Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. To
Speaker 1: repurpose the old phrase. This was the weekend when Elon
Speaker 1: Musk truly became president. And it was also the weekend
Speaker 1: when the marionette he's leading around by his orange nose
Speaker 1: truly became Donald J. Trump Puppet. One month until the inauguration,
Speaker 1: and Trump Puppet has already dug himself a bigger hole
Speaker 1: than he was in at any point during his presidency.
Speaker 1: And during his presidency they impeached the bastard twice. God
Speaker 1: rest you married, gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay for Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Their savior to Elon Musk must pay. It is now
Speaker 1: just five days. And I know that in the kaleidoscopic
Speaker 1: dementia of trump Land, five days can be ancient history.
Speaker 1: But still five days since Trump Puppet vowed to primary
Speaker 1: quote any Republican unquote who voted for a clean continuing
Speaker 1: resolution without an extension of the debt limit or later
Speaker 1: elimination of the debt limit. After Musk and not Trump
Speaker 1: Puppet blew up that bill. Two days later, one hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy different Republicans voted for a clean continuing resolution
Speaker 1: without an extension of the debt limit anyway. Thus there
Speaker 1: are only two questions left. One which scam Musk is
Speaker 1: actually running here. I'll get to that in a moment.
Speaker 1: And two how many Republicans then gave Trump puppet the
Speaker 1: finger all one hundred and seventy or thirty eight, which
Speaker 1: was the number of no votes on the final bill
Speaker 1: Friday night, or just twenty nine, because nine of the
Speaker 1: thirty eight are lame ducks who vanished in two weeks.
Speaker 1: Even if it's just twenty nine. Remember, Trump threatened primaries primaries,
Speaker 1: and Trump wanted to shut down, and Trump insisted a
Speaker 1: shutdown would be counted against Biden. They defied him anyway.
Speaker 1: They defied him because when at the end of these
Speaker 1: segments I refer to the lane duck presidency of Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump Puppet, I am not looking at it solely from
Speaker 1: the pro democracy nor the pro Democrat point of view.
Speaker 1: The Republicans, the smarter ones, know this is true. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, he held all of their futures in his
Speaker 1: cartoon ready three fingered orange hands. But in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: with each new day that dawns, his power over them
Speaker 1: will diminish slightly. At first, and then with ever increasing
Speaker 1: momentum each day more Duck, assuming at both extremes that
Speaker 1: he stages no coup and that he actually lives until
Speaker 1: the year twenty twenty nine, there will be fifteen Republicans
Speaker 1: who will be sworn into the Senate next month who
Speaker 1: will still be there when Trump goes. There was one
Speaker 1: underreported twist of the knife here. Remember the story Musk
Speaker 1: made up that the Continuing Resolution included the government spending
Speaker 1: three billion dollars of your money to build a new
Speaker 1: football stadium in DC. It was never close to the truth,
Speaker 1: and the Republicans and the Democrats wound up telling Musk
Speaker 1: and Trump puppet to shove it anyway after they passed
Speaker 1: the cr that Musk thought he'd killed completely, that Trump
Speaker 1: thought he had stopped. That Trump thought they would all
Speaker 1: just salute and eat whatever he had done in their hats.
Speaker 1: The Republicans went ahead with the original plan for the
Speaker 1: federal government to give control of the land surrounding RFK Stadium,
Speaker 1: which is so old the upper deck literally sways in
Speaker 1: a stiff breeze, to give that land to the District
Speaker 1: of Columbia. The Senate passed it by unanimous consent at
Speaker 1: one in the morning on Saturday. There are terms in
Speaker 1: the bill prohibiting any federal funds to build any stadium
Speaker 1: on that land. It just gives the district the place
Speaker 1: which was federal property, so that a Washington team can
Speaker 1: build a stadium on if they make a deal. All
Speaker 1: the Republican senators participated in the unanimous consent, and in
Speaker 1: the House it was approved under the guidance and shepherding
Speaker 1: of its top proponent there, Congressman James Comer. Any way
Speaker 1: you cut this, fifteen Trump defiant Republicans or twenty nine
Speaker 1: or thirty eight or one hundred and seventy or all
Speaker 1: of them on the RFK stadium is after this weekend passed,
Speaker 1: you can no longer spell the word Trump without at
Speaker 1: least nine els. The first l that was the own
Speaker 1: goal nomination disaster of Matt Gates, which as soon as
Speaker 1: it already happened today after I recorded this, We'll turn
Speaker 1: into the second disaster, when House Republicans defied Trump puppet
Speaker 1: again and voted to release its lack of ethics investigation
Speaker 1: into Gates as early as it already happened today after
Speaker 1: I recorded this. Third, he's got the continuing controversy over
Speaker 1: the Pete Hegseth nomination, and heg Seth continues to try
Speaker 1: to negotiate whether or not he is legally an alcoholic.
Speaker 1: Heg Seth raged against an NBC News report that quote,
Speaker 1: I had a drinking problem at Fox or was drunk
Speaker 1: on the air. Check the tape, Check every tape, find
Speaker 1: the drunken. Whereupon the Midas Fellows found video of Hegzeth
Speaker 1: drinking something and saying bottom's up live on Fox not
Speaker 1: quite a year ago on New Year's Eve. And if
Speaker 1: it wasn't champagne in the champagne bottle, well good for him.
Speaker 1: He fooled everybody. Fourth It's not like the other Trump
Speaker 1: nominees are sailing along, but of course Hegseth might just
Speaker 1: be sailing. Gabbard remains in trouble. Fatel looks like he's
Speaker 1: keeping an eye out for other shoes dropping, as if
Speaker 1: he learned nothing from Gates. He is floating. Alan Dershowitz
Speaker 1: to be Special Envoy to Monitor and combat Anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: That requires that position requires Senate confirmation, and Senate confirmation
Speaker 1: of Alan Dershowitz could bring up Dershowitz's uh dating history
Speaker 1: Trump has also somewhere dug up ex Missouri congressman and
Speaker 1: ex auctioneer Billy Long to be Commissioner of the Internal
Speaker 1: Revenue Service. The website Pro Publica discovered something wrong with Long.
Speaker 1: In his resume, he advertises himself as an expert who
Speaker 1: can help you quote save forty percent on your taxes unquote,
Speaker 1: because he is not just Billy Long, he is Billy
Speaker 1: Long's CTBA Certified Tax and Business Advisor. This acronym turns
Speaker 1: out to carry about as much weight as a PhD
Speaker 1: from Wasamatta U as Pro public Rights quote. The designation
Speaker 1: is offered by a small Florida firm, excel Empire, which
Speaker 1: was established just two years ago and only requires attendance
Speaker 1: at a three day seminar. Its upcoming session is advertised
Speaker 1: at four nine hundred and ninety seven dollars. One of
Speaker 1: its founders said this summer in a podcast that about
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty five people have earned the CTBA designation,
Speaker 1: which the firm designed to help people without tax backgrounds
Speaker 1: to become tax advisors. Billy Long CTBA, which has the
Speaker 1: C N the A from CYA in it. The fifth
Speaker 1: Trump l remember the whole Trump plan to get around
Speaker 1: these pesky possible problems of you know, sex with children
Speaker 1: and alcoholism and resume padding past praise of Putin and
Speaker 1: Assad and generalized fascism and stupidity. The way he had
Speaker 1: to get around all that was to avoid Senate hearings
Speaker 1: for these appointees requiring confirmation through the expediency of recess appointments.
Speaker 1: Haven't heard that in a while, have you? The Senate
Speaker 1: is already scheduling the confirmation hearings. Fifteen Republican senators who
Speaker 1: will be there when you are gone. Trump is a
Speaker 1: lot of senators. Sixth that landslide and mandate he keeps
Speaker 1: claiming he won in November, the number gets smaller every week.
Speaker 1: He won based on about two hundred and twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand total votes in the swing states, and his national
Speaker 1: margin is at last check at just one point four
Speaker 1: to seven percent. The irony, of course, here, is that
Speaker 1: if he just shut up about it, it would have
Speaker 1: looked like a landslide and a mandate, even if he'd
Speaker 1: only won by one vote, because he was the first
Speaker 1: Republican not named Bush to win the popular vote since
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four. Add to these the new Els number seven,
Speaker 1: the disastrous and now unshakable image that Musk is president
Speaker 1: and Trump puppet is just one of his many impotent employees.
