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Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. One

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Speaker 1: court ruled the Stormy Daniel's hush money trial will start

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Speaker 1: on time. Another gave Trump another ten days and lowered

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Speaker 1: his bond to one hundred and seventy five million. And

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Speaker 1: neither of these is the lead Trump story, because the

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Speaker 1: lead Trump story is Trump is nuts. He has now

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Speaker 1: compared himself to Jesus, No Christ, Jesus Christ received this morning,

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Speaker 1: beautiful thank you. He posted a ten thirty Eastern dementia time.

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Speaker 1: It's ironic that Christ walked through his greatest persecution the

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Speaker 1: very week. They are trying to steal your property from you.

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Speaker 1: But have you seen this verse? Then? Whoever sent this

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Speaker 1: to him sent him Psalm one oh nine three to eight,

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Speaker 1: adapted for biblical purpose of election denial. And finally, I'm

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Speaker 1: praying this over you daily. So many are praying for you.

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Speaker 1: Thank you again for taking the arrows intended for us.

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Speaker 1: He compared himself to Christ, and I always thought he

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Speaker 1: would go first with Napoleon, No Bonaparte, not Napoleon dynamite Bonaparte.

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Speaker 1: And then in front of the microphones outside the courtroom.

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Speaker 1: One of his courtrooms, he also had another sort of

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Speaker 1: Well he went a little funny in the head, you know,

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Speaker 1: just a little funny.

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Speaker 2: You can't have an election in the middle of a

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Speaker 2: political season. We just had Super Tuesday, and we had

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Speaker 2: a Tuesday after Tuesday already.

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Speaker 1: No, we never have elections in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: political season. We always have them in the middle of

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Speaker 1: webbit season, duck season, webbit season. Well, you can't fight

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Speaker 1: in here. This is the war room. And it's not

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Speaker 1: just that the fluent aphasia or phenomic paraphasius or whatever

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Speaker 1: abruptly killed off another million Trumpian brain cells while he

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Speaker 1: was live on all networks had a field day yesterday.

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Speaker 1: Trump the cornered animal also screwed up strategically. Just as

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Speaker 1: last week, the world's leading legal authority on parking lot

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Speaker 1: law missed the chance to deny that Trump would ever

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Speaker 1: sell something to a foreign government or a foreign gangsters

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Speaker 1: or Vladimir Putin for the money needed in the business

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Speaker 1: fraud case. Now Trump has done exactly the same thing,

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Speaker 1: produced an unusually cogent word salad when the one and

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Speaker 1: only correct answer to this next question is quote no

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Speaker 1: unquote foreign governments pay under f or no don't, I

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Speaker 1: don't do that i've I think you'd be allowed to possibly,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, if you go borrow from

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Speaker 1: a big bank. Many of the banks are outside of

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Speaker 1: this as you know, the biggest banks for actually are

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Speaker 1: outside of our country Russia. If you're listening, I hope

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Speaker 1: you're able to find the sixteen billion, one hundred and

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Speaker 1: thirty one million, five hundred and fifty nine thou seven

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty four rubles I need. Anyway, Trump clearly

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Speaker 1: had another episode or episodes, and the additional evidence was

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Speaker 1: another social media post. Weird even for him. There should

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Speaker 1: be no fine, he wrote at seven fifty four Eastern

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Speaker 1: Dementia time, long before the bond was reduced. Did nothing wrong.

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Speaker 1: Why should I be forced to sell my quote marks

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Speaker 1: babies and quote marks because a, et cetera. So Trump

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Speaker 1: sells babies, he says, that's another good look. If Trump

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Speaker 1: is to be believed he has more than enough money

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Speaker 1: to pay a bond of eleventy billion dollars but won't

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Speaker 1: and would have to sell babies to get the money

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Speaker 1: and devoid having his assets seized. And I happily quote

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Speaker 1: my high school friend Will Bunch, noting we worry so

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Speaker 1: much about Biden's health, and yet Trump is the one

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Speaker 1: experiencing seizures. The legalities were overshadowed by the timeless words

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Speaker 1: you can't have an election in the middle of a

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Speaker 1: political season. But in the parlance of baseball spring training,

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Speaker 1: Trump and his lawyers played a split squad schedule yesterday,

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Speaker 1: and nominally they got one loss and one win. But

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Speaker 1: I'm not exactly seeing how the win is actually a win.

