Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Which
Speaker 1: of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? The
Speaker 1: good news is Pete Hegseth was interrupted three times by
Speaker 1: Heckler's at the hearing for his nomination as Secretary of
Speaker 1: brill Cream. The bad news is it was not three
Speaker 1: hundred times. He might be the smartest of them. Pam
Speaker 1: Bondi apparently did not hear a single threat Trump made
Speaker 1: during his campaign, and Tulsey Gabbard has no idea what
Speaker 1: her new job even is. Trump goes full Reagan, tries
Speaker 1: to grab credit for Biden and b Lincoln's hostage deal
Speaker 1: and ceasefire times running out? Is the New York Times
Speaker 1: actually intentionally following the self destructive path of the Washington
Speaker 1: Post and CNN? This is not a boat accident. You
Speaker 1: don't know Jack Smith going out with a whimper, not
Speaker 1: a bang. Love him, but what the hell was that?
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, Monday, it's doomsday and on
Speaker 1: doomsday we are committing national suicide. All that and more
Speaker 1: now on Countdown a timely reminder that what would become
Speaker 1: The Confederate States thought that secession was constitutional. They were
Speaker 1: a further reminder that three and a half years before that,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the United States had ruled that
Speaker 1: Congress had no right to ban slavery and that the
Speaker 1: slaves and even the ex slaves, had no rights at all.
Speaker 1: I was thinking of that and this as President Biden
Speaker 1: gave his farewell speech last night. Wherein the Constitution does
Speaker 1: it say that the nation must commit suicide because a
Speaker 1: slim majority of its voters have been fooled into believing
Speaker 1: it is not committing suicide. Where in the law does
Speaker 1: it say that a criminal has to be protected from
Speaker 1: all laws by judges he corruptly appointed. Where in the
Speaker 1: law does it say that one man is above all law.
Speaker 1: Where in our agency over our own lives does it
Speaker 1: say that we must defer to a traitor who has
Speaker 1: corrupted politics, voting, the judiciary everything that we must defer
Speaker 1: to him just because he's good at being bad. And
Speaker 1: where does a president's loyalty to his people rest. Is
Speaker 1: that loyalty taking the form of protecting the forms and
Speaker 1: rules of a broken system, or is it in the
Speaker 1: form of protecting those people from the greatest threat they
Speaker 1: have ever faced, the threat of his successor, who has
Speaker 1: perverted that broken system to serve himself at a few
Speaker 1: cronies and a few whares and to condemn the rest
Speaker 1: of us. Is it Joe Biden's constitutional responsibility to not
Speaker 1: declare a state of insurrection and put them all behind bars?
Speaker 1: Or is it his constitutional responsibility to declare one? And
Speaker 1: what is his moral responsibility? As I've said before, I
Speaker 1: do not have either enough words nor enough time to
Speaker 1: tell you how much this isn't going to happen. The
Speaker 1: morass in South Korea, opposite in intent but similar in structure,
Speaker 1: at least reminds us that a bureaucracy, especially a governmental bureaucracy,
Speaker 1: will always protect itself first. But it still needs to
Speaker 1: be addressed this point, and no one will address it.
Speaker 1: When is it necessary for a president to go outside
Speaker 1: the constitution to save the constitution and to save the nation?
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln thought it was necessary pretty much every day
Speaker 1: for four years. In short, it is both morally unconsonable
Speaker 1: and unconstitutional for the sitting president of the United States
Speaker 1: to take these weapons with which representative government will be destroyed,
Speaker 1: and hand them to a madman whose entire platform is
Speaker 1: to destroy representative government. But is it a moral and
Speaker 1: constitutional imperative for Joe Biden to instead take these weapons
Speaker 1: while they are still not in the hands of an
Speaker 1: insane autocrat, and declare that the emergency that mad man
Speaker 1: will someday foment is here now, the insurrection is at hand.
Speaker 1: To say that the Constitution says what it means, and
Speaker 1: that an oath Biden took nine separate times to defend
Speaker 1: this nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic, might require
Speaker 1: him to declare that Trump and his cultinate gang, and
Speaker 1: most importantly, his current active co conspirators, are preparing to
Speaker 1: do what they have said they would do and what
Speaker 1: their corruption has enabled them to do, to destroy the
Speaker 1: form of government of this country, to revoke its freedoms
Speaker 1: and shatter its laws and norms and protections, and threaten
Speaker 1: the lives of every patriotic citizen of this nation. What's
Speaker 1: right and what's wrong here? Which is this? Declare that
Speaker 1: the insurrection is here and that these are the men
Speaker 1: and the women who constitute it and prevent them.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Or is it wrong?
Speaker 1: If my hypothetical is insufficiently clear, and I have fuzzed
Speaker 1: it up a little bit for dramatic effect, let me
Speaker 1: make it more timeless and more simple. And I acknowledge
Speaker 1: in advance that on the surface it is almost certainly
Speaker 1: identical to the hypothetical offered insincerely and dishonestly by Trump's
Speaker 1: plotters in twenty twenty one. But try this version of it.
Speaker 1: You are responsible for the defense of freedom in this world.
Speaker 1: You have the only gun in this world, a gun
Speaker 1: which you have never used. Certainly you have never used it. First,
Speaker 1: you have sworn an oath to use it to defend
Speaker 1: your people and your world. And there is a man
Speaker 1: who has said he tends to kill you and freedom
Speaker 1: and everybody and everything else you are supposed to defend.
Speaker 1: But he doesn't have a gun. And this man who
Speaker 1: intends to kill you and freedom walks up to you
Speaker 1: with a piece of paper and he says, this piece
Speaker 1: of paper says, you have to give me your gun.
Speaker 1: He intends to kill you. He intends to kill freedom.
Speaker 1: He has repeatedly promised to kill you and freedom. He
Speaker 1: has previously tried to kill you and freedom. And he's
Speaker 1: never shown any respect for a life, or for anyone
Speaker 1: or anything but himself. He has hired people to help
Speaker 1: him kill you and kill Freedom. He has spent billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to make sure he can kill you and
Speaker 1: kill Freedom. But he now can only accomplish it if you,
Speaker 1: the one who has the gun, gives him the gun.
Speaker 1: By what logic, by what common sense, by what oath,
Speaker 1: by what law, by what morality? Should your response to
Speaker 1: this be to give him the goddamn gun. You give
Speaker 1: him the gun, he shoots you and kills you, and
Speaker 1: as you die, you see him walk over your bleeding
Speaker 1: body so he can go and kill Freedom. And your
Speaker 1: last thought is what, well, at least I followed the rules.
Speaker 1: If you were president, and you had sworn that oath,
Speaker 1: and every move of the man to whom you are
Speaker 1: to hand the country next Monday elucidates and amplifies his
Speaker 1: insanity and foretells his destruction of our country, and you
Speaker 1: had utter immunity from the Supreme Court he bought and destroyed.