Speaker 1: This is a self own of biblical proportions. Musk's primary
Speaker 1: skill is making it whatever it is about Musk. His
Speaker 1: secondary skill is making other people's work look like it
Speaker 1: was something he did. His tertiary skill is making people
Speaker 1: mistakenly believe he is loved, especially among the utes. Well
Speaker 1: hell beloved are billionaires, and especially CEOs at the moment.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, media companies owned by billionaires and run by
Speaker 1: CEOs did not give this next story a lot of play.
Speaker 1: But Emerson polled on the shooting of the insurance boss
Speaker 1: Brian Thompson around the corner from me and the number
Speaker 1: of Americans aged eighteen to twenty nine who found his
Speaker 1: assassination acceptable or somewhat acceptable was forty one percent, four
Speaker 1: out of ten adults under the age of thirty, and
Speaker 1: their strongest reaction to this was MEH, this might be
Speaker 1: a poor time for a guy who became famous as
Speaker 1: a businessman pirate to link himself to another businessman pirate.
Speaker 1: And the number I think and the poll is low
Speaker 1: in part because it is a majority of those with
Speaker 1: an opinion, forty one percent said acceptable or somewhat acceptable.
Speaker 1: Another forty percent of the kiddos found it unacceptable, which
Speaker 1: means that the number who found it acceptable, somewhat acceptable,
Speaker 1: or did not have an opinion totals to sixty percent.
Speaker 1: Sixty percent. Six out of ten young Americans will not
Speaker 1: say it was unacceptable to shoot the boss of the
Speaker 1: healthcare company, and even that number is probably low. I
Speaker 1: think it's a reasonable guess. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I would be reluctant to tell a polster, or
Speaker 1: to tell almost anybody that any murder was acceptable. It's
Speaker 1: not just that forty one percent of people under thirty
Speaker 1: say this was acceptable or somewhat acceptable. Once that they
Speaker 1: set it out loud, and maybe even more startling from
Speaker 1: Musk and Trump puppet, is that the overall number of
Speaker 1: those of all ages in this poll who found it
Speaker 1: not acceptable was sixty eight percent. I think the word
Speaker 1: just is applicable here, just sixty eight percent. That is
Speaker 1: three to ten who responded sure or whatever or sure whatever.
Speaker 1: That's not good for CEOs. The whole connection to Musk
Speaker 1: was bad enough that Trump went in front of the
Speaker 1: Hitler youuth convention yesterday in Arizona. And by the way,
Speaker 1: twelve percent of young Republicans found the Thompson murder quote
Speaker 1: acceptable unquote. It's bad enough this Trump Musk linkage that
Speaker 1: developed over the weekend President Musk that Trump twice tried
Speaker 1: to make a joke about Musk being the real president,
Speaker 1: and the first time and listen for this, the response
Speaker 1: from the audience of young Republicans was crickets, No, he's not.
Speaker 2: Gonna be president. I can't tell you, and I'm safe.
Speaker 2: You know why he can't be He wasn't born in
Speaker 2: this country.
Speaker 1: He almost said, please clap, which leads us to Trump's
Speaker 1: eighth l. Did you hear anything else from that speech
Speaker 1: in Arizona yesterday? I mean, apart from the content I
Speaker 1: will play for you next, which is Trump doubling down
Speaker 1: on the anti vax crusade. Even sideshow Bob Kennedy himself
Speaker 1: has been smart enough to try to tamp down then
Speaker 1: Trump inadvertently implying that Kennedy himself is autistic. Just listen
Speaker 1: to Trump talk. The election was forty nine days ago.
Speaker 1: He has barely left marri Lago since, let alone kept
Speaker 1: up the pace of the campaign. Why is he slurring
Speaker 1: his words? Why are the non slurred words thick with effort?
Speaker 1: Why does he sound this bad? And to be our
Speaker 1: next Secretary of Health and Human Services?
Speaker 2: I decided, look, something's going on here. When you look
Speaker 2: at like autism from twenty five years ago and you
Speaker 2: look at it now, something's going on. And I nominated
Speaker 2: Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy In Arizona, Trump, I think that's Trump doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like Trump. In Arizona, Trump again floated his latest possible war.
Speaker 1: First it was invading Mexico, then it was annext in Canada.
Speaker 1: Now it is reclaiming the Panama Canal from Panama because
Speaker 1: he still thinks it's nineteen seventy seven or maybe nineteen
Speaker 1: oh seven when most Americans still knew what the Panama
Speaker 1: Canal was. But the Panama Canal where the biggest beef
Speaker 1: seems to be that there are a couple of Hong
Speaker 1: Kong based companies managing the ports at either end or
Speaker 1: could there be war? Oh wait, there's always more again
Speaker 1: pro Publica re upping over the weekend. It's article from
Speaker 1: June third, twenty nineteen, and as explanation, the headline will
Speaker 1: suffice quote Trump companies accused of tax evasion in Panama.
Speaker 1: In the latest chapter in ongoing litigation, the private equity
Speaker 1: fund that bought what used to be called the Trump
Speaker 1: Ocean Club claims the Trump entities pocketed money that should
Speaker 1: have gone to the Panamanian government. Revenge is a dish
Speaker 1: which people of taste prefer to eat cold, but Trump
Speaker 1: has no taste. And of course, thanks to Trump's strain
Speaker 1: of stepped upon rakes and humiliating L's and self demotions
Speaker 1: to Musk's assistant, what Trump is eating right now, that's
Speaker 1: not revenge, hsh All of which brings us back to
Speaker 1: what the hell Musk was doing in the middle of this.
Speaker 1: Did you see his political skill and gifts play out
Speaker 1: over the weekend? No? I didn't, either nobody did. Musk
Speaker 1: made a fool of himself, and whether he or Trump
Speaker 1: puppet realize it now, sooner rather than later, Trump will realize.
Speaker 1: We'll see that light bulb flicker slowly on above his hair,
Speaker 1: just what a power hungry lunatic Musk really is, and
Speaker 1: how wherever Trump is at the moment, there is only
Speaker 1: room for one power hungry lunatic. Democratic representatives Rose Delaro
Speaker 1: and Jim McGovern explained why Musk waded into this what
Speaker 1: turned out to be quicksand you need some help over there, Elon, Sorry,
Speaker 1: my hands are busy. As McGovern wrote, the original funding
Speaker 1: bill that he killed, included that's called an outbound investment provision,
Speaker 1: which would limit and screen US money flowing to China.
Speaker 1: That would have made it easier to keep cutting edge
Speaker 1: AI and quantum computing tech, as well as jobs in America.
Speaker 1: But Elon had a problem. His second largest market is China.
Speaker 1: He's building huge factories there. His bottom line depends on
Speaker 1: staying in China's good graces. He wants to build an
Speaker 1: AI data center there too, which could endanger US security.
Speaker 1: He's been bending over backwards to ingratiate himself with Chinese leaders.
Speaker 1: So what did Elon doanked the whole thing, telling Trump
Speaker 1: to oppose it and threatening to primary anyone who voted yes,
Speaker 1: And to cover his tracks, he claimed it was about spending.
Speaker 1: What did Trump get out of all this? Nothing? But
Speaker 1: President Musk got what he wanted, the ability to sell
Speaker 1: out the US so he could make money in China.
Speaker 1: End quote. What Congressman Deloro, the top dem On appropriations
Speaker 1: did was to i believe be the first to call
Speaker 1: him President Musk and to go on to write that
Speaker 1: Musk might have tanked the bill to protect quote extensive
Speaker 1: investments in China in key sectors and his personal ties
Speaker 1: with Chinese Communist Party leadership, and calls into question the
Speaker 1: real reason for Musk's opposition to the original funding deal. Well,
Speaker 1: Musk went crazier than he would have if the Ketaman
Speaker 1: was late. He replied that Deloro quote needs to be
Speaker 1: expelled from Congress, which is not a thing. Maybe it
Speaker 1: is in South Africa. In Lan, Musk got into and
Speaker 1: lost a fight with an older congresswoman who dyes her
Speaker 1: hair purple and then wears green eyeglasses. She managed to
Speaker 1: pin the president tag on the donkey and tie him
Speaker 1: to China and make Trump doubt him and make Maga
Speaker 1: wonder what Musk's connections to China really are. Then, Senator
Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullen, come on, Mark or Wayne, just choose one, goober.