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Speaker 1: The loss is obvious the Stormy Daniels hush money election

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Speaker 1: influence trial, thirty four felonies in all but probably no

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Speaker 1: jail time will start as scheduled three weeks from yesterday,

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Speaker 1: April fifteenth. This supposed win. Well, a grace period for

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Speaker 1: paying the four hundred and fifty four million he owes

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Speaker 1: is extended by the appeals court by ten days until

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Speaker 1: a week from Thursday, and the bond is reduced tw

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Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five million. Now, how is this

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Speaker 1: a win? If Eric Trump more on twin number two

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Speaker 1: spent the weekend literally screaming at cameras that quote, a

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Speaker 1: ten million dollar bond is a large bond, A fifteen

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Speaker 1: million dollar bond is an enormous bond. So bond being

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Speaker 1: reduced from half a billion to one hundred and seventy

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Speaker 1: five million would seem like a token adjustment under Statute

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Speaker 1: thirty nine B sub Section three make rich people feel better.

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Speaker 1: Eric Trump also explained that every single person, when I

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Speaker 1: came to them saying can I get a half billion

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Speaker 1: dollar bond, they were laughing. They were laughing unquote. That

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Speaker 1: might have a different explanation, Sonny. I mean, have you

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Speaker 1: ever met yourself? If meanwhile, you were hoping Aaron Rodgers

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Speaker 1: would be Robert F. Kennedy Junior's choice for vice president

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Speaker 1: on his Trump Stalking Horse campaign, and thus the pair

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Speaker 1: of them would immediately tear their Achilles tendons and be

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Speaker 1: forced to miss the entire twenty twenty four NFL season.

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Speaker 1: That's the NFL National Fruitcake League. Ah, bad news. He

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Speaker 1: was expected to announce his vice president on Tuesday, and

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Speaker 1: it's Nicole Shanahan. Nicole Shanahan, Nicole Shanahan. Jeez, she has

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Speaker 1: superior credentials. She paid for most of Kennedy's disastrous ripoff

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Speaker 1: of his uncle's nineteen sixty presidential commercial, and she was

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Speaker 1: married to Google co founder Sergei Brinn and then allegedly

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Speaker 1: slept with Musk and then she demanded a billion dollar

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Speaker 1: divorce settlement. We don't know how much she got, but

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Speaker 1: if you are bargaining down from a buy it now

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Speaker 1: price of a billion, you're doing just fine. And here

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Speaker 1: is my bank role, my vice president. They were to

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Speaker 1: announce this at two pm Eastern in Oakland, California, at

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Speaker 1: the Henry J. Kaisers Center for the Arts. Henry J.

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Speaker 1: Kaiser the aluminum guy and philanthropist who also made cars

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Speaker 1: for a while, one of which he named the Henry J.

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Speaker 1: And he wanted to introduce steam powered automobiles in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties. So it's all going well for Bobby Junior

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Speaker 1: except for this small detail. The news that he had

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Speaker 1: fifteen thousand signatures enough to qualify for the presidential ballot

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Speaker 1: in Nevada. Not so much. CBS News reporting Kennedy apparently

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Speaker 1: overlooked the proviso in the law in Nevada requiring that

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Speaker 1: to be valid the ballot petitions of any independent candidate

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Speaker 1: must list a president and a vice president, and obviously

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Speaker 1: none of them filed before today could have done that,

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Speaker 1: So technically the number of petition signatures Kennedy has in

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Speaker 1: Nevada is approximately carry the one turn none. Kennedy will

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Speaker 1: have until August to again reach the fifteen thousand threshold

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Speaker 1: if he can only find somebody to pay for printing

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Speaker 1: the new petitions and the cost of canvassing the state.