Speaker 1: What would you do? I'll repeat what I said. I
Speaker 1: do not have enough words to explain to you how
Speaker 1: much this is not going to happen. Back on the
Speaker 1: planet of stuff that could actually happen. When Marco Rubio,
Speaker 1: a dyspeptic fish with a bad comb over looks like
Speaker 1: the smart one in the room. Trump really has done
Speaker 1: a superb job of rounding up every servile, amoral, gutless
Speaker 1: idiot he could find to nominate to be something. Pete
Speaker 1: hegseeth does not know what ACIAN is the Association of
Speaker 1: Southeastern Asian Nations Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, et cetera. Senator
Speaker 1: Duckworth asked him about it. He must have thought she
Speaker 1: said Asian, like let's go get drunk at the Asian restaurant.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, oh, assion oh, I thought you said beer.
Speaker 3: You talked about the Indo Pacific a little bit, and
Speaker 3: I'm glad that did you mention it up?
Speaker 2: Mention it?
Speaker 3: Can you name the importance of at least one of
Speaker 3: the nations in the Ossian in Ossian and what type
Speaker 3: of agreement we have with at least one of those nations,
Speaker 3: and how many nations are in Ossian?
Speaker 4: By the way, I couldn't tell you the exact equations is,
Speaker 4: but I know we have allies in South Korea and
Speaker 4: Japan and in August with Australia and trying to work
Speaker 4: on submarines with.
Speaker 2: Them, Miss France.
Speaker 3: None of those countries as none of those three countries
Speaker 3: that you've mentioned are in Ossian. I suggest you do
Speaker 3: a little homework before you prepare for these types of negotiations.
Speaker 1: But Hegxeth looks like an actor playing a defense official
Speaker 1: in a movie Trump saw once, And since Trump doesn't
Speaker 1: actually know how to interact with people, that's how he's
Speaker 1: done this. Many conservatives have pointed this out. He's not
Speaker 1: nominating people, he's casting them. I like the guy with
Speaker 1: the bro cream. The FBI background check on Hegseeth does
Speaker 1: not include interviews with his ex wives or the woman
Speaker 1: who accused of sexual assault. Why does that sound familiar?
Speaker 1: Trump has instructed his puppets in the Senate that even
Speaker 1: they don't get to see that background check or anything
Speaker 1: else from the FBI Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker and
Speaker 1: the ranking Democrat Jack Read were given a briefing. There
Speaker 1: was a Trump lackey monitoring the briefing. These two senators
Speaker 1: could not take any notes, let alone a copy of
Speaker 1: the file or photograph, as opposed to Trump, who could
Speaker 1: of course take the file home and keep it in
Speaker 1: his collection. As to Pam Bondy, they ran a bunch
Speaker 1: of Trump's most heinous statements, threats, and promises passed her yesterday,
Speaker 1: and what do you know, she'd never heard him say
Speaker 1: any of them. She was one of his lawyers who
Speaker 1: tried to overturn the election. Does she now admit he
Speaker 1: lost twenty twenty? No, won't say that Biden is president.
Speaker 1: That's as far as she'll go. Are the January sixth defendants,
Speaker 1: hostages and political prisoners, as Trump said, Madam Oh, She's
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with that statement, unfamiliar with Trump's call to get
Speaker 1: more fake votes in Georgia. To be fair, I met
Speaker 1: Pam Bondy. There is every chance she really is unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with all that and unfamiliar with the relative whereabouts of
Speaker 1: the ass and the elbow. I met her years ago
Speaker 1: in a PBS studio in Tampa. I think, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, she was there to comment on Cable TV
Speaker 1: on one of those missing women tabloid cases. You can
Speaker 1: trust me on this. The office of Attorney General of
Speaker 1: the United States has of course been vacant since January
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and if anybody can uphold that tradition of vacancy,
Speaker 1: it's Pam Bondy. By her testimony yesterday, she is either
Speaker 1: an utter liar or she has been in a coma
Speaker 1: the last four years. Oh and by the way, it
Speaker 1: doesn't look like she was asked about her endorsement by
Speaker 1: j Bezos's Washington Post, Penny Saber and Hot Sex News,
Speaker 1: specifically the part where Jeff Bezos's flunkies didn't mention in
Speaker 1: that endorsement, that editorial saying she should be confirmed immediately
Speaker 1: that the former lobbyist for Jeff Bezos's Amazon was Pam Bondy.
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio does not seem to have been asked about
Speaker 1: Trump announcing we have a hostage deal at noon yesterday
Speaker 1: before any of the principles announced it, before our own
Speaker 1: government announced it, thereby jeopardizing it. Mister combover designate was
Speaker 1: not asked if he saw any parallels in this to
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon's minions delaying a Vietnam deal in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight till after the election, then claiming credit for it,
Speaker 1: or perhaps to Ronald Reagan's minions delaying an around hostage
Speaker 1: deal in nineteen eighty until after the inauguration, then claiming
Speaker 1: credit for that. Marco, though, does get credit for this.
Speaker 1: To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield is Thornton Mellon in Back to
Speaker 1: School if you want to look smart, hang out with
Speaker 1: a bunch of stupid people. Still, the dumbest of the
Speaker 1: bunch is Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsey Gabbard. And again,
Speaker 1: if you talk about intelligence with Tulsey, you have to
Speaker 1: remember that to her it is some sort of brand name,
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, not exactly the sort of liberal
Speaker 1: media Hegseth had the gall to assault at his hearing
Speaker 1: reports that in a meeting with Republican Senator James Langford,
Speaker 1: who now says he's going to vote for her anyway,
Speaker 1: he asked her what the job of Director of National
Speaker 1: Intelligence entails, and her answer indicated she had no effing clue.
Speaker 1: Then came a tough question from Senator Mike Rownds about
Speaker 1: individual national security surveillance tools, and she did all but answer, oh, ahsion,
Speaker 1: I thought you said Beer. The problem with the Democrats
Speaker 1: is that they are wasting their questions largely going after
Speaker 1: Trump by hitting Rubio Bondi and hegxith with things Trump
Speaker 1: did or said or might do, instead of hitting Gabbard,
Speaker 1: who doesn't know what job she's been nominated for, and
Speaker 1: who with the right pressure in the right situation, might
Speaker 1: not get approved. Politico reported that quote. One aid to
Speaker 1: a senior lawmaker said in a secret ballot, she'd lose
Speaker 1: fifteen Republicans. Other estimates have been far higher than that Republicans.
Speaker 1: Senator Curtis of Utah actually went on the record and said,
Speaker 1: it's not that she's uninformed, it's that she's not making
Speaker 1: any effort to convince him he should vote for her.