Speaker 1: Senator Mark Kwaine Mullen, who clearly did not get the
Speaker 1: memo that the Trump Musk partnership had nearly killed them all.
Speaker 1: Senator Mark Kwayne Mullen went on Fox yesterday, fury is
Speaker 1: that Democrats were complaining about Musk because he was just
Speaker 1: a businessman. I didn't say no Democrats complaining about the
Speaker 1: businesses of Joe and Hunter Biden. I'm wondering if anybody
Speaker 1: has yet told Mark Quain that he just compared Musk
Speaker 1: and the Bidens as businessmen. Mark Quain, if your internet
Speaker 1: doesn't work today, you know what happened. And if that
Speaker 1: still ain't enough. A weekend in which Trump hurt himself
Speaker 1: and Musk hurt himself, Musk also began the weekend tying
Speaker 1: himself to German neo Nazis. On Friday, Musk, who has
Speaker 1: already tried to shove the furor out of the American
Speaker 1: picture and who's already gotten into bed with England's lizard person,
Speaker 1: fascist Nigel Farage, reposted a video from a German neo Nazi,
Speaker 1: and Musk added, only the AfD can save Germany. The
Speaker 1: AfD is the anti immigrant political party there, one of
Speaker 1: the worst in Europe, if not the whole world, that
Speaker 1: has been designated a suspected extremist organization by the German judiciary,
Speaker 1: whose own leader quit two years ago because the AfD
Speaker 1: had gotten a little two third reichi even for his tastes.
Speaker 1: This is not the first time Musk I sympathized with
Speaker 1: the AfD, and face it. If you're German and you're
Speaker 1: called neo Nazis, you can probably drop the neo good
Speaker 1: weekend for President Musk. I suspect the Trump puppet will
Speaker 1: figuratively off him and soon. But of course not before
Speaker 1: a peck of Republicans made the mistake of standing way
Speaker 1: too close to Musk's horse on the charge Rand Paul
Speaker 1: said Musk should be the new Speaker of the House,
Speaker 1: and Marjorie Taylor Green rolled it along into the valley
Speaker 1: of death along with Senator love thy neighbor, and now
Speaker 1: they have both found out what happens when you stand
Speaker 1: too close to the back of a horse. Incidentally, I
Speaker 1: completely endorse making Musk Speaker of the House. First, just
Speaker 1: what the one vote majority Republicans need in the House,
Speaker 1: a strung out political amateur running their show. Secondly, sure
Speaker 1: make him the speaker. Then the Republicans will do to
Speaker 1: him what they always do to their speakers, torture him
Speaker 1: for a while, and then vote him out in six months.
Speaker 1: Also of interest here, remember my piece from last week
Speaker 1: and the expansion of it that I did hear on
Speaker 1: the podcast about how if MSNBC has any vision they
Speaker 1: can just stay the course whether the storm, and what
Speaker 1: with the Washington Post and Twitter and CNN and the
Speaker 1: LA Times and almost everybody else completely abandoning news for
Speaker 1: people who like democracy, MSNBC could have a monopoly in
Speaker 1: the entire field all forms of news media, just like
Speaker 1: we did back when I breathed life into the network
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four. In two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: they could own the entirety of the resistance if they
Speaker 1: just had a little vision. They don't have a little vision.
Speaker 1: The new MSNBC boss now says he wants to be
Speaker 1: on better terms with Republicans. Sir, the only terms the
Speaker 1: Republicans want from MSNBC are surrender terms.
Speaker 2: That's next.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman. Post
Speaker 1: scripts to the news, some headlines, some updates, some snarks,
Speaker 1: still ahead of course, worse persons And if you're wondering
Speaker 1: why that rumored real of Trump Apprentice terrible outtakes has
Speaker 1: never been leached by the producer, you can stop wondering.
Speaker 1: Just call him almost ambassador producer. Next, this is the
Speaker 1: new Countdown podcast. And these are the places where there's
Speaker 1: news dateline Secaucus, New Jersey. I know MSNBC is not
Speaker 1: still in Secaucus, New Jersey. We moved out in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. I helped to pack. But it's useful
Speaker 1: to remember its roots, and its roots are next to
Speaker 1: the London Fog Factory discount warehouse, and they lived down
Speaker 1: to that every damn year. A week ago I wrote
Speaker 1: for Variety and expanded upon it here that after Trump
Speaker 1: won an MSNBC's audience cratered, and its Comcast owners wanted
Speaker 1: to get so much distance from it they spun it
Speaker 1: off into a new company that they didn't even bother
Speaker 1: to give a name to, and are still referring to
Speaker 1: as spin Co. That there was an easy answer to
Speaker 1: the seemingly existential question, what does MSNBC do now? Well,
Speaker 1: I said, do nothing. Oh fire the Morning Joe team
Speaker 1: of Mika Brazhinski and her husband Neville Chamberlain. You can't
Speaker 1: have appeasers on the air. For that matter, you can't
Speaker 1: have untalented, gutless, disloyal, hated appeasers. Not if you're going
Speaker 1: to take the god given business gift of a monopoly
Speaker 1: for anti Trump, anti dictatorship, pro democracy coverage for the
Speaker 1: forty eight point six percent of the country that voted
Speaker 1: against him. I mean the Washington Post went fascist. The
Speaker 1: New York Times is both siding itself into complicit silence.
Speaker 1: CNN is now the Scott Jennings network. Elon Musk spent
Speaker 1: forty four billion to turn Twitter into pro Nazi, pro Russia,
Speaker 1: pro China, pro Trump dribble. The field is empty except
Speaker 1: for all the money that is still sitting there, more
Speaker 1: money than all of the right wing news outlets can
Speaker 1: make combined. Grab it. It's all yours. They're not going
Speaker 1: to grab it. No sooner had my Variety article published
Speaker 1: before the two good media reporters out there, Lachland Cartwright
Speaker 1: and Oliver Darcy, had each published source stories indicating that
Speaker 1: Comcast stuffed suit Mark Lazarus, now in charge of spin
Speaker 1: Co and thus in charge of MSNBC, was already ready
Speaker 1: to join Joe Scarborough and reciting the I for one
Speaker 1: welcome our insect overlords gag from the Simpsons. Cartwright reported that, no,
Speaker 1: Lazarus is not going to hire this bozo Jennings to
Speaker 1: co anchor with matdow nor shut down the other liberal
Speaker 1: albeit sleepy primetime shows. He has merely told people that
Speaker 1: the public perception of MSNBC is a place where Republicans
Speaker 1: can't get a fair shake needs to be changed. One
Speaker 1: who the f thinks Republicans need a fair shake. They're
Speaker 1: trying to overthrow representative government in this country. We don't
Speaker 1: give them a fair shake. We chase them out. Also,
Speaker 1: I guess mister Lazarus never saw Joe and Mika pimping
Speaker 1: for Trump in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. That was
Speaker 1: enough of a fair shake to last couple centuries. And
Speaker 1: he didn't see them last month when they announced they'd
Speaker 1: been down to Mary Lago to help the Trump puppet hide.
Speaker 1: I don't know boxes of top secret documents in his
Speaker 1: toilet or whatever they were doing down there, I forget, honestly, anyway.
Speaker 1: Oliver Darcy, in his newsletter Status went into a little
Speaker 1: bit more detail. He writes, quote Lazarus would like MSNBC
Speaker 1: to be on better terms with Republicans and has indicated
Speaker 1: to people in private conversations over the past month that
Speaker 1: he would like the network to incorporate more GOP voices
Speaker 1: on its air. I know the word is incorporate, that
Speaker 1: we're talking about a corporate so incorporate sounded better. You know,
Speaker 1: I've heard that phrasing before. Work to incorporate more geopple.