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Speaker 1: And all right, missus ex Google will be able to

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Speaker 1: help you there. And now to the latest on the

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Speaker 1: NBC Rana Romney McDaniel fluster cluck. No, she has not

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Speaker 1: been spitcnned. No, the people who hired her have also

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Speaker 1: not been spit canned yet. First, if you think you

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Speaker 1: read somewhere that the serial liar and confessed organizer for

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Speaker 1: the Trump fake elector's scheme who changed her name because

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Speaker 1: Trump insisted, but she was only being a team player,

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Speaker 1: a good soldier. She was only following orders. Rana Romney,

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Speaker 1: not Romney, just McDaniel, would be appearing only on NBC

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Speaker 1: News and not MSNBC. That was the headline everywhere over

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Speaker 1: the weekend. Just NBC News and not MSNBC was somehow better.

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Speaker 1: Turns out that's not true. MSNBC's president Rashida Jones, identified

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Speaker 1: by Politico as one of the NBC News apparatchicks who

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Speaker 1: unanimously supported the hiring of Ronald McDaniel reportedly reassured cable

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Speaker 1: staffers that McDaniel would not appear on MSNBC. But the

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Speaker 1: Washington Post, Deadline, the Wall Street Journal, Semaphore News, and

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Speaker 1: now Politico, basically everybody but the International Stamp Gazette are

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Speaker 1: all reporting that that is not what. Rashida Jones said

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Speaker 1: that she responded to her angry staff only that there

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Speaker 1: was no expectation that McDaniel would ever be on MSNBC. Separately,

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Speaker 1: she told MSNBC talent and executives they were welcome to

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Speaker 1: book McDaniel as a pundit, a guest, or whatever. And

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Speaker 1: Mitchell second, if you read somewhere about Chuck Todd's principled

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Speaker 1: and even self endangering stance against an apology for the

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Speaker 1: foisting of one of Trump's top ten all paid toly

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Speaker 1: shills on television news viewers, two caveats. I am actually

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Speaker 1: going to say this. I commend Chuck Todd. We're going

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Speaker 1: on Meet the Press and commencing his remarks by savaging

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Speaker 1: McDaniel and saying, quote, I don't know what to believe.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea whether any answer she gave to

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Speaker 1: you was because she didn't want to mess up her contract.

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Speaker 1: It was ballzy and journalistic, but it wasn't that ballz

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Speaker 1: or that journalistic. Chuck Todd did say, our bosses owe

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Speaker 1: you an apology for putting you in this situation. But

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Speaker 1: he was looking at the Meet the Press host Kristen

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Speaker 1: allegedly Welker when he said that he was not looking

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Speaker 1: at the camera, not looking at the public. Chuck was

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Speaker 1: mad because the next future ex host of Meet the

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Speaker 1: Press had been hung out to dry. She had been

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Speaker 1: told that McDaniel would be a guest on Sunday, not

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Speaker 1: a paid contributor. He was angry about that. He did

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Speaker 1: not say anything about being angry because NBC had hired

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Speaker 1: somebody who tried to undo an election and put them

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Speaker 1: in front of the public as some sort of analyst

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Speaker 1: or neutral observer or who knows what. He wasn't even

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Speaker 1: angry because just ten months ago, Rona tweeted quote. MSNBC's

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Speaker 1: primetime propagandists wasted countless hours pushing the Russia collusion hoax.

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Speaker 1: Last night, they discussed Durham's report for barely ten minutes,

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Speaker 1: in which they insisted the weaponization of government found in

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Speaker 1: the report was no big deal. Chuck Todd went back

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Speaker 1: into the fray again last night on Twitter, and again

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Speaker 1: missed the point quote. This is about whether honest journalists

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Speaker 1: are supposed to lend their credibility to someone who intentionally

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Speaker 1: tried to ruin hours. While that is certainly a component,

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Speaker 1: it remains incidental Ronald McDaniel did not just try to

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Speaker 1: make life tough for Chuck Todd or for other journalists.