Speaker 1: Translation from Washington speak, she's lazy. She of course understands
Speaker 1: none of this. Cliche is no pain, no gain. The
Speaker 1: appropriate corollary for Tulsea Gabbard is.
Speaker 2: No brain, no pain.
Speaker 1: I think I know why Jack Smith released half his
Speaker 1: Special Council Report overnight in case any of us were
Speaker 1: having trouble sleeping and needed fresh boredom. I don't want
Speaker 1: to knock Jacksmith. Along with Judge Chuckkinn, He's one of
Speaker 1: just a few people supposedly on the side of the angels,
Speaker 1: were just the law who not only did their job
Speaker 1: without fear or reservation or any interest other than the
Speaker 1: law and the truth. But the gist of what he
Speaker 1: released amounted to we had strong evidence that Trump deliberately
Speaker 1: did not stop the January sixth insurrection, but inspired it
Speaker 1: and then leveraged it strong enough to convict I jack
Speaker 1: Smith think so, and then he would have been ineligible
Speaker 1: to return to power.
Speaker 2: The end will good.
Speaker 1: I also think it would have been strong enough to convict.
Speaker 1: And as we have seen here in New York, so
Speaker 1: what as we have seen at the Supreme Court?
Speaker 2: So what?
Speaker 1: These aren't laws like we were all led to believe.
Speaker 1: They aren't based on justice or even a justice neutral
Speaker 1: set of just common sense rules, so everybody doesn't get
Speaker 1: to pick which side of the street they want to
Speaker 1: drive on each day. These laws are all catch twenty two.
Speaker 1: They are designed to allow corrupt judges or corrupt Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justices to insist that the same laws that apply
Speaker 1: to you and would put your ass in jail do
Speaker 1: not apply to their corrupt friends or appointers.
Speaker 2: Or owners.
Speaker 1: It just seemed to me that Jacksmith's final report might
Speaker 1: have contained some of that evidence. I mean, even Pam
Speaker 1: Bondi and Cash Patel are going to provide evidence real
Speaker 1: or otherwise. I don't know what difference it would have
Speaker 1: made in Smith's report. But maybe after Trump chooses which
Speaker 1: path to authoritarianism he will send us down, and after
Speaker 1: the inevitable blowback from those oppressed by it, and after
Speaker 1: the forced change in power, and after whatever the next
Speaker 1: generation here has to do that resembles eighteen sixty one
Speaker 1: to eighteen sixty five to either regain freedom or protect it.
Speaker 1: Maybe that evidence would be useful down the road someday,
Speaker 1: whenever the printing of actual history books with the actual
Speaker 1: history in them resumes. Now, at what point do we
Speaker 1: have to assume the New York Times is doing what
Speaker 1: the Washington Post has already done, and CNN has already done,
Speaker 1: and what the La Times is doing, and what MSNBC
Speaker 1: is threatening to do, bowing to Republicans to protect their
Speaker 1: owner's billions, as if the bully will stop hitting you
Speaker 1: just because you don't hit back. Times editorial on a
Speaker 1: big idea to sell of America's immigration mess quote, Democrats
Speaker 1: should embrace the need to control who enters the country.
Speaker 1: The United States cannot admit everyone who wishes to come,
Speaker 1: and the choice of who may come should be intentional,
Speaker 1: not a result of a government's lack of will and
Speaker 1: capacity to enforce its own laws. The highest number of
Speaker 1: undocumented immigrants deported in this country in the last decade
Speaker 1: was more than two hundred and fifty thousand in Czech's
Speaker 1: calendar fiscal twoenty twenty four under the administration of Why
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, But he's a Democrat. The Times just identified
Speaker 1: the Democrats as the cause of all the border stuff,
Speaker 1: and thus they went on to say the rise of
Speaker 1: Trump and the Democrats are the reason that everything else bad,
Speaker 1: including probably the New York City congestion pricing. That so
Speaker 1: inconveniences the Times editorial board on their drive into town.
Speaker 1: By the way, the previous high number for undocumented deportations
Speaker 1: that was in twenty fourteen under that noted Republican Barack Obama.
Speaker 1: The Times editorial is not just pandering to the right wing.
Speaker 1: It's about as uninformed factually as Pete Hegseth was spouting
Speaker 1: his liberal this and woke that at his hearing, and
Speaker 1: that is a whole lot of uninformed. It's as uninformed
Speaker 1: as Elon musk Hoist by his own petard, when he
Speaker 1: took his collection of lies about the southern California firestorm
Speaker 1: to a briefing given just to him that he put
Speaker 1: live on his website from the Unified Command fire Center,
Speaker 1: he spouted lie's internet gossip QAnon crap. They calmly refuted him.
Speaker 1: They were so respectful that not one of them laughed
Speaker 1: at him or hit him in the face with a
Speaker 1: frying pan, And their answers were so calmly and authoritatively
Speaker 1: honest that he had nothing to say other than goodbye,
Speaker 1: Just like the psycho who walked into the DC Pizza
Speaker 1: Parla years ago with a machine gun to free all
Speaker 1: the babies in the basement. Oh, there aren't any babies,
Speaker 1: and there isn't even any basement. Okay, I'll just leave now.
Speaker 1: That's Elon Musk. Only Elon Musk wasn't armed either with
Speaker 1: weapons or wits.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 5: What about what about water availability? Was water availability I
Speaker 5: understand that was like not an issue in Malbouy?
Speaker 4: Is that correct?
Speaker 5: Was it water?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So there was water.
Speaker 6: We have several reservoirs.
Speaker 1: That knows that we use a lot.
Speaker 7: Now, just an example, if we have one building learning
Speaker 7: we could flow the thousand.
Speaker 6: Gallons a minute on that one building.
Speaker 7: With the hoseleys that we put in this up it,
Speaker 7: you can imagine one thousand gallons per house we can do. Right,
Speaker 7: So the amount of water we're flowing there really is
Speaker 7: no water system that's going to keep that pace.
Speaker 2: So we have to bring in.
Speaker 7: Water tenders, which to these big tank water tanks that
Speaker 7: you know, twenty five hundred and three thousand gallon trucks,
Speaker 7: and they'll come in.
Speaker 6: That's what we have to do to over to compensate.
Speaker 1: So they park out.
Speaker 5: There to do it.
Speaker 7: DWTP did a great job.
Speaker 1: They brought in.
Speaker 7: Big water trucks for us, right, and we use them
Speaker 7: as basically mobile hydrants, all right, Right, and then we
Speaker 7: have our own agency as well that has water tenors.
Speaker 5: Okay, I am I saying? Is that that like along
Speaker 5: the maybe correct if I'm wrong? Along in Malibury along
Speaker 5: the coast, there was no shortage of water in the palistage.
Speaker 5: There was a shortage of water at a certain point
Speaker 5: or is that not?