Speaker 1: When NBC put new producers on my show in twenty ten,
Speaker 1: they told me I should incorporate more GOP voices, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe giving equal time to them after each
Speaker 1: of my special comments. Or in twenty fifteen, when Andy
Speaker 1: Lack of NBC asked me to return to MSNBC only
Speaker 1: he wanted me to do a nightly show without any
Speaker 1: commentaries and to have a conservative co host, you know,
Speaker 1: no comments, no bomb throwing, as Lack put it. But
Speaker 1: back to today, nearly a decade later, and to again
Speaker 1: quote Darcy in free wheeling conversations, the spin co bosses
Speaker 1: indicated to people that it does not want bomb throwing
Speaker 1: from hosts and commentators, which might unnecessarily alienate Republicans and
Speaker 1: spawn bad press. I'm told. While Primetime is made up
Speaker 1: of progressive opinion programming, the thinking is that the more
Speaker 1: news oriented day side lineup could perhaps incorporate more conservative
Speaker 1: voices into the mix. I don't fully understand this. Scarborough
Speaker 1: and Katie Turr aren't conservative enough. Scarborough is on for
Speaker 1: four goddamned hours a day. They are at MSNBC right
Speaker 1: now trying to kill off the eleven PM show, and
Speaker 1: that would mean an eight o'clock show, a nine o'clock show,
Speaker 1: and a ten o'clock show, which would mean there would
Speaker 1: not be four hours of liberal hosts on MSNBC, but
Speaker 1: there would be four hours of Scarborough and two more
Speaker 1: of terr To resume mister Darcy quote. Lazarus's view seems
Speaker 1: to be that the network should welcome all sorts of
Speaker 1: voices with different perspectives while still maintaining a liberal bent
Speaker 1: amongst talent, so as not to alienate the channel's core viewership.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have all sorts of voices. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: this guy, Luigi Mangione, come on, talk about corporate business.
Speaker 1: If you want all sorts of voices with different perspectives,
Speaker 1: how about a guy who thinks we should kill all
Speaker 1: of them. Well, that's what MAGA is. Only substitute democracy
Speaker 1: for corporations in that equation. Back to the article, executives
Speaker 1: like Lazarus really want more MAGA friendly voices on the air.
Speaker 1: There are already times when MSNBC programs will successfully book
Speaker 1: MAGA figures for interviews aary Melber has hosted a number
Speaker 1: of such people over the year, including Peter Navarro and
Speaker 1: Steven Miller. But Melbur thoroughly prepares for such conversations and
Speaker 1: in a respectful manner interrogates their positions, not allowing them
Speaker 1: to get away with spreading falsehoods on his air. I
Speaker 1: should note as an aside, that those programs, no matter
Speaker 1: how well done Melbur does, them, diminish MSNBC's reputation among
Speaker 1: its own viewership. Those shows are not more highly rated
Speaker 1: than the average MSNBC show. They're lower rated, and they
Speaker 1: therefore affect as lead ins the entirety of the MSNBC
Speaker 1: primetime lineup. So if somebody is sitting there at Spenco
Speaker 1: thinking they're going to make more money or as much
Speaker 1: money in some way by doing this, they obviously have
Speaker 1: not even looked at the data that is presented to them.
Speaker 1: And the data is like in three digit totals, it's
Speaker 1: not complicated math. Let's see one hundred and ten thousand
Speaker 1: viewers versus two hundred and ten thousand viewers, which is more.
Speaker 1: Why was it more? Back to Darcy, it's unlikely that
Speaker 1: when Lazarus talks of inviting more Republicans on the air,
Speaker 1: that he has that style of no holds bar confrontational
Speaker 1: interviews in mind. Instead, he's likely thinking of a model
Speaker 1: similar to CNBC's The Business news channel, sister to MSNBC,
Speaker 1: regularly features a mix of Republican and Democratic lawmakers on
Speaker 1: the air. CNBC is a conservative channel. In fact, there
Speaker 1: are moments at which CNBC is a fascist money grubbing channel.
Speaker 1: When Trump went to the New York Stock Exchange last week,
Speaker 1: was it Jim Kramer wet his pants with excitement? This
Speaker 1: is a network that has Joe Kernan on every day.
Speaker 1: Joe Kernan, who slammed Frank Lunch during the campaign for
Speaker 1: criticizing Trump over the Haitians eating pets lie that Trump
Speaker 1: ran on, Kernin defended Trump lying about that, and by
Speaker 1: the way, Kernin versus Lunz two pays at twenty paces quote.
Speaker 1: As Lazarus thinks about how he would like to tweak
Speaker 1: MSNBC's programming, he would be wise to think twice about
Speaker 1: meddling too much. While MSNBC is facing ratings lows post elections,
Speaker 1: the strategy has largely led to strong viewership numbers over
Speaker 1: the years, You're welcome. In contrast, CNN's softening of its
Speaker 1: Trump coverage and its integration of dishonest MAGA voices into
Speaker 1: its programming under Warner Bros. Discovery boss David zas Lav
Speaker 1: and by the way, this would be Zazz and laz
Speaker 1: running these two networks has alienated viewers. Instead of seeing
Speaker 1: audience gains, CNN has seen its audience shrink. I have
Speaker 1: to commend Oliver Darcy, who I met once. We had
Speaker 1: a very nice lunch and long conversation, and he's very
Speaker 1: polite and he's very circumspected. What he has said is
Speaker 1: something I would say, only I would phrase it. You moron,
Speaker 1: You're going to drive away everybody who watches and not
Speaker 1: attract anybody who doesn't watch. But back to the more
Speaker 1: dignified Oliver Darcy, if Lazarus ends up tampering with the
Speaker 1: coverage too much, he very much risks an outcome like
Speaker 1: that For MSNBC, the fanciful notion that Republicans will switch
Speaker 1: over from Fox News if only other channels would cater
Speaker 1: more to them is never born out in reality, no
Speaker 1: matter how much the executive class might wish it. So
Speaker 1: what is more likely to happen is loyal viewers will
Speaker 1: feel betrayed and turn off the channel. In other words,
Speaker 1: not only would it be editorially misguided for Lazarus to
Speaker 1: be too heavy handed in pushing Republicans on MSNBC's air,
Speaker 1: but such a move could also adversely impact the financials
Speaker 1: of the crown jewel of his cable empire. Once again,
Speaker 1: you're welcome, and that would simply be bad for business.
Speaker 1: Darcy is right, of course, I am right. Of course
Speaker 1: it's a monopoly. But even Oliver Darcy misses the real point.
Speaker 1: Back in two thousand and nine, when we only profited
Speaker 1: about two hundred and fifty million a year after losing
Speaker 1: something like that every year for the first ten years
Speaker 1: of the network's existence, the chairman of GE was still
Speaker 1: ready to shunt the network off. And I mean in
Speaker 1: the middle of the words I was saying, because Fox
Speaker 1: had retaliated against me by criticizing him personally, and his mommy,
Speaker 1: the Bill O'Reilly fan called him up and yelled at him.
Speaker 1: And what was two hundred and fifty million in profits
Speaker 1: to the sixth the biggest corporation in the world at
Speaker 1: its chairman A Mama's Boy. Now, the MSNBC profit today
Speaker 1: is closer to a billion a year, and sure that
Speaker 1: seems like a lot. But in the year ending September thirtieth,
Speaker 1: the parent corporation, Comcast, reported a gross profit of forty
Speaker 1: five billion, two hundred and fifty four million. Would Comcast
Speaker 1: like to keep the one billion that MSNBC makes for it?
Speaker 1: Of course it would. Would it miss that one billion?
Speaker 1: Of course it wouldn't. Would it be happy to buy
Speaker 1: itself a quiet stalemate with Trump and the fascists and
Speaker 1: a dictatorship at a cost of a watered down MSNBC
Speaker 1: making a profit of only half a billion or even less,
Speaker 1: or I don't know, breaking even on the assumption that
Speaker 1: the old Coot Alderman is right and MSNBC will still
Speaker 1: be a liberal monopoly even if it isn't that liberal,
Speaker 1: even if Scarborough is pumping and pimping Trump every day.