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Speaker 1: She tried to help install an unelected dictator in the

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Speaker 1: United States of America, and do heavens know what to

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Speaker 1: the elected usurped president, a man named Joe Biden. The

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Speaker 1: other caveat about Chuck Todd is this he signed a

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Speaker 1: two year contract extension with NBC News in July or

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Speaker 1: August of twenty twenty two. They made a big deal

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Speaker 1: about it. It was in all the papers, of course,

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Speaker 1: they made a big deal about it. He had yet

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Speaker 1: to be fired as the host of Meet the Press.

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Speaker 1: There has not been word one since though, about any

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Speaker 1: further contracts, which leads to the inevitable mathematical conclusion that

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Speaker 1: Chuck Todd is now lame. Duck Todd he risked something

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Speaker 1: by saying what he did, but that's something looks like

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe at maximum nine months of a paycheck. Similarly,

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Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough went out on a leaf yesterday morning. He

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Speaker 1: and the latest Missus Joe accurately called McDaniel quote an

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Speaker 1: anti democracy election denier, adding we hope NBC will reconsider

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Speaker 1: its decision trust me on this. Joe Scarborough used far

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Speaker 1: stronger language trying to get me fired at NBC in

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Speaker 1: public than he did about Ron McDaniel, and I used

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Speaker 1: far stronger language trying to get him fired in public.

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Speaker 1: I'll go into that and the surprisingly long history of

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Speaker 1: news talent daring management to fire them at thirty Rock

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Speaker 1: at length at the end of this podcast. For now, though,

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Speaker 1: let us salute Joe Scarborough proudly defying his masters and

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Speaker 1: becoming the six three hundred and ninety seventh person to

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Speaker 1: storm the bastille. Of course, back there, behind even Joey

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Speaker 1: scars at six three hundred and ninety eight or later

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Speaker 1: is Rachel Meadow, with her clout with NBCs terrified and

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Speaker 1: unfathomable conviction that she is all but stands between them

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Speaker 1: and MSNBC evaporating overnight. She should and could have said something.

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Speaker 1: She could have said anything last Friday when her employers

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Speaker 1: stabbed her credibility and the credibility of her network in

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Speaker 1: the back. But her ship on this had sailed. Her

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Speaker 1: ship on this, in fact, had sunk. On March fifth,

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Speaker 1: it was Meadow who had proudly and justifiably proudly announced

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Speaker 1: that her network would no longer take Trump's speeches live,

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Speaker 1: and then on Super Tuesday, MSNBC carried Trump's speech live.

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Speaker 1: Rachel solemnly announced that quote allowing somebody to knowingly lie

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Speaker 1: on your air was irresponsible, and then she stayed on

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Speaker 1: the air anyway, because the correct thing to do when

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Speaker 1: your editorial bosses shit all over you and revoke your

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Speaker 1: say in what your program looks like live am the air,

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Speaker 1: on your program, the correct thing to do is to

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Speaker 1: stand up and say I'll be back when MSNBC returns

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Speaker 1: to the agreed upon journalistically correct policy of not showing

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Speaker 1: Trump live. Instead, she in fact said I'll be back

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Speaker 1: after this message from ozempic. No wonder they hired Rona

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Speaker 1: McDaniel who was going to protest, not Matdow. Then there's

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Speaker 1: Kristin Welker herself. Her protest consisted of bravely insisting to

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Speaker 1: viewers that she had nothing to do with the hiring

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Speaker 1: of Rona McDaniel. She might as well have called her

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Speaker 1: herself what McDaniel did, called herself a team player. This

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Speaker 1: was cowardice in action, buck passing. You want clean hands

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Speaker 1: in this situation, then you should have refused to go

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Speaker 1: on the air with her. I know of at least

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Speaker 1: four occasions at NBC and MSNBC when newspeople refused to

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Speaker 1: go on the air with somebody to whom they objected

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Speaker 1: again details later, Mattow did it, I did it, getting

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Speaker 1: no applause, while Todd and Scarborough and Welker Basque in

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Speaker 1: the afterglow of having run the gamut of protest emotions

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Speaker 1: from A to B is an NBC reporter named Brandy Zudrosny.