Speaker 6: Well, we were just we were flowing just an amount
Speaker 6: of amount of water that the system couldn't overbed. It
Speaker 6: was very just because of how much water these firefighters
Speaker 6: were utilizing.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, that was good, All right, thanks guys.
Speaker 1: Musk at best sounds like a seven year old who
Speaker 1: just found out there's no santi. By the way, that
Speaker 1: guy I mentioned who went into the DC pizza parlor,
Speaker 1: he's dead now pulled out a weapon during a routine
Speaker 1: traffic stop. Cops were better at all that stuff than
Speaker 1: he was, so sometimes it works out. Still, the line
Speaker 1: continues on Musk's site. There is a social media influencer.
Speaker 1: I think we need to drop that pleasant euphemism and
Speaker 1: call them what they are. Salespeople were shills or propagandists.
Speaker 1: There's a social media shill from Washington State called Mela
Speaker 1: Joy or Mila Joy or I don't know, and she
Speaker 1: was one of many who got hold of this one
Speaker 1: line and put it out as if it were true.
Speaker 1: No source, no link, just Mila Joy's possibly AI generated,
Speaker 1: fake looking face. Oregon sent sixty fire trucks to California.
Speaker 1: California won't let them into the state because California is
Speaker 1: unsure of emissions on the trucks. California is a joke.
Speaker 1: Get out while you can. The Oregon State Fire Marshall
Speaker 1: saw this. After two hundred and forty seven thousand views,
Speaker 1: we sent seventy five fire engines. Your statement about our
Speaker 1: teams not being allowed into California is false. Our teams
Speaker 1: arrived yesterday and are working around the clock to help
Speaker 1: our neighbors. Mila Joy deleted her post. Terrific, right, I
Speaker 1: can progress here one down, five hundred billion deletions to go.
Speaker 1: Also of interest here the other shoe dropped in my
Speaker 1: ex's story. Oh yeah, which ex? Wey Elser, the one
Speaker 1: who tried to get her fiance arrested? And phew here
Speaker 1: it wasn't me and I had such a momentary thrill.
Speaker 1: Lawrence O'Donnell's last interview, he's leaving MSNBC two. No, I
Speaker 1: read it wrong. It's Joe Biden's last interview. He's leaving,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately O'Donnell is staying. That's next. This is countdown.
Speaker 2: This is Countdown with Keith Oberman, my crazy friend.
Speaker 1: Still ahead on Countdown. So I read this headline about
Speaker 1: Lawrence O'Donnell doing the last interview with President Biden, and
Speaker 1: I thought, cool, Lawrence o'donald is doing his last interview.
Speaker 1: They're getting rid of him, like they got rid of
Speaker 1: Alex Wagner. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out they
Speaker 1: meant Joe's last interview, not O'Donnell's. Lawrence is a guy
Speaker 1: who tried to take Countdown away from me while I
Speaker 1: was on a leave of absence as my father was dying,
Speaker 1: and when he did not.
Speaker 2: Succeed, he SAINMP.
Speaker 1: We took and stole some of the producers, took them
Speaker 1: to a new show that was created so his boss
Speaker 1: could explain to the new owners that he the boss,
Speaker 1: was not utterly inert and unnecessary, but actually had done things,
Speaker 1: considering he had nothing to do with starting my show
Speaker 1: or meadows. And that's just the beginning of the saga
Speaker 1: of mister Smarmy, the man we called load Lawrence O'Donnell
Speaker 1: ahead and things I promised not to tell first. There
Speaker 1: are still more new idiots to talk about, the daily
Speaker 1: roundup of the miss Grants, morons, Undonning Krueger effect specimens
Speaker 1: who constitute today's other.
Speaker 2: Worse persons in the world World the Bronze worse.
Speaker 1: This got almost no attention, And you'll forgive me if
Speaker 1: it's a story that I pay more attention to than
Speaker 1: you do. But the worse is my ex Olivia. The
Speaker 1: body count is now complete at three. We think it's complete.
Speaker 1: Who knows RFK Junior now forever to be foddled around
Speaker 1: by an image of him in your mind on FaceTime
Speaker 1: while holding his phone in one hand and holding his
Speaker 1: RFK junior junior in the other. Obviously, the second body
Speaker 1: is Newzy herself, because if a guy can get stuck
Speaker 1: to a masturbation scandal, it will always be worse for
Speaker 1: a woman.
Speaker 2: That's unfair.
Speaker 1: It should be exactly the same, utter slimy humiliation because
Speaker 1: it was somebody she was writing an article on for
Speaker 1: a mid level magazine. The magazine and Olivia reached some
Speaker 1: kind of deal and she moved on. But her career
Speaker 1: in tatters should be. And while there is speculation she
Speaker 1: may be able to go back a notch and write
Speaker 1: something again for somebody else, she will never shake this.
Speaker 1: Never ask Jeff Tubin, ask the late pee Weee Herman,
Speaker 1: and neither of those involved their work, never hers was
Speaker 1: part of a reporting assignment as a news reporter. And
Speaker 1: one thing has not changed about Olivia. And since she
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old, was she ever holier than now
Speaker 1: about being a reporter. She was a reporter. She went
Speaker 1: out and got stories. I just read the teleprompter. Now
Speaker 1: there is another option for her. She can go where
Speaker 1: all disgraced x real reporters go, right wing media. They'll
Speaker 1: take her in and proclaim her a liberal journalist who's
Speaker 1: seen the lights and and and Barry Weiss and and
Speaker 1: it would be a step down from masturbating on FaceTime
Speaker 1: with a presidential candidate. But I suppose it would be
Speaker 1: a living anyway, I said. The body count was now
Speaker 1: complete at three, and nobody had noticed the third one,
Speaker 1: the ex fiancee, the one she used to call her
Speaker 1: stalker in Washington. Politico got away with deftly announcing this
Speaker 1: move in the least institutionally damaging way possible. I'll just
Speaker 1: read their forty two word announcements. Ryan Liza, who came
Speaker 1: out of the magazine world and captures the essence of
Speaker 1: people and ideas as well as anyone in the business.
Speaker 1: If that's true, how did this thing happen with his
Speaker 1: fiance and in the business? Is going to be doing
Speaker 1: that in our pages with a special emphasis on contributing
Speaker 1: to Politico magazine.
Speaker 2: No mention that.
Speaker 1: Liza has been demoted from the editor of the Politico
Speaker 1: wildly and inexplicably popular aggregation daily news letter. And after
Speaker 1: a leave of absence for about three months, and after
Speaker 1: two lawsuits and having to answer Newsy's charges that he
Speaker 1: blackmailed her into sex and her intention to get the
Speaker 1: FBI involved, in the investigation at the sex I think.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: A presidential candidate is now an online whanker. A genuinely
Speaker 1: brilliant writer is unemployed and maybe going to stay that way.