Speaker 1: I mean, if half the audience stays, that's a win
Speaker 1: or at least a draw, isn't it. Of course democracy
Speaker 1: dies in draws, and the feasibility of MSNVS depends on
Speaker 1: you watching it. So if they do this, if they
Speaker 1: let Mark Lazarus water the product down or drown it,
Speaker 1: which is the true watering down. The solution is simple,
Speaker 1: do what you did when CNN went fascist, Stop watching
Speaker 1: the crap, listen to I don't know news podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: not suggesting any particular news podcasts. Mind you still ahead
Speaker 1: of us on countdown For each and every one of us,
Speaker 1: this time of year summons a cherished and gauzed covered memory,
Speaker 1: happy reunionss, the wonder of childhood, the joy of giving,
Speaker 1: or in my case, falling off a goddamned cliff in Malibu,
Speaker 1: California while you are filming a fast food commercial for
Speaker 1: Chicken pro tip. If they ever ask you, can you
Speaker 1: climb that rock out cropping while wearing brand new goddamn
Speaker 1: Fosheim shoes, Tell them no, no, no, Keith just avoids
Speaker 1: breaking his neck again. Or a Christmas story. Next in Things,
Speaker 1: I Promise not to hell first, Believe it or not,
Speaker 1: there's still more new idiots to talk about. The daily
Speaker 1: roundup of the miss grants, morons and done in Krug
Speaker 1: effect specimens who constitute today's other worse persons in the
Speaker 1: world therons worse. You remember Martin Screlly. He's the hedge
Speaker 1: fun guy and noted pine Cone the leading example of
Speaker 1: what happens when you see a trump or a musk
Speaker 1: coming and you stop him in time. Screlley was the
Speaker 1: asshole who, for his firm, obtained the manufacturing license for
Speaker 1: the drug darra prim and anti aids and anti parasitic
Speaker 1: drug used to treat fungus caused pneumonia. He raised the
Speaker 1: price to insurance companies of darraprim from thirteen dollars and
Speaker 1: fifty cents a pill to seven hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a pill. It was an increase of fifty six times
Speaker 1: the price. He did this because he could. There were, however,
Speaker 1: other things he could not do well, sir. They indicted
Speaker 1: him on two federal counts of securities fraud. Two years
Speaker 1: later he was sentenced to seven years in prison a
Speaker 1: find of more than seven million, and then he lost
Speaker 1: a civil case over daraprim sixty five million more in damages.
Speaker 1: They let him out two years early, supposedly for good behavior,
Speaker 1: but probably because they just couldn't stand him in there
Speaker 1: anymore so. The other day the Virginia Congress and Don
Speaker 1: Bayer tweeted about the musk disaster. The richest man in
Speaker 1: the world says he wants to shut down the government,
Speaker 1: forcing millions of American workers, including our troops, to go
Speaker 1: without pay through the holidays. Republicans are following his orders.
Speaker 1: This is insane, to which Martin Screlley, who has apparently
Speaker 1: had his mobile devices returned to him after his time
Speaker 1: in the clink, Martin Screlley writes, we can vote you
Speaker 1: out too. Don't worry baebay b e b e bae bee,
Speaker 1: as many many people replied, s is a convicted fellow.
Speaker 1: How can he vote? Who's this WII? While by statute,
Speaker 1: his voting rights are supposed to be restored upon release
Speaker 1: from prison in Pennsylvania, and he's reportedly living in New
Speaker 1: York and Representative Bayer serves Virginia, so who is this
Speaker 1: wi baby? On the other hand, if you were to
Speaker 1: suffer a paper cut while waiting to vote and you
Speaker 1: needed a band aid, mister Shrelley before going into cast
Speaker 1: that vote, you would be charged by anybody who knew
Speaker 1: you two billion dollars for that band aid. So maybe
Speaker 1: not Babey the runner up worser. He was such a
Speaker 1: bad man that we learned how to pronounce that stupid
Speaker 1: name of his. The worse, sir, You're good Old City
Speaker 1: of New York Eric chosen by god Adams Mayor. The
Speaker 1: independent news site The City, and other news outlets here
Speaker 1: report that on May twenty eighth, twenty twenty three, Samuel
Speaker 1: Williams was riding his motorbike on the University Heights Bridge
Speaker 1: that connects Manhattan and the Bronx. Suddenly, a car swerved
Speaker 1: in front of him. Williams, thirty six, and the father
Speaker 1: of a six year old daughter, was thrown from the bike.
Speaker 1: He died a day later. Turns out the car that
Speaker 1: killed him was an unmarked New York Police vehicle involved
Speaker 1: in a police pursuit. Such vehicles have killed about a
Speaker 1: dozen New Yorkers in the last two years. This was
Speaker 1: on Memorial Day twenty twenty three. By the fourth of July,
Speaker 1: the family Williams left behind received the following letter from
Speaker 1: the city on behalf of our eleven billion dollar police department.
Speaker 1: Addressed to the late mister Williams. It read, quote, our
Speaker 1: records indicate that your vehicle damaged city property on the
Speaker 1: above date. City of New York is seeking reimbursement for
Speaker 1: these damages. The city sent them a bill for three
Speaker 1: thousand four hundred and twenty nine dollars and twenty three
Speaker 1: cents for killing Dad, just like in the Terry Gilliam
Speaker 1: movie Brazil Bill, where the dictatorship identifies the wrong man,
Speaker 1: kidnaps him, tortures and kills him, then sends his widow
Speaker 1: a bill for its services. Only this is run by
Speaker 1: Eric Adams, not by Terry Gilliam. The city's comptroller found
Speaker 1: out about this from news reports. He's outraged. He's written
Speaker 1: the Williams family a letter of apology. He's withdrawn the
Speaker 1: city's demand for money. He said the police did notify
Speaker 1: his office of the damage, but never that the man
Speaker 1: on the bike caused the damaged by being killed by
Speaker 1: an NYPD officer, because that's not what the NYPD does.
Speaker 1: Waiting for the statement of outrage from the NYPD Detectives
Speaker 1: Union about how not paying this bill makes them look bad.
Speaker 1: Eleven billion dollars a year, we in New York pay
Speaker 1: for these guys, and they do a nice slow motion
Speaker 1: perp walk and think they're good at it. For twenty
Speaker 1: three years after nine to eleven, during which twenty three
Speaker 1: New York Police officers were killed. On nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: all the first line responders in this city have been
Speaker 1: revered and lionized and thanked and in recent years fetishized.
Speaker 1: They've gotten anything they've wanted in terms of the budget,
Speaker 1: until we're paying eleven billion dollars for a police department
Speaker 1: that could not cover a stolen manhole cover, and they
Speaker 1: have burned through all of that goodwill. It is nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy again in New York City. Eric Adams mayor, but
Speaker 1: the winner the worst television producer Mark Burnett. You may
Speaker 1: remember him from such hits as having helped to ruin television,
Speaker 1: but more likely you'll remember him and his association with
Speaker 1: Trump and the stories that circulated before the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: and twenty twenty elections, though less before this pass one
Speaker 1: that as the boss of Trump's old show, The Apprentice,
Speaker 1: it was he Mark Burnett, who had access to all
Speaker 1: the outtakes in which Trump may have said things that
Speaker 1: would have alienated even his most loyal rabbity insane supporters,
Speaker 1: or which may have included something very untoward and long
Speaker 1: rumored or not, Tom Arnold seemed to think or was
Speaker 1: the correct answer. The tapes might have been erased, they
Speaker 1: might have been lost, They might have been exculpatory. If
Speaker 1: it's Trump, they might have been really boring and just
Speaker 1: him talking about himself. Or quote statement from President Donald J.
Speaker 1: Trump elon Musk Proprietor. It is my great honor to
Speaker 1: appoint Mark Burnett as the Special Envoy to the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1: With a distinguished career in television production and business, Mark Bramsey,
Speaker 1: a nick blend of diplomatic acumen and international recognition, to
Speaker 1: this important role. I'm trying to read it as Trump
Speaker 1: and says. Mark is known for creating and producing some
Speaker 1: of the biggest shows in television history, including Survivor, Shark Tank,
Speaker 1: The Voice, and most notably The Apprentice. He is the
Speaker 1: former chairman of MGM, and he has won thirteen Emmy Awards.
Speaker 1: Mark Burnett's Special Envoy and keeper of the Trump Flame
Speaker 1: and maybe the maybe the apocryphal Trump tape. Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: why did Trump appoint him to a post with that
Speaker 1: word in it? Mark Burnett n boy Today's worst person?
Speaker 2: Why that of all words?
Speaker 1: To the number one story on the Countdown and my
Speaker 1: favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell.
Speaker 1: And it was this time of year in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: six when my agent called me at ESPN. There's an
Speaker 1: ad agency in Santa Monica. They just called me, would
Speaker 1: you like to do two commercials for Boston Market? I answered,
Speaker 1: with profound indifference, okay, would you like to do two
Speaker 1: commercials for Boston Market for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I believe my next words were, well, I can't do
Speaker 1: them today, but sure. They faxed me the scripts. They're
Speaker 1: actually pretty funny, very well done. I think you like them.