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Speaker 1: She tweeted, so many talented reporters laid off this year.

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Speaker 1: Workers who provided the content won the awards, built the

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Speaker 1: credibility of their shops, and worked for a yearly salary

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Speaker 1: at a fraction of what big name contributors get in

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Speaker 1: fancy contracts to fill pundit boxes on TV. Unquote, Rona

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Speaker 1: McDaniel's name is carefully excluded from her text, but not

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Speaker 1: from her point. Separately, Zadrasni wrote reporters have no control

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Speaker 1: over the opinion or pundit section. Not coincidentally, Brandy Sidrosny,

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Speaker 1: who deserves the applause, is the specialist at NBC News

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Speaker 1: covering political radicalization, extremism, and disinformation on the Internet. In

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Speaker 1: other words, the Rona McDaniels of this world are her meat.

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Speaker 1: Her PostScript there about reporters having no control over the

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Speaker 1: McDaniels situation was not gratuitous. A prominent PR person and

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Speaker 1: former Obama adviser wrote reporters to cry the demonization of

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Speaker 1: the press and then offer the demonizer a three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars retainer. Let me assure you nobody involved in

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Speaker 1: the hiring of Rona McDaniel by NBC News was a report.

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Speaker 1: The four people on the hot seat at the moment

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Speaker 1: for this disaster at NBC. The four people most likely

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Speaker 1: to get fired carry Bodoff Brown and Rebecca Blumenstein. They

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Speaker 1: did reporting last more than a decade ago. Rashida Jones,

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Speaker 1: president of MSNBC. She lasted any in college in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and two. The chairman of NBC News, the chairman,

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Speaker 1: Sayesar Conde, has never been a reporter, or an editor

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Speaker 1: or a producer, but he is on a lot of

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Speaker 1: boards of directors. Condey will likely survive this, though if

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Speaker 1: he leaves NBC and Comcast in the next few years.

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Speaker 1: This will have been why Boodoff Brown, NBC senior vice

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Speaker 1: president in charge of Politics, and Blumenstein, the president in

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Speaker 1: charge of Meet the Press, are in more imminent danger.

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Speaker 1: As Politico put it, the idea of bringing the Trump

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Speaker 1: flunky into NBC News began with negotiations for NBC to

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Speaker 1: cover one of the Republican debates, quoting. Through that process,

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Speaker 1: McDaniel built a good rapport with Budolph Brown and Blumenstein.

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Speaker 1: McDaniel left the RNC, signed on with the CIA Talent Agency,

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Speaker 1: and went looking for a TV contract. While McDaniel had

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Speaker 1: talks with other networks, she was trying to avoid working

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Speaker 1: for CNN, but had serious discussions with ABC. NBC always

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Speaker 1: had the inside track. Quote Rona had a good experience

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Speaker 1: with Carrie and Rebecca and felt more comfortable than with

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Speaker 1: some of the other networks. A person close to McDaniel said, unquote,

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Speaker 1: not good Carrie and Rebecca. After the last big disaster

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Speaker 1: at NBC News, the Brian Williams I captured Saddam fiasco,

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Speaker 1: NBC slowly eased out its news president, Deborah Turness, eased

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Speaker 1: out her boss, the Comcast president of all the company's

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Speaker 1: news presidents, Pat Philly, And of course they tried to

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Speaker 1: fire Brian Williams, only to discover that in his contract

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Speaker 1: there was a poisoned pill that meant if they fired him,

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Speaker 1: they owed him more than if they did not fire him. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: that's the future. The present. Stuff is still falling out

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Speaker 1: of the sky on everybody at NBC News and MSNBC.