Speaker 1: And this guy who was a star writer for The
Speaker 1: New Yorker before he met her is now a contributor
Speaker 1: to Politico's Nietzsch side site Politico Magazine. Yesh oh, And
Speaker 1: over here on the side there's me and the Dogs
Speaker 1: shrug emoji. The runner up warsa Dakota Lee Dilly. Dakota
Speaker 1: is what the online folk call a rando. He identifies
Speaker 1: as an Ohio State football fan from Zanesville, Ohio. Somebody
Speaker 1: meant Cincinnelia that next Monday is a huge day for
Speaker 1: Ohio State football fans. Their team plays for the national championship,
Speaker 1: and Trump's going to pardon January sixth. AnyWho, this Dakota
Speaker 1: Lee Dilly not only has a name out of the
Speaker 1: best of political satire, he's one of those dudes who's
Speaker 1: post on Elon Mush's fascist propaganda site. Usually they head
Speaker 1: off into the universe without making any impression whatsoever. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to change that because I happen to see it.
Speaker 1: News Wire posted Pete Hegseth says US military bases should
Speaker 1: restore names of Confederate generals and Dakota Lee. Dilly retweeted
Speaker 1: this with perhaps the most rationalization of all rationalizations. They
Speaker 1: were American generals before the Civil War. They were commanders
Speaker 1: during the Mexican War. Many of them advised the Cuban
Speaker 1: Spanish American War. They took a loyalty oath. Yes they
Speaker 1: committed sedition. Yes they committed treason, but they were damn
Speaker 1: good commanders. And Lincoln said as much himself else heir,
Speaker 1: among other things. No, none of them were American generals
Speaker 1: before the Civil War, not even Robert E. Lee, for
Speaker 1: whom there is no Robert E.
Speaker 2: Lee base. Fort Lee, New Jersey, is not a base.
Speaker 2: Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee was a lieutenant colonel just before he began committing treason.
Speaker 1: Lincoln promoted him to colonel and offered him promotion to
Speaker 1: major general. But these other guys, they weren't generals either,
Speaker 1: nor were they good commanders. In fact, Braxton Bragg, for
Speaker 1: whom Fort Bragg was named largely because it's near where
Speaker 1: Bragg was from, he was an idiot who lost nearly
Speaker 1: all of his battles and whose eyebrows were so thick
Speaker 1: and his brow was so prominent he was often described
Speaker 1: as a monkey with a gun. But the money shot
Speaker 1: from Dakota Lee Dilley is this part quote. Yes they
Speaker 1: committed sedition, Yes they committed treason, but they were damn
Speaker 1: good commanders. That might as well be the official motto
Speaker 1: of the incoming Trump kunta. If you're looking for a
Speaker 1: guy to staff out your pentagon, Pete Hegseeth secretary of
Speaker 1: bril Cream, look this guy, Dakota Lee Dilley up if
Speaker 1: you can pry him away from Ohio State football highlights.
Speaker 1: Yes they committed sedition, they committed treason, but they had
Speaker 1: good points too. But the winner, how about how about
Speaker 1: Lee Harvey Oswald getting recognition he was a marine, the
Speaker 1: Lee Harvey Oswald elite Corps under Trump. But the winners
Speaker 1: the worst together again for the first time, absolutely the
Speaker 1: two most self applauding newspeople I have ever met, I mean,
Speaker 1: worse than Joe Scarborough, Chuck Todd and Dan Abrams. Now
Speaker 1: I've told the story about Dan Abrams before. Were named
Speaker 1: general manager of MSNBC. On June twelfth, two oh two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, at nine am, told by his bosses
Speaker 1: that all his power was being stripped from him as
Speaker 1: general manager of MSNBC. Also on June twelfth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, at four pm.
Speaker 2: Chuck Todd you know he's Chuck Todd.
Speaker 1: Chuck is saying now that he's moving on from NBC
Speaker 1: when his contract expires.
Speaker 2: The response to which has been.
Speaker 1: They didn't fire him when they fired him from Meet
Speaker 1: the Press. They've been paying him all this time. Man,
Speaker 1: I had a job like that once with Fox.
Speaker 2: Best job I ever had.
Speaker 1: How much money are you gonna give me to not
Speaker 1: do anything for anybody?
Speaker 3: Cool?
Speaker 1: Well, now these two great overrated, self absorbed hair challenge
Speaker 1: morons have joined forces in a way, and the sum
Speaker 1: is lesser than the parts. I'll just read the version
Speaker 1: of this on mediaite dot com. That's Mediaite founded by
Speaker 1: Dan Abrams, because mediaite is what the dan Abrams is
Speaker 1: of this world think. Is a clever a clever pun
Speaker 1: or play on the word media eight meteorite, meditate who
Speaker 1: knows quote on My News Nation show, I went after
Speaker 1: NBC and Chuck Todd when they announced that he was
Speaker 1: stepping down his host to Beat the Press last year
Speaker 1: were actually in twenty twenty three, and my criticism was
Speaker 1: that a news operation that is supposed to be seeking
Speaker 1: out the truth and providing its viewers and readers with
Speaker 1: accurate information calling out fact from fiction almost certainly, and
Speaker 1: now we know why they created a fictionalized version of
Speaker 1: what happened with Chuck Todd. I should just mention here
Speaker 1: that this idea of seeking accurate information all the rest
Speaker 1: of us hosts there at MSNBC. When Dan used to
Speaker 1: host The Missing White Women of the Day show, were
Speaker 1: warned by mid level managers and staffers on his own
Speaker 1: show that maybe we should not quote him with some
Speaker 1: of the stories that he was breaking because they were
Speaker 1: from dubious sources. All I know is most to them
Speaker 1: never panned out. Abrams also goes on to submit that
Speaker 1: Todd quote was forced out of his role and replaced
Speaker 1: with Kristin Welker, and to insist that the statements issued
Speaker 1: by both Todd and NBC at the time were untrue.
Speaker 1: They should not be lying to us, he said, before
Speaker 1: going on to make the case that Todd was a
Speaker 1: better host of the show than Welker. Now, Chuck Todd
Speaker 1: was much better at hosting Meet the Press than Kristin Welker,
Speaker 1: he asked smarter follow up questions, the show was more interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: that's clear and convincing evidence. Abrams went on to argue
Speaker 1: that Todd ultimately lost his role because he was tough
Speaker 1: on both conservatives and liberals and therefore didn't have a
Speaker 1: political community behind him. Has nothing to do with that,
Speaker 1: of course, It was that he stunk at this and
Speaker 1: let everybody get away with everything, especially the conservatives, because
Speaker 1: he tried to balance everything, including oh, over here is
Speaker 1: a misstatement by a Democrat.
Speaker 2: And over here is a treason. They're the same thing quote.
