhythms.
Speaker 1: They have to now plan to pitch not in five days,
Speaker 1: but in perhaps nine days or ten days. The hitters.
Speaker 1: If a hitter is hot, he's not going to stay
Speaker 1: hot with five days off, And there's no way to
Speaker 1: have a practice or a simulated game that can keep
Speaker 1: you sharp in that time off. You can't. If you
Speaker 1: could guess what, more than ten of the twenty four
Speaker 1: division winners wouldn't have lost in their first playoff round.
Speaker 1: So it's not working. And yet this is the only
Speaker 1: thing Baseball has been able to figure out how to
Speaker 1: reward its divisional champions. And again a little aside here
Speaker 1: for the history of the game. It used to be
Speaker 1: that the regular season determined the two teams in the
Speaker 1: only playoff round, the World Series, from the eighteen eighties
Speaker 1: when they first experimented with this and did it spottily
Speaker 1: up to the year eighteen ninety, and then when it
Speaker 1: was resumed in nineteen oh three and became official in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh five. You won the American League Championship, that
Speaker 1: was the regular season, You went to the World Series,
Speaker 1: and you faced the winner of the National League Championship.
Speaker 2: That was it.
Speaker 1: By nineteen sixty nine, when they had gotten around to
Speaker 1: having twelve teams in each league, that presented this problem.
Speaker 1: Somebody would win the American League or the National League
Speaker 1: and somebody would finish twelfth. This would discourage people from
Speaker 1: spending money on the teams that finished tenth, eleventh, and twelve.
Speaker 1: Baseball had gone through the sixties where there were ten
Speaker 1: teams in each league, and even finishing ninth or tenth
Speaker 1: meant that the final few games of your home season
Speaker 1: might be attended by as few as five hundred fans.
Speaker 1: This is in my lifetime. I was at Yankee Stadium
Speaker 1: in I guess it was nineteen sixty eight. Then they
Speaker 1: were in the middle of the pack. I think they
Speaker 1: finished fifth or sixth, and I could hear the players
Speaker 1: talking in the dugout from my seats in the stands.
Speaker 1: In any event, they then went to a series of divisions.
Speaker 1: First it was two divisions, East and West in each league,
Speaker 1: and their champions, having played most of their games against
Speaker 1: the other teams in their division, their champions met for
Speaker 1: the National League pennant National League East versus National League West,
Speaker 1: and then that team advanced to the World Series. I
Speaker 1: never was a fan of this, but the all alternative
Speaker 1: of having twelve plays teams that was far worse. So
Speaker 1: you had a final fourth essentially in baseball, and almost
Speaker 1: always the worst thing that could happen was the fourth
Speaker 1: best team in baseball won the World Series. As baseball
Speaker 1: has expanded from sixteen teams to twenty teams, to twenty
Speaker 1: four teams, to twenty six teams, to twenty eight teams,
Speaker 1: finally to thirty teams, we have the situation we have
Speaker 1: now where we have to figure out how to work
Speaker 1: three divisions and a bunch of wild card teams together
Speaker 1: in the playoffs and give the advantage that winning the
Speaker 1: division is supposed to impart. Baseball doesn't have it. That's
Speaker 1: why most of them have lost after winning the division.
Speaker 1: And this is where my solution comes in. The reward
Speaker 1: for a team that wins its division should not be
Speaker 1: time off in which to get rusty. It should be
Speaker 1: a win in the postseason. What I am suggesting is,
Speaker 1: if you win the American League East in your first
Speaker 1: playoff round, you go into it having already been credited
Speaker 1: with a win before the first game is played. I'll
Speaker 1: say that again. You win the division on the day off,
Speaker 1: you are credited with a win. You then play what
Speaker 1: amounts to a best of six series against whichever team
Speaker 1: you're paired whichever wildcard team you're playing, or other division winner,
Speaker 1: or however you want to work it out. But if
Speaker 1: you've won a division, you should get an actual, tangible,
Speaker 1: big ticket bonus for winning the division. So you're playing
Speaker 1: essentially a best of seven series against a wild card team.