Speaker 1: I believe my next next words were, if I don't
Speaker 1: have to kill anybody in them, call them back and
Speaker 1: say yes and get the money. Since the idea was
Speaker 1: these ads would run on sports telecasts, most of them
Speaker 1: on ESPN. My yes got back to management at ESPN
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. You can't do these, one of the executives explained, dismissively.
Speaker 1: We don't let anybody do commercials. I laughed. Every one
Speaker 1: of us has done the this is sports center commercials.
Speaker 1: Some of us have written that this is sports center commercials.
Speaker 1: You don't even give us days off for making them,
Speaker 1: let alone give us money. This is money I don't
Speaker 1: have to ask you for. The executive shook his head.
Speaker 1: Those aren't commercials. Those are promotional announcements. They're in your contract.
Speaker 1: Nobody here does commercials, I said. Chris Berman has done
Speaker 1: a beer commercial in three out of the last five
Speaker 1: Super Bowls. My commercial is just for food. Well, he's Berman,
Speaker 1: I pointed out. I went to high school with him,
Speaker 1: and I was the star of their most popular program,
Speaker 1: a little thing called Sports Center. TV guy had just
Speaker 1: named us one of the top ten shows on TV
Speaker 1: shows not sports shows usin Seinfeld. Sorry, well, now I
Speaker 1: got a little angry, which never happened to me at ESPN,
Speaker 1: and I went to my ace in the hole. My
Speaker 1: contract expires in like ten months, and you know I
Speaker 1: intend to leave. And during those ten months, you're going
Speaker 1: to pay me about two hundred and sixty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So Boston Market is going to pay me two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars for two days work instead of
Speaker 1: ten months work. Plus they're going to take me out
Speaker 1: for class to LA for a couple of days, and
Speaker 1: they're probably gonna do some radio spots and I'll make
Speaker 1: another twenty five grant. So you're giving me a choice,
Speaker 1: make say two hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: like five days for them, or make two hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty thousand dollars here between now and next September, when
Speaker 1: I'm planning and leaving. Anyway, if you make me choose
Speaker 1: between those two, which do you expect me to choose?
Speaker 1: The executive coughed, we'll get back to you. An hour later.
Speaker 1: He got back to me by phone. Okay, we see
Speaker 1: your point, but there's still two problems. We can't just
Speaker 1: let everybody do commercials. I said, well, you know, why
Speaker 1: don't you just let anybody who went to the high
Speaker 1: school that Berman and I went to do commercials. He
Speaker 1: did not laugh at that. Well, how about only your
Speaker 1: regular weekday sports center anchors get to do commercials? There
Speaker 1: was a grunt and a maybe. Then we got to
Speaker 1: the gist of the real problem. Here's the real problem.
Speaker 1: People on your show. They'll be resentful. I said, Why
Speaker 1: will they be resentful? Because the production assistants are expecting
Speaker 1: that they're going to get their own commercials too. And
Speaker 1: I said, how about this, the day I'm out there
Speaker 1: actually shooting the commercial, I will get Boston Market to
Speaker 1: like cater dinner for the show staff, even if I
Speaker 1: have to pay for it myself. There was a long silence.
Speaker 1: Would management be included in that? And can we get
Speaker 1: all the side dishes too? I swear to God so off.
Speaker 1: I flew at the beginning of December, during a winter
Speaker 1: that had gone frigid in October in Bristol, Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: the next thing I knew, I was on the beach
Speaker 1: in Malibu at Leo Correo State Park. The crew is
Speaker 1: complaining because it is raining lightly and only about fifty
Speaker 1: five degrees. To me, fresh from the hinterlands and having
Speaker 1: not been back to la since I had moved out
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, It's like I'm in Tahiti. And
Speaker 1: my agent was right. The scripts were funny and original.
Speaker 1: They were ascend of the old Calvin Kleine obsession perfume commercials.
Speaker 1: There are two extremely thin models and they are filmed
Speaker 1: writhing in frustration on the beach on the big rock
Speaker 1: outcroppings at Leo Correo State Park. She is supposed to say, emptiness,
Speaker 1: How can I fill this empty void of emptiness? They
Speaker 1: are in black and white, but I emerge from behind
Speaker 1: a rock or wherever I'm in color. They are in
Speaker 1: black and white, and I say when they say, don't
Speaker 1: know what to do about this emptiness? I say, eat something.
Speaker 1: I then sell the sandwich. Then it cuts to a
Speaker 1: shot of me walking them down the beach with my
Speaker 1: arm over each of their shoulders, telling them eating is
Speaker 1: a good thing, and who's wearing cologne or who likes
Speaker 1: sports or other stupid things like that. For a quarter
Speaker 1: of a million dollars, Well, we start this at eight am,
Speaker 1: and the producer and the director John say to me
Speaker 1: and the two models and the crew, look, this rain
Speaker 1: is just going to get heavier as the day goes on.
Speaker 1: So what we want to do is not take a
Speaker 1: break for lunch. We'll just shoot until like two pm,
Speaker 1: and then you can have lunch, or you can take
Speaker 1: your lunch with you, and you'll all get paid for
Speaker 1: a full day. And everybody agrees. The actress agrees, and
Speaker 1: she swears as she agrees. The actress is named Una.
Speaker 1: Una is from Chicago, and it will soon prove Una
Speaker 1: swears more than a long shoreman. This blanking colt can
Speaker 1: blank my blanking blank. To be fair, Una and the
Speaker 1: guy are dressed in Calvin Klein rags, and they are
Speaker 1: there and they are from there, and they are freezing
Speaker 1: while I am wearing a production company brand new suit
Speaker 1: and shoes, and to me it feels like it's Tahiti.
Speaker 1: We take a couple of hours where we do all
Speaker 1: the shots where I emerge from behind the rocks, or
Speaker 1: go around the rocks, or over the rocks, or I
Speaker 1: look over the rocks, and the director finally says, okay,
Speaker 1: we got five good options. Let's set up for the
Speaker 1: walk down the beach with your arms around each other's show.
Speaker 1: By now it's noon or twelve thirty And as they
Speaker 1: move the cameras and the rain starts to move from
Speaker 1: a mist to like a light rain, two prop guys
Speaker 1: bring out rakes. Then I'm sitting with the crew and
Speaker 1: I've been asking them questions all morning in between takes
Speaker 1: about how this is all being arranged and made and lit.
Speaker 1: And I say, rakes, what do you need rakes for
Speaker 1: on a commercial? And they say you'll see. And then
Speaker 1: each time me and Una and the guy walk down
Speaker 1: the beach and the director says cut, we go back
Speaker 1: to the starting point. Now out come two stage hands
Speaker 1: with rakes and they rake the sand on the beach smooth,
Speaker 1: and I say, oh, footprints. So each time I walk
Speaker 1: down this damp beach with the rain just a little
Speaker 1: harder than it was the take before, in my brand
Speaker 1: new dress shoes. What I'm basically doing is polishing the
Speaker 1: soles of these brand new shoes on damp sand. I mean,
Speaker 1: by the time the director John says, we are done,
Speaker 1: and these soles of these shoes are so shiny. I
Speaker 1: could go ice skating in these shoes. And John comes
Speaker 1: over and he says, listen, we got another half an hour.
Speaker 1: Can we go back and try a new way for
Speaker 1: you to appear on the rocks? I mean, can you
Speaker 1: climb rocks at all? And I say, yeah, actually, I'm
Speaker 1: surprisingly good at it. You wouldn't think so, but I
Speaker 1: can climb rocks. And he points to one rock out
Speaker 1: cropping on the beach. Maybe it's eighteen twenty feet high,
Speaker 1: and he says, try to climb up that and go
Speaker 1: as high as you can. If there's nothing that'll support you,
Speaker 1: we'll forget it. And I try, and sure enough, I
Speaker 1: get up near the top and there is a perfect
Speaker 1: little shelf in the rock that I can comfortably stand on.
Speaker 1: And the director points the camera up and he says, oh, damn,
Speaker 1: the angle's too tough. I can't swing the camera down
Speaker 1: fast enough for when you say eat something, so I
Speaker 1: refocus on the models. It won't work. Is there anything
Speaker 1: lower on the rock where you could stand? Can you
Speaker 1: come down at all? And I said, I think so,
Speaker 1: I think I can come down a little bit. Well,
Speaker 1: little did I know? Sure enough, maybe nine ten feet
Speaker 1: from the beach, up in the sky, there is another
Speaker 1: little foothold on this rock outcropping. It is not big
Speaker 1: enough for me to put both my feet on it.