Speaker 1: And in the world we live in now, that is
Speaker 1: a negative that is now held against you. And so
Speaker 1: now Meet the Press as someone hosting the show who
Speaker 1: is less good by any objective assessment than Chuck Todd was,
Speaker 1: Abram said. And talk to people who were fans of
Speaker 1: Meet the Press, who are who aren't overt political partisans,
Speaker 1: and they'll just tell you the show was a smarter
Speaker 1: show when Chuck Todd was there. So bottom line is,
Speaker 1: whoever gets Chuck Todd I think will be lucky. There
Speaker 1: are fans of Meet the Press who are not overt
Speaker 1: political partisans. There are people who watch political shows who
Speaker 1: are not overt political partisans. Part of some sort of
Speaker 1: work release program, community service. You are sentenced to four
Speaker 1: hundred hours of watching Meet the Press and the other
Speaker 1: Sunday shows.
Speaker 2: No, but here's the gist. This went by in a hurry.
Speaker 1: Here he's complaining that NBC lied about firing Chuck and
Speaker 1: made it look like he was step aside and made
Speaker 1: it look like he was going to leave at the
Speaker 1: end of his contract like a year and a half later.
Speaker 1: They actually provided Chuck Todd with a minor fig leaf
Speaker 1: about his career and about his ego.
Speaker 2: And that's a bad thing by them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have no respect for NBC, but this
Speaker 1: is one of the rare good things they have done
Speaker 1: in the last twenty years, as opposed to the fig
Speaker 1: leaf they gave Dan Abrams, which he now wears on
Speaker 1: his head. I mean, when they finally fired Dan Abrams
Speaker 1: as general manager in October two thousand and seven by
Speaker 1: letting him claim he just missed being on the.
Speaker 2: Air too much.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely possible they actually waited long enough sixteen months
Speaker 1: for Danny to realize he had a title, but after
Speaker 1: the first few hours, no job other than to provide laughs.
Speaker 2: For the MSNBC staff.
Speaker 1: But this idea, we can't fire him now, We'll just
Speaker 1: keep him in the job and then put him on
Speaker 1: the air so then he can say he missed being
Speaker 1: on the air. That was voiced by MSNBC management to
Speaker 1: all the producers at MSNBC within a week of his appointment.
Speaker 2: I mean, doesn't he know that.
Speaker 1: They lied about him too twice? Chuck, Todd and Dan
Speaker 1: now meet the press as someone hosting the show who
Speaker 1: was less good by any objective assessment, because Dan Abrams
Speaker 1: doesn't remember that his idea of an objective assessment was
Speaker 1: his idea for MSNBC's new catchphrase, should be keeping it real.
Speaker 1: Abrams two days Worst Persons and Noor. Now to the
Speaker 1: number one story on the countdown on my favorite topic,
Speaker 1: Me and Things I promised not to tell. Early on
Speaker 1: the afternoon of Monday May twenty third, twenty sixteen, I
Speaker 1: bounced out of my New York City apartment building, began
Speaker 1: to walk past the tourist trap brunch spot in the lobby,
Speaker 1: and froze there at one of the cramped outdoor tables,
Speaker 1: staring up at me in blank surprise that must have
Speaker 1: matched my own staring down at him in blank surprise
Speaker 1: was Laurence O'Donnell. I decided to go silly, Hey, get
Speaker 1: out of my house. He laughed, I laughed. It didn't
Speaker 1: seem forced. He introduced me to his companion, his daughter.
Speaker 1: This my dear is Keith Ulderman. Keith started us all
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, and then he left, and and here Lawrence
Speaker 1: gave one of his long pauses, and we crashed it.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be generous. I started to politely contradict him,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't do it. Hum yeah, pretty much anyway,
Speaker 1: About thirty seconds of courteous nothingness followed, and I wish
Speaker 1: the O'Donnell's well, and then I left. It was the
Speaker 1: most pleasant experience I ever had with Lawrence o'donald. In fact,
Speaker 1: it might have been the only pleasant experience I ever
Speaker 1: had with Lawrence O'Donnell. After I finally convinced and bullied
Speaker 1: and blackmailed MSNBC management into letting Rachel Meadow become the
Speaker 1: regular guest host for my show, and she aced it
Speaker 1: and then rightly got her own show, and she aced
Speaker 1: that and became a star. I went looking for a
Speaker 1: new guest host. My first idea was a frequent guest
Speaker 1: we had named Chris Hayes. I didn't get far. Management
Speaker 1: had its own idea and my input was not required.
Speaker 1: They wanted former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean.
Speaker 1: And Howard is a really smart guy and great on TV.
Speaker 1: But Howard had a bit of a teleprompter problem. One
Speaker 1: of my producers swears that Howard once read good Evening.
Speaker 1: I'm Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont. This is countdown.
Speaker 2: I do know.
Speaker 1: Whatever he did on the air, it was bad enough
Speaker 1: that one week when I was off and at the
Speaker 1: Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and a
Speaker 1: baseball news story broke and he was filling in for me.
Speaker 1: My producers called me there and asked me to come
Speaker 1: on from the streets of Cooperstown and be a guest
Speaker 1: on my own show, just to help Howard Dean out. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Their next idea was a guy who had been kicking
Speaker 1: around MSNBC since its founding in nineteen ninety six. Lawrence
Speaker 1: O'Donnell was one of the original MSNBC Friends, the MSNBC
Speaker 1: Friends political pundits who sat on clearstools at a clear
Speaker 1: table or in a set designed to look like a
Speaker 1: booth at a coffee shop. No, I'm not making this up.
Speaker 1: Among the friends were and Colter and Laura Ingram, if
Speaker 1: you can believe it, once or twice an hour, the
Speaker 1: rather CNN like all news coverage on MSNBC in its
Speaker 1: first couple of years would pause and three or more
Speaker 1: of the friends would appear, chew over the MSNBC headlines
Speaker 1: and then disappear. Lawrence O'Donnell was one of the friends.
Speaker 1: It was as bad as it sounds. Then Lawrence o'donald
Speaker 1: pretty much disappeared. You would see him on MSNBC as
Speaker 1: a guest every once in a while, but mostly he
Speaker 1: pursued his acting and producing career. He played President Bartlett's
Speaker 1: father on the West Wing, the one who beat him.
Speaker 1: Throughout college. Lawrence was very convincing, and then around two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, we started getting pressure to bring him
Speaker 1: in as a guest on Countdown, like once a week
Speaker 1: or twice a week. I was not sure what that
Speaker 1: was all about, but he had been a Senate staffer
Speaker 1: and he knew the healthcare debate and other wonky stuff
Speaker 1: pretty well. So I gave my assent for whatever that
Speaker 1: was worth. Not long after that, Lawrence came into my office.