Speaker 1: You start before the first pitch is thrown, leading this
Speaker 1: series one to nothing. You only have to win three
Speaker 1: more games to advance. The other the wildcard team, the
Speaker 1: one that didn't win the division, the one that gets
Speaker 1: effectively punished for not winning the division, they have to
Speaker 1: win four. It's literally like a racing handicap. You put
Speaker 1: it against the team that didn't do as well. So
Speaker 1: if you won your division, you are, say the New
Speaker 1: York Mets, and you are going to face the Philadelphia Phillies,
Speaker 1: a wild card team. You start the series and hopefully
Speaker 1: that series starts with maybe two days off after the
Speaker 1: regular season, not five. You start that series leading one
Speaker 1: to nothing. Then they can play six games. But the
Speaker 1: Phillies to win have to win four games because they
Speaker 1: have none going in. They haven't been given a credit
Speaker 1: for one they didn't win their division. The Mets only
Speaker 1: have to win three. So here we now eliminate the
Speaker 1: chances of a divisional winner being blown out because they've
Speaker 1: lost three games. You have to beat the divisional winner
Speaker 1: by beating them four times in the first round. And
Speaker 1: right now, the first round most of the first rounds
Speaker 1: are best of five, not best of seven. You eliminate
Speaker 1: that entirely. You make it best of essentially six, and
Speaker 1: baseball has an additional playoff game to sell to the
Speaker 1: advertise here some in the networks, you're welcome. Will baseball
Speaker 1: do this? I don't know. Does it solve all of
Speaker 1: baseball's postseason problems and my many, many, many, many, many
Speaker 1: decades worth of complaints.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: Does it increase the chances that the best teams from
Speaker 1: the regular season, which is the point of the regular
Speaker 1: season to figure out who the best teams are. Does
Speaker 1: it increase the chances that they will go to the
Speaker 1: World Series, the championship of the sport. Yes, it does,
Speaker 1: because right now they're dropping like flies are the best
Speaker 1: team in the regular season, and you get eliminated in
Speaker 1: the first round three years out of four, there's something
Speaker 1: wrong with the first round. So there it is. You
Speaker 1: win the division that counts as a win in one
Speaker 1: game in your first round of the playoffs. There will
Speaker 1: be no additional charge for this genius idea to the
Speaker 1: number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic,
Speaker 1: me and things I promised not to tell, And hoo boy,
Speaker 1: they're all still at it in cable news. Huh, still
Speaker 1: hoping they'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be two thousand
Speaker 1: and five again, and everybody watches one of the channels,
Speaker 1: and hundreds of millions of dollars are just waiting to
Speaker 1: be made, and our industry.
Speaker 2: Is not dying. It's not, it's not, it's not.
Speaker 1: I'll repeat my point about the desperate attempts at CNN
Speaker 1: and NBC and the minor ones to court right wing viewers.
Speaker 1: I mean, once again, i'll mention the name Abby Philip.
Speaker 1: This is no voting accident. Virtually every mainstream media organization
Speaker 1: in this country, as I have said time and time again,
Speaker 1: has already had the same meeting. Let's now discuss how
Speaker 1: if Trump seizes power again and America goes fully fascist
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, how can we do the most
Speaker 1: important thing that journalism demands. How can we still protect
Speaker 1: this company's profits. I say this not merely because I
Speaker 1: know most of the people running the mainstream media organizations.
Speaker 1: But because these conversations have already happened, and they happened
Speaker 1: long ago, largely because the first not white guy president
Speaker 1: was elected just seven years and two months after nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, we forget how seriously and terrifyingly we already
Speaker 1: have teetered on the edge of full fledged fascism here
Speaker 1: after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: Nine to eleven happened between my two tenures at MSNBC,
Speaker 1: but I returned a year and a half after it happened,
Speaker 1: and by then the place I went back to work
Speaker 1: had already hired a sort of Alex Jones prototype radio
Speaker 1: host named Michael Savage, and it was slowly trying to
Speaker 1: build him into the host of a weeknight show. Savage
Speaker 1: was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot. His real
Speaker 1: name was Michael Wiener, and all you need to know
Speaker 1: about him is that he was a Wiener who pretended
Speaker 1: he was a Savage. What happened to him when they
Speaker 1: tried to stick him into primetime and what he said
Speaker 1: that led to his firing and the blowing up of
Speaker 1: the lets out Fox Fox News plan of the then
Speaker 1: NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright is a great story.
Speaker 1: I will relish telling you in a moment, but first
Speaker 1: a little context to this. MSNBC and Fox Nudes launched
Speaker 1: within weeks of each other in nineteen ninety sive and
Speaker 1: for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in
Speaker 1: December nineteen ninety eight, we were ahead of Fox in
Speaker 1: many time periods, though CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended,
Speaker 1: then came nine to eleven, and then Bob Wright thought
Speaker 1: he saw his opportunity. All you need to know about
Speaker 1: him is that after he left the position of running NBC,
Speaker 1: he became a contributor to Fox Business. At MSNBC, Wright
Speaker 1: gave Oliver North his own show and Laura Ingram her
Speaker 1: own show. He had given a program to Alan Keyes,
Speaker 1: a Republican who somehow managed to lose Senate races in
Speaker 1: two different states and washed out three different times in
Speaker 1: Republican presidential primaries. His MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches.