Speaker 1: But I say, if you don't mind me holding onto
Speaker 1: the rock as I say eat something, I can do
Speaker 1: it from here. And the director says, okay, let's try it.
Speaker 1: And I climb down the rock and he's moving the
Speaker 1: camera and I put my left foot on this flat
Speaker 1: part which is nine or ten feet up from the beach,
Speaker 1: and for a couple of seconds everything is fine. I'm good.
Speaker 1: And that's when I feel that my left shoe, my
Speaker 1: brand new left shoe, straight from the floor, shine catalog,
Speaker 1: bright and shiny and now having been polished by four
Speaker 1: hours of walking up and down on a wet beach,
Speaker 1: complete with two guys there to rake the beach and
Speaker 1: make sure it is as shiny as it possibly can
Speaker 1: be my left shoe slipperier than and a diamond is
Speaker 1: now moving of its own accord. I'm holding, I'm doing
Speaker 1: a good rock climbing job, but the shoe, the shoe
Speaker 1: is not holding. Hey, I say, with some alarm, I'm
Speaker 1: about to fall off. I hit the sand no more
Speaker 1: than five seconds later. So that's about a sixteen foot
Speaker 1: drop from my head to the beach. And for weeks,
Speaker 1: for years still to this day, it has amazed me
Speaker 1: more than anything else that happened. It has amazed me
Speaker 1: how much went through my mind before I crashed. In fact,
Speaker 1: before I actually fell, I know, I did a quick
Speaker 1: height calculation. Yeah, fifteen sixteen feet. I recognized that the
Speaker 1: outcropping was so vertical that I was unlikely to hit
Speaker 1: any of the rock on the way down. But just
Speaker 1: the same I remember that the rocks continued under the sand. See.
Speaker 1: I took two years of geology, and this was going
Speaker 1: to be a hard landing. More amazingly than all that,
Speaker 1: though I had taken Judo as a kid, I hated
Speaker 1: every minute of Judo nineteen sixty five, nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: so twenty six and twenty seven years before we shot
Speaker 1: this commercial. I was in the studio, the Judo Studio
Speaker 1: in White Plains, New York, the day of the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five Northeast blackout, and the only happy memory of
Speaker 1: the entire judo experience I had was one hour instructor
Speaker 1: Bob Durocher locked us in the dojo that had been
Speaker 1: converted from a store that had a front door that
Speaker 1: was set in several feet from the street so they
Speaker 1: could put display cases up. And now it's pitch black.
Speaker 1: So he went out and got his Volkswagen Carmen Gia,
Speaker 1: drove it up over the sidewalk into that set in
Speaker 1: entryway of this converted storefront. He put his high beams on.
Speaker 1: He flooded the dojo with enough light that we kids
Speaker 1: could change out of our judo stuff back into our
Speaker 1: regular clothes and wait for our parents to come get us.
Speaker 1: He did a great job. I didn't like the judo
Speaker 1: so much, but his blackout operations practice was superb. So now,
Speaker 1: with all of this having gone through my head, in
Speaker 1: a second, I began to fall, and everything else from
Speaker 1: that year of once a week judo classes comes back
Speaker 1: to me. Relax. As you drop, the more of your
Speaker 1: body that hits the less you'll get hurt. Hands protect
Speaker 1: the head drop like a sack of sand. I did
Speaker 1: not hit the sand, per se. I kind of splattered
Speaker 1: on my left side swap as I rolled over onto
Speaker 1: my back and took a breath and sat up. Of
Speaker 1: all people, Una was the first to race over to me.
Speaker 1: You want some blank and tea? I said, no, thanks,
Speaker 1: let me see if I'm dead. The grips tried to
Speaker 1: help me to my feet, but I felt some very
Speaker 1: sharp pain, which suggested we should slow down. The problem was, though,
Speaker 1: even if I needed an ambulance, it was no way
Speaker 1: to get one down to where we were shooting. As
Speaker 1: that rock out cropping that I had just fallen from suggested,
Speaker 1: I like to call it a cliff every now and again.
Speaker 1: Leo Corrio State Park had a real cliff in it
Speaker 1: and a flight of stairs, I mean one hundred steps
Speaker 1: two hundred steps up to the Pacific Coast Highway and
Speaker 1: a park. Sure enough, I was able to stand, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't move easily. Everything hurt. So the two biggest
Speaker 1: members of the crew let me drape my arms over
Speaker 1: their shoulders exactly the way I had draped my arms
Speaker 1: over their shoulders of the models during the beach shot.
Speaker 1: I stopped for a second. Hey, Ona, you sure you
Speaker 1: don't want to Frankin carry me up the stairs, she said,
Speaker 1: with genuine sincerity. Now that's blank and funny. Seemed to
Speaker 1: me like it took about a month to get up
Speaker 1: those stairs. I assumed there would be an ambulance waiting
Speaker 1: by this point. Instead there was a park ranger. This
Speaker 1: is a state park. I have to see you first,
Speaker 1: then I have to call the fire department. I said, well,
Speaker 1: this pain on my side here, this feels like fire,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's actually fire. He called the
Speaker 1: fire department. They showed up, They assessed me. They called
Speaker 1: the ambulance. At some point, probably when I was being
Speaker 1: half dragged up the steps, something happened on the impact side.
Speaker 1: If I now tried to lower my left arm from
Speaker 1: way above my head, I got severe shooting, burning pain
Speaker 1: from my left arm pit to about my left knee.
Speaker 1: Cleverly I figured out not to do that. Keep your
Speaker 1: left arm above your head and it won't hurt. I
Speaker 1: use the restroom in the ranger station. There was no blood,
Speaker 1: so no kidney damage. I'm okay. It does, however, hurt,
Speaker 1: and something could be broken. Now I go back outside,
Speaker 1: my arm above my head like I'm sign for a
Speaker 1: cab on the streets of New York City. And the
Speaker 1: ambulance shows up and the amts tell me to get
Speaker 1: on there gurney, and I said, I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: lower my arm unless I want excruciating pain. I can't
Speaker 1: move my arm. I have to stay in this position,
Speaker 1: looking like a Flamenco dancer. But I said, listen, can
Speaker 1: you lock the wheels on this gurney? And they said, sure,
Speaker 1: we can, of course we can. And I said, just
Speaker 1: lock the wheels and I'll just back up onto the
Speaker 1: end of it and I'll fall backwards. And it worked,
Speaker 1: and so with my left arm still extended over my head,
Speaker 1: they loaded me into the ambulance. Apparently, when I fell
Speaker 1: from that rock or cliff, as I call it, it
Speaker 1: looked like I had been shot. Fifty sixty people on
Speaker 1: a commercial crew, the shooting day is over. They have
Speaker 1: missed lunch. There is a very nice catered lunch sitting there.
Speaker 1: And they told me later that everybody was so disturbed
Speaker 1: by what happened to me that only three people even
Speaker 1: took something to go and know the director was not
Speaker 1: filming as I fell sadly, so we hit every pothole
Speaker 1: on Pacific Coast Highway on the trip from the beach
Speaker 1: to the hospital.
Speaker 2: Oh ah, ooh.
Speaker 1: I call my agent from my cell phone, she laughed.
Speaker 1: I called ESPN actually to check on the catered dinner.
Speaker 1: Oh what's new. Oh, I fell off a cliff shooting
Speaker 1: the commercial, they laughed. And I'm lying there in the
Speaker 1: emergency room waiting for X rays when my cell phone
Speaker 1: rings again and I reach into my left pocket and
Speaker 1: I had the phone halfway to my ear when I
Speaker 1: realized my left side does not hurt anymore at all.
Speaker 1: It does not hurt at all. Well, that was a
Speaker 1: quick recovery. I sat up. My left side felt fine,
Speaker 1: In fact, it felt great, and a nurse came over
Speaker 1: and suggested I should lie back down again. I said why.
Speaker 1: Somehow I got better on the trip from all the
Speaker 1: potholes and just lying here. In fact, I feel great.
Speaker 1: Did you guys remove my left leg while I wasn't looking.
Speaker 1: Did you replace it with the left leg that I
Speaker 1: had when I was twelve? Because I could hop back
Speaker 1: to Connecticut on my left leg. Right now, just cancel
Speaker 1: the flight, She laughed. She said, no, what I was
Speaker 1: feeling would be the morphine they gave me so they
Speaker 1: could twist me around and take the X rays they needed.