Speaker 1: He really needed my support, he said, to get him
Speaker 1: more involved in MSNBC. He knew I had gone to
Speaker 1: bat for Rachel and before her, I'd gone to bat
Speaker 1: for Tom Brokaw, and for people like Chuck Todd and
Speaker 1: Chris Hayes and others who are now getting steady incomes
Speaker 1: from NBC. I don't remember his argument on his own, behalf.
Speaker 1: I do remember I didn't have much of a reason
Speaker 1: to say no, and he wasn't asking me to do
Speaker 1: a lot, so I said yes. The next thing I knew,
Speaker 1: I was reading a memo announcing that Lawrence O'Donnell had
Speaker 1: been appointed as the new full time guest host of Countdown.
Speaker 1: This was in the winter of two thousand and nine
Speaker 1: twenty ten, when my late dad was fighting so valiantly
Speaker 1: to stay alive after colon cancer and more importantly, a
Speaker 1: series of infections. Dad had the immune system of an alien.
Speaker 1: The average white cell count in a healthy adult is
Speaker 1: between four thousand and eleven thousand. One night, Dad's was
Speaker 1: at thirty three thousand, and the doctors told me to
Speaker 1: prepare to make the call to let him go. They
Speaker 1: had one antibiotic left to try on him. The next morning,
Speaker 1: Dad's white cell count, which had been thirty three thousand,
Speaker 1: was eight thousand. Onward, he fought. Unfortunately, he was eighty
Speaker 1: years old and he had not exercised since Harry Truman
Speaker 1: was president, and eventually he ran out of Houdini tricks.
Speaker 1: I had been visiting him twice a day for six
Speaker 1: months while still doing Countdown and the NBC Sunday Night
Speaker 1: Football Show. But now, as it hit late February of
Speaker 1: twenty ten, his bright days became fewer and farther in between,
Speaker 1: and the hope that was propelling me to keep being
Speaker 1: his full time caregiver and Countdown's full time host both
Speaker 1: began to fade. In the last two weeks of my
Speaker 1: dad's life, as the doctors tried all the long shot things,
Speaker 1: I asked MSNBC for a leave of absence. Finally the
Speaker 1: inevitability became inarguable, and we let Dad go. On Saturday,
Speaker 1: March thirteenth, twenty ten, my sister held his hand and
Speaker 1: I read him his favorite Thurber story, and as soon
Speaker 1: as I finished it, he exhaled deeply and peacefully, and
Speaker 1: he died. I think I took another week off, maybe two,
Speaker 1: and I vaguely recall emails from friends at Countdown that
Speaker 1: I may have paid passing attention to, but I really didn't.
Speaker 1: Most of the staff, including people who came up from Washington,
Speaker 1: like Howard Feyneman or Gene Robinson of the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: always friends to me. They attended my dad's memorial service.
Speaker 1: I believe Lawrence o'donald, who was of course filling in
Speaker 1: for me on Countdown, was there too, but maybe not,
Speaker 1: I do not remember. And then came the day when
Speaker 1: I went back to the office full time and my
Speaker 1: assistant grabbed me both hands on my wrist. You did
Speaker 1: not answer my emails, she said, with a fervency she
Speaker 1: rarely exhibited. For God's sake, do not ever leave me
Speaker 1: alone with Laurence O'Donnell Again, I snapped back to attention.
Speaker 1: Had he, you know, bothered her? Not that way, she said,
Speaker 1: But he's a son of a bitch. He treats me
Speaker 1: and everybody who was a producer here like dirt. And
Speaker 1: since you didn't read my emails, I just have to
Speaker 1: tell you this. He's trying to get you fired so
Speaker 1: he can take over Countdown. And if you think he's nuts,
Speaker 1: one of your senior producers is in on it too
Speaker 1: with him. I have to admit, even now, of all
Speaker 1: the things I went through at that very, very strange
Speaker 1: place MSNBC, even now, this story still shocks me. The
Speaker 1: senior producers of Countdown consisted of a guy who'd been
Speaker 1: a producer who booked satellite transmissions for MSNBC until I
Speaker 1: asked that he'd be promoted, and one was a guest
Speaker 1: booker for the daytime shows until I asked that she
Speaker 1: be promoted. Another was a line producer who was well
Speaker 1: regarded only for his ability to time a show until
Speaker 1: I asked for him to be promoted. And then there
Speaker 1: was the old friend of mine who had been blown
Speaker 1: out of ESPN in a sexual harassment porn link email
Speaker 1: scandal and was headed back to college to start his
Speaker 1: career all over again, until I asked that he'd be
Speaker 1: hired and then promoted. I did some digging, and I
Speaker 1: was going to confront O'Donnell about it when somebody told
Speaker 1: me he had tweeted something negative about me and about Countdown.
Speaker 1: So I got a hold of him and I said,
Speaker 1: this did not seem to be in keeping with MSNBC
Speaker 1: traditions and rules, you know, the ones about not peeing
Speaker 1: inside the tent. And he said, what do you know
Speaker 1: about MSNBC traditions. I've been here since nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1: I never left and came back. So I went to
Speaker 1: my boss, the president of the network, Phil Griffin, the
Speaker 1: one who would not hire Rachel Maddow. And before I
Speaker 1: could say they'd have to get rid of him, Griffin
Speaker 1: said it was all academic. They were preparing the press
Speaker 1: release as we spoke for Lawrence's new show at ten
Speaker 1: o'clock called The Last Word, and oh, by the way, Keith,
Speaker 1: two of your senior producers are going with him to
Speaker 1: run his show. If this sounds vaguely familiar to you,
Speaker 1: it is the plot of the pilot for the old
Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin HBO series Newsroom. I was still friendly with
Speaker 1: Aaron then, so he actually asked. As I related this
Speaker 1: to him in real time in emails and phone calls,
Speaker 1: he asked if he could use it in the plot
Speaker 1: rather than just what he often did, which was to
Speaker 1: use it without asking. The problem was none of this
Speaker 1: made any sense in the real world. Although it made
Speaker 1: a pretty good pilot for Aaron Sorkin in going into
Speaker 1: the ten pm slot, Lawrence O'Donnell would be replacing a
Speaker 1: rerun of Countdown, and even if O'Donnell did much better
Speaker 1: in the ratings, much much better, there was no way
Speaker 1: it could ever make enough money to make the move
Speaker 1: make sense. O'Donnell's new show would necessarily cost MSNBC between
Speaker 1: ten and fifteen million dollars to produce every year. Didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with him.
Speaker 2: That was the cost.
Speaker 1: The Countdown rerun cost, not ten fifteen million dollars a year.
Speaker 1: It count however much they paid the guy who pushed
Speaker 1: the play button that fired up the videotape of the
Speaker 1: Countdown replace amortized. Later that day, a sympathetic NBC executive
Speaker 1: called me up and explained the move to me. First,
Speaker 1: Griffin was convinced O'Donnell was about to leave us and
Speaker 1: sign with CNN. I said, well, that's a good idea
Speaker 1: for everybody involved except CNN. Turned out CNN had not
Speaker 1: even talked to him, but Griffin did not know that.