Speaker 1: Though he was alone in a studio with no audience.
Speaker 1: Alan Keys could not break himself up his habit of
Speaker 1: spraying the room with his eyes. The viewer at home
Speaker 1: would see him looking off camera to his left, then
Speaker 1: looking at the camera, then looking off camera to the right.
Speaker 1: He went back and forth like a sprinkler. I remember
Speaker 1: once looking at him and yelling at the TV, hey,
Speaker 1: hell over here, I'm the one in the middle. Bob
Speaker 1: Wright also brought in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew
Speaker 1: how to disguise much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired
Speaker 1: Phil Donahue, although to be fair, that was really more
Speaker 1: about money than it was about politics. But he replaced
Speaker 1: Dona Hughes's show with what was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: high speed, slightly right laning newscast produced by a Fox
Speaker 1: News refugee. It was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and
Speaker 1: needless to say, the right leaning idea went horribly horribly
Speaker 1: wrong after they changed it to Countdown with Keith Olverman.
Speaker 1: MSNBC's lineup was remarkably unstable at that time. I had
Speaker 1: hosted its eight pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 1: through the beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then
Speaker 1: I left to go back to sports and baseball at Fox.
Speaker 1: Then the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hockenberry
Speaker 1: for three months then Ali North got his shot a
Speaker 1: month later. They started having rotating liberals co host with
Speaker 1: Ali North in April nineteen ninety nine and it became
Speaker 1: North and Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months.
Speaker 1: In May they cut North and Begala to half an hour.
Speaker 1: In June they canceled them and replaced them with a
Speaker 1: half hour Ann Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry
Speaker 1: was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry
Speaker 1: was replaced by Lorie Doo. In August two thousand, they
Speaker 1: started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September,
Speaker 1: they cut that show to four days a week and
Speaker 1: launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually
Speaker 1: called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after
Speaker 1: one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on.
Speaker 1: Then they canceled that a month lay to make room
Speaker 1: for a newscast with Forrest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty
Speaker 1: of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision
Speaker 1: two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on
Speaker 1: for the third different time. Then in July they moved
Speaker 1: The News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm.
Speaker 1: Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and
Speaker 1: instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot.
Speaker 1: Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue.
Speaker 1: They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and
Speaker 1: Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't
Speaker 1: anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to
Speaker 1: host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that
Speaker 1: show they launched Countdown with Keith Olruman. That's twenty different
Speaker 1: shows or formats in four years and four months. So
Speaker 1: Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him
Speaker 1: this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and
Speaker 1: virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next
Speaker 1: set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing
Speaker 1: the News at eight, then Score Barborough at nine, then
Speaker 1: Jesse Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character.
Speaker 1: They began this plot by giving Savage his own show
Speaker 1: an hour every Saturday afternoon. On March eighth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage
Speaker 1: sounded kind of threatening, I guess, a kind of red
Speaker 1: meat fascist. But on TV taking calls from viewers in
Speaker 1: a tiny, little cramp looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area,
Speaker 1: he looked small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was
Speaker 1: wearing a bad tupei and a suit that was far
Speaker 1: worse than that. When I was negotiating my return to
Speaker 1: MSNBC in two thousand and three, I got the executive
Speaker 1: in charge of Primetime to put it in my contract
Speaker 1: that Michael Savage would never appear on my newscast in
Speaker 1: any form unless it was an obituary, open and shut.
Speaker 1: But then on Friday, April twenty fifth, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: I came into work. We were about a month into
Speaker 1: the show, and there in the computer rundown of my
Speaker 1: newscast was a pre recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon
Speaker 1: as he saw I was in the office, the executive
Speaker 1: producer they had hired from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker
Speaker 1: named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office and said,
Speaker 1: we have to run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also
Speaker 1: a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins.
Speaker 1: So don't think you can call Phil to get it dropped.
Speaker 1: He's not in New York. He's not reachable, and he left.
Speaker 1: I called my agent. I told her the story, and
Speaker 1: I'm matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it,
Speaker 1: I have to walk out, don't I mind you? She
Speaker 1: had just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.
Speaker 1: She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out,
Speaker 1: but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving.
Speaker 1: Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them.