Speaker 1: And I said, please, never ever give me any more
Speaker 1: of that ever again. Thank you. My Judo flashback, as
Speaker 1: it turned out, had done the job. I had broken nothing.
Speaker 1: The er doctor complimented me on my fall, and he
Speaker 1: said I probably had six or eight different sprains on
Speaker 1: my left side. It would hurt, but it would keep
Speaker 1: getting better and I'd be able to make my flight
Speaker 1: home the day after next. He was completely right, although
Speaker 1: I now I found twenty five years later that it's
Speaker 1: beginning to hurt like I just fell off the cliff. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I went back to the hotel. I ate well, I
Speaker 1: slept well, I managed to walk around with the help
Speaker 1: of a cane, and I went back for day two
Speaker 1: of the commercial shoot. This one is in a mansion
Speaker 1: in Pasadena, a room teeming full of UNA's lying on
Speaker 1: the floor. They're photographs through chandeliers. They're lazy, rich kids
Speaker 1: who also need to be told to eat something. I
Speaker 1: arrived and walked into applause from the crew, and I
Speaker 1: delivered a well rehearsed line and now for my next trick,
Speaker 1: which is when the director John came over and apologized,
Speaker 1: and he said he thought this entry into shot for
Speaker 1: me would be way easier. What I had to do
Speaker 1: is lie on the floor, then sit up and deliver
Speaker 1: the line, eat something. If you can sit up, he said,
Speaker 1: that is. If you can't, we can do something else.
Speaker 1: Can you sit up? And I thought about it, and
Speaker 1: I rubbed my lower back and I said, based on
Speaker 1: the day so far, yeah, I could, but probably only
Speaker 1: six or seven times. And I said, while I can
Speaker 1: sit up, it's clear to me one of those bad
Speaker 1: sprains was in the muscles somewhere of my lower back.
Speaker 1: And if I try to lay back down, I lose control.
Speaker 1: I'll just crash back to the floor. That actually happened
Speaker 1: and getting out of bed this morning. So after each take,
Speaker 1: the same two guys who had walked me up the
Speaker 1: stairs after I fell at the beach gently held my
Speaker 1: arms and shoulders and lowered me back to lying on
Speaker 1: the floor. We got what we needed. I went back
Speaker 1: to the hotel, I had dinner with some friends. The
Speaker 1: next day. I was a little sore, but perfectly fine
Speaker 1: to get back on the plane east and sure enough.
Speaker 1: Only time ever, I had a west to east tailwind.
Speaker 1: The flight from lax to Newark took three hours and
Speaker 1: forty eight minutes. We traversed the country like a dart
Speaker 1: shot from a gun, or an Ulderman falling from a
Speaker 1: rock out cropping. Oh, by the way, the commercial was
Speaker 1: an immediate success, unlike any that Boston Market had ever
Speaker 1: done before. In those days, they were packed each night
Speaker 1: for dinner at every location, selling half chickens and full
Speaker 1: meals with potatoes and salads, and they were getting an
Speaker 1: average of twelve dollars out of every customer. The rest
Speaker 1: of the day the place was empty. The idea behind
Speaker 1: my commercials. They were designed to bring in a lunch
Speaker 1: crowd a sandwich and a soda and a bag of
Speaker 1: chips for four dollars. Soon they were swamped at lunchtime.
Speaker 1: Boston Market ordered three more commercials, these to be shot
Speaker 1: in a studio in New York. They offered me fifty
Speaker 1: grand a day. An entire new career Vista was opening
Speaker 1: in front of me. I was, for a week or
Speaker 1: two in early nineteen ninety seven, the most successful male
Speaker 1: commercial actor in the country. We shot those three spots.
Speaker 1: I interrupted a grunge concert to shout eat something at
Speaker 1: the band, and then I got carried off by the
Speaker 1: crowd in a mosh pit, and I interrupted a Romeo
Speaker 1: soap opera surgeon coming on to his nurse by rising
Speaker 1: from the operating table to shout eat something. And then
Speaker 1: we did something with ballplayers at the stadium on Randall's Island.
Speaker 1: And I remember nothing of that because, unlike the first two,
Speaker 1: they never edited the film, because that's when it happened,
Speaker 1: their equivalent of falling off the cliff. I will confess
Speaker 1: it had not occurred to me. Then again, I did
Speaker 1: not own Boston Market. I did not work for their
Speaker 1: marketing department. I did not run the ad agency they employed.
Speaker 1: But none of them anticipated it either. After the first
Speaker 1: few weeks of giddy glee about the lunch crowds I
Speaker 1: had brought them, somebody noticed something unfortunate and unexpected. Basically,
Speaker 1: for every four dollars lunch they were now selling, they
Speaker 1: were selling one fewer twelve dollars dinner. They had not
Speaker 1: gained any new customers. They had just managed to get
Speaker 1: their customers to each spend eight dollars less. These very
Speaker 1: well made, very memorable commercials worked very very well. And
Speaker 1: the problem with that was each time they did work
Speaker 1: it cost Boston Market eight dollars. By the end of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, Boston Market was something like nine hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in debt, it had filed for bankruptcy and
Speaker 1: had had been taken over by McDonald's. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: I got my money, and in the twenty five years
Speaker 1: plus since, Boston Market has not once used a celebrity
Speaker 1: endorser to try to sell their food. Oh and there
Speaker 1: was one other positive outcome from my header off that
Speaker 1: cliff that December, so many Decembers ago, the ad Agency
Speaker 1: actually received the award. I did not, so I can't
Speaker 1: quote the title of it for you. I don't know
Speaker 1: which group gave it to us, but the Eat Something
Speaker 1: campaign it actually won an award because apparently my shouting
Speaker 1: eat something at Una and the others that somehow cuts
Speaker 1: through to some victims of some eating disorders. What I
Speaker 1: was told was we got an award from a national
Speaker 1: Bolimia association. I've done all the damage I can do here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. Everybody got a lot of sandwiches.
Speaker 1: I became a vegetarian. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shanelle,
Speaker 1: the musical directors of Countdown, arranged, produced, and performed most
Speaker 1: of our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister
Speaker 1: Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments
Speaker 1: are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust.
Speaker 1: The sports music is the Olderman theme from ESPN two,
Speaker 1: written by Mitch Warren Davis courtesy ESPN Inc. Other music
Speaker 1: arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. Mind's
Speaker 1: outcer today was my friend John Deane, and I should
Speaker 1: have let him read the whole script. Everything else was
Speaker 1: as ever my fault. That's countdown for today, just ninety
Speaker 1: days until the scheduled end of the lame duck presidency
Speaker 1: of Trump. Probably and it's maybe Matt Gates stars in
Speaker 1: the remakeup Back to School Day. The next scheduled countdown
Speaker 1: is next Monday, because it's Christmas, dammit. As always, bulletins
Speaker 1: as the news warrants till next time for my co
Speaker 1: producers Ted and Kit Kitt say something Kid is reluctant
Speaker 1: to make his podcast debut. Kitty, kitty kat kid. Hey, No,
Speaker 1: he just looks at me and like, what are you
Speaker 1: doing till next time? I'm Keith Ulberman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, good luck.
Speaker 2: And o how.
Speaker 1: Oh now he's talking and Stevie's in here too. You
Speaker 1: have something to say? You want to eat? Tell me
Speaker 1: you want something to eat? Okay, Ted, Kit, you want
Speaker 1: something to eat?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Stevie's speaking on behalf of the group. A right, Ted
Speaker 1: just gave me a little sniff here.
Speaker 2: What Ted?
Speaker 1: This is called letting the mic open and leaving the
Speaker 1: tape roll. Ted, say something here, speak into the microphone
Speaker 1: like that. No, you got nothing to say? You sure?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 1: You can't see this at home, but Steve, he is
Speaker 1: being attacked by a young six month old Kit, who,
Speaker 1: though half her size, likes to grab her by the
Speaker 1: throat with his front legs just as a sign of love. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas from the whole gang. Rose, who will have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with this, is outside waiting for food. Up.
Speaker 1: Kit likes to make a stretchy noise. Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: Hopefully see it? Just before the new year? All right,
Speaker 1: let's got something to eat? Countdown with Keith Olderman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.