Speaker 1: More importantly, Comcast had already finalized its agreement to buy
Speaker 1: NBC effective the following January, and as part of the deal,
Speaker 1: they were entitled to review what all the executives in
Speaker 1: the company had done, and they had already looked at
Speaker 1: MSNBC president Phil Griffin and discovered he had never done anything.
Speaker 1: In panic, Griffin told colleagues he had to launch a
Speaker 1: new show of his own immediately. This is the series
Speaker 1: Aaron Sorkin should have made. As to the producers who
Speaker 1: left my show to go with O'Donnell, while my father
Speaker 1: was one of them, told me a couple of years
Speaker 1: after she left MSNBC for the last time, every day
Speaker 1: when I went into that last word office, I realized
Speaker 1: you were getting your revenge on me without even having
Speaker 1: to lift a finger. Lots of people I've worked with,
Speaker 1: probably a majority of people i've helped, have behaved like
Speaker 1: Lawrence O'Donnell, because remember, it's television. It is a mental illness.
Speaker 1: The comparatively healthy people are the ones who acknowledge it's
Speaker 1: a mental illness. But Lawrence O'Donnell was something special. A
Speaker 1: year before my dad died, almost to the day, in fact,
Speaker 1: I was in Los Angeles appearing on Bill Maher's show,
Speaker 1: and one of the other guests that night was the
Speaker 1: actress Kerrie Washington. She was very nice to me, very sweet,
Speaker 1: a very big fan, and she asked to stay in touch.
Speaker 1: Sure enough, after my father died after the memorial, after
Speaker 1: I was back at work, I had to go to
Speaker 1: his house for the first time since he had passed away.
Speaker 1: It was about as much fun as it sounds. In
Speaker 1: the car on the way back into New York City.
Speaker 1: The solemnity of it. Both my parents died within eleven
Speaker 1: months of each other. It really hit me for some
Speaker 1: reason for the first time, full force, and I was
Speaker 1: about to lose it when the car approached a billboard
Speaker 1: overlooking the West Side Highway in New York City. And
Speaker 1: whose big smiling face was on the ad on that billboard,
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington, And it flashed me right back to her
Speaker 1: kindness in la and it helped me overcome this bump
Speaker 1: in my mourning. So I wanted to drop her a note,
Speaker 1: nothing big, nothing suggestive. I wasn't hinting at asking her out.
Speaker 1: Just you never know how you might help somebody in
Speaker 1: a time of crisis. Thanks for letting me smile. That
Speaker 1: was the whole message. I asked my assistant to figure
Speaker 1: out how to get it to her, and that was
Speaker 1: the end of it, except A week later, the fact
Speaker 1: that I wrote her a note wound up in a
Speaker 1: column written by an colter.
Speaker 2: I was astonished, how why?
Speaker 1: And Colter it was her usual the brain doesn't quite
Speaker 1: work right kind of stuff. She implied I was hitting
Speaker 1: on Carrie Washington and said how stupid I had to
Speaker 1: be to not realize she was involved with somebody, and
Speaker 1: on and on and on, no mention of my father's passing,
Speaker 1: or the mar show or the billboard or her smiling face.
Speaker 1: I went back to my assistant and I said, Hey,
Speaker 1: what on earth did you do with that note to
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington? And she said, oh, I gave it to
Speaker 1: this Lawrence O'Donnell guy. And I said, good God, why
Speaker 1: did you do that? And she said, well, he's dating
Speaker 1: Carrie Washington. I thought you knew that. I thought that's
Speaker 1: why you asked me to get it to her. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't hard to figure out from there. Lawrence had
Speaker 1: called his old friend from the old MSNBC Friends of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six and Colter and told her about the note.
Speaker 1: Inventing whatever motive his jealous little mind could dream up,
Speaker 1: it should have gotten him fired from NBC, but unfortunately
Speaker 1: his boss was just as much of a fourteen year
Speaker 1: old emotionally as he was. And meanwhile, I had decided
Speaker 1: to get out of MSNBC anyway when the time was ripe,
Speaker 1: and as it turned out, it ripened in January twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: I've told that story in other episodes, like sixty of them.
Speaker 1: It's kind of complicated, And since nobody ever actually asked
Speaker 1: me why count Down the TV show ended, I've probably
Speaker 1: got another sixty episodes worth of information about that anyway
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, since repeatedly over the following ten years,
Speaker 1: there were overtures by both sides to bring Countdown and
Speaker 1: Me back to MSNBC. In twenty fifteen, during the World Series,
Speaker 1: in fact, the then president of NBC News, Andy Lack,
Speaker 1: asked me to come back and do a new show
Speaker 1: at MSNBC and move to Los Angeles and have a
Speaker 1: co host, a conservative, and not do any commentary. And
Speaker 1: actually this new show was somehow less appealing than it sounds.
Speaker 1: But the punchline of all punchlines is contained in what
Speaker 1: Lack wanted to call my new twenty fifteen MSNBC show
Speaker 1: that never was. It tells you all you really need
Speaker 1: to know about The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell and
Speaker 1: MSNBC and O'Donnell's place in TV history at its demise
Speaker 1: and the end of MSNBC. NBC new president Lack was
Speaker 1: brimming with enthusiasm about this name that he had come
Speaker 1: up with for my new show, A good the perfect title.
Speaker 1: Lack told me, we're gonna call it The Last Word
Speaker 1: with Keith Olberman. And I didn't laugh for guffaw. I
Speaker 1: just said, Andy, you have a show called The Last Word,
Speaker 1: The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell. Andy Lack now laughed, huh,
Speaker 1: hopefully not for much longer.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Remember when Lawrence O'Donnell started in about
Speaker 1: a year after the show began, and so this puts
Speaker 1: it at like twenty eleven, twenty twelve. He said he
Speaker 1: couldn't see him doing it long term. Then he began
Speaker 1: to realize it was nowhere else in the world it
Speaker 1: could make that kind of money any who. Brian Ray
Speaker 1: and John Phillip Shanell, the musical directors, have Countdown, arranged,
Speaker 1: produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled
Speaker 1: orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
Speaker 1: and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our
Speaker 1: satirical and fifthy musical comments are by the best baseball
Speaker 1: stadium organist, every Nancy Faust. The sports music is the
Speaker 1: Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis,
Speaker 1: and it appears courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged
Speaker 1: and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Anouncer today
Speaker 1: was my crazy friend Tony Corneiser. Everything else was, as always,
Speaker 1: my fault. The next scheduled countdown is Doomsday Monday, January twentieth.
Speaker 1: As always, bulletins is the news warrant Still next time,
Speaker 1: I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and
Speaker 1: good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.