Speaker 1: It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing
Speaker 1: and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier
Speaker 1: if you have the high moral ground. So I called
Speaker 1: Griff's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and
Speaker 1: meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you
Speaker 1: should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a
Speaker 1: car to take me home because my contract says you
Speaker 1: can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody
Speaker 1: just did nice working with you all. And tell Phil
Speaker 1: to give me a call. Sometime sometime was three minutes later, Griffin,
Speaker 1: who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You would
Speaker 1: really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in the contract.
Speaker 1: I was putting my pens and books in a box
Speaker 1: as we spoke. I told him he was repeating himself. Finally,
Speaker 1: he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can you look at
Speaker 1: the commentary and find me a reason, a reason that
Speaker 1: isn't about politics why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean,
Speaker 1: like video quality, or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's
Speaker 1: voice brightened. Yeah, good, racist language or something that'd be great.
Speaker 2: Call me back.
Speaker 1: The execution. A producer and I went to the video
Speaker 1: edit suite, where a guy named Brendan o'melia was cutting
Speaker 1: out the time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording
Speaker 1: this nonsense. First of all, I said to the X
Speaker 1: Fox guy who was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing
Speaker 1: a brown shirt and a brown tie on top of
Speaker 1: his brown shirt. He is literally dressed like a Hitler
Speaker 1: brown shirt. The editor Omelia played the whole video for me,
Speaker 1: and as I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing.
Speaker 1: I said, even for racist homophobic crap. This thing makes
Speaker 1: no sense. He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right,
Speaker 1: because George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small
Speaker 1: and whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe
Speaker 1: in a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a
Speaker 1: SoundBite in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and
Speaker 1: he's dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough.
Speaker 1: Phil Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I
Speaker 1: think they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I might be wrong. They ran
Speaker 1: two or three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know
Speaker 1: they intended to God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily,
Speaker 1: this was about the time Michael Savage ended his own
Speaker 1: TV career. On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: show fifteen out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen,
Speaker 1: Michael Savage was on the air live on MSNBC when
Speaker 1: a caller baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so
Speaker 1: you're one of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote. You should
Speaker 1: only get aids and die, you pig. How's that? Why
Speaker 1: don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you
Speaker 1: got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage.
Speaker 1: You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a
Speaker 1: sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noses. End
Speaker 1: quote And Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote
Speaker 1: that I just read that was way better than the
Speaker 1: commentary i'd him record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday,
Speaker 1: Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president
Speaker 1: of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to
Speaker 1: be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson,
Speaker 1: for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news
Speaker 1: and who consulted on my show on Current TV as
Speaker 1: recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because
Speaker 1: he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he
Speaker 1: fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced,
Speaker 1: Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it
Speaker 1: was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have
Speaker 1: to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent,
Speaker 1: and Sorenson said he answered, yes, I literally had to.
Speaker 1: I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his
Speaker 1: contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use
Speaker 1: on the show. It literally says, if you say any
Speaker 1: of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired
Speaker 1: for cause and get no money. Remember what number four
Speaker 1: on that list is. Number four is quote, I hope
Speaker 1: you get AIDS and die unquote. And then he said,
Speaker 1: I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob, I literally
Speaker 1: had to fire him. I had to fire him. It's
Speaker 1: in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a
Speaker 1: long pause on the other end of the phone, and
Speaker 1: then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that we
Speaker 1: have seen in television news since all the meetings about
Speaker 1: what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and NBC
Speaker 1: and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to protect
Speaker 1: their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said,
Speaker 1: after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just
Speaker 1: fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract, Bob
Speaker 1: Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you.
Speaker 5: Have to fire him?
Speaker 1: But did you have to fire him, my God, and
Speaker 1: we're cycling through it yet again. Scott Jennings of the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times Editorial Board. By the way, because nothing
Speaker 1: gets scared faster than a billion dollars or a guy
Speaker 1: from South Africa who owns newspapers in the United States.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle, the
Speaker 1: musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most of
Speaker 1: our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray
Speaker 1: was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced
Speaker 1: by tk Obras. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are
Speaker 1: by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The
Speaker 1: sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written
Speaker 1: by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other
Speaker 1: music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed.
Speaker 1: My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else
Speaker 1: was as ever my fault. Countdown Watch twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: That's countdown for today, just ninety seven days until the
Speaker 1: scheduled end of the Lane Duck presidency.
Speaker 2: Of Trump.
Speaker 1: Probably the next scheduled countdown is now. This is a change.
Speaker 1: It's going to be Wensday this week, not Thursday. This
Speaker 1: week Wednesday Countdown drop Watch twenty twenty four. The next
Speaker 1: countdown is Wednesday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants
Speaker 1: till the next one Wednesday. I'm Keith Olrimman. Good morning,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith
Speaker 1: Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
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