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Speaker 1: Somebody on Fox News yesterday asked what the difference was

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Speaker 1: between NBC hiring Rona McDaniel and Fox hiring a liberal

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Speaker 1: guest commentator named Jessica Tarlov, an intelligent conservative friend of

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Speaker 1: mine for more than three decades. Sincerely and calmly asked

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Speaker 1: me to explain the difference between Rana on NBC and

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Speaker 1: Donna on ABC Donna Brazil. Well, the points are Jessica

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Speaker 1: Tarlov's role in the Democratic Party topped off at as

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Speaker 1: she used to work for consultant Doug Showing. Doug Showen

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Speaker 1: was kind of a Democrat, I guess, And while Donna

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Speaker 1: Brazil was twice acting chair of the Democratic National Committee

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Speaker 1: kind of a match. You know, she never did stand

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Speaker 1: idly by while her president tried to foment a revolution

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Speaker 1: against the government, and she didn't participate in one of

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Speaker 1: his coup attempts. Neither Tarlov, nor Brazil for that matter,

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Speaker 1: nor anybody else has ever said. Quote in November twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: there were concerns everywhere. Imagine you saw it, videos being

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Speaker 1: put out, all types of things. You have to track

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Speaker 1: that down. So where I was in twenty twenty and

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Speaker 1: the quotes are that being taken a very long time ago,

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Speaker 1: three and a half years ago to where I am today.

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Speaker 1: You've got to allow the process to play out. And

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Speaker 1: I think it is fair to say I think there

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Speaker 1: were concerns. Then that's what Ronal McDaniel said about sewing

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theories about an illegitimate election. It's what she's still saying.

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Speaker 1: Still insists there was reason to question or challenge or

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Speaker 1: undermine or reply with blood to the twenty twenty election.

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Speaker 1: She's still saying it. She said that Sunday. That quote

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Speaker 1: was from Sunday. That quote was from her NBC debut

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Speaker 1: on Meet the Press. She is still an election denier

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Speaker 1: and damn her to hell for it. More cynically, Tarlov

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Speaker 1: and Brazil have some And this is the way television

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Speaker 1: executives think. Television news executives are dealing with a brand.

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Speaker 1: Television news executives think this way, Tarlov and Brazil have

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Speaker 1: some television value. Ronald McDaniel starts with the whole insurrectionist

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Speaker 1: adjacent thing, and then she goes downhill from there. She

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Speaker 1: is hated by every Democrat and liberal and loyal American. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: Trump just got her fired as head of the Republican

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Speaker 1: National Committee, and any MAGA cultists who had not already

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Speaker 1: blamed her for the losses in twenty eighteen, in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, they're blaming her now. She brings

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Speaker 1: her new employer no access inside the Maga world. She's

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Speaker 1: just been thrown out of what was left of the

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Speaker 1: Republican world. And oh, by the way, she's terrible on television.

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Speaker 1: Yet ultimately the problem is this, people paid big salaries

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Speaker 1: to make essential decisions about the coverage of an election

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Speaker 1: that will decide whether or not we still have a

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Speaker 1: democracy next January. They thought she was a great hire

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Speaker 1: and nice. As the protests from Todd and Welker and

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Speaker 1: Golly I hope they reconsider Scarborough were bluntly the moment

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Speaker 1: the hiring of Rona Romney McDaniel was announced, MSNBC anchors

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Speaker 1: and producers and writers and NBC News anchors and producers

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Speaker 1: and writers should have literally walked off that job right

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Speaker 1: then gone on strike. Because it all comes down to this.

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Speaker 1: The hiring of Rona McDaniel did not represent some kind

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Speaker 1: of attempt gone crazy wrong for political balance the way

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Speaker 1: hiring her uncle Mitt might might. The hiring of Rona

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Speaker 1: McDaniel conceded stipulated that on American television news there can

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Speaker 1: be some kind of balance, some kind of equation, some

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Speaker 1: kind of yes, but some kind of both sides ism

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Speaker 1: between the reality of the twenty twenty election and election

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Speaker 1: deniers and the trumpest cult and the people who wanted

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Speaker 1: to kill Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. Rona McDaniel is

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Speaker 1: the flat earthers, Ronal McDaniel is the climate change deniers.

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Speaker 1: Ronal McDaniel might as well be q from QAnon. This

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Speaker 1: is an example of reality trying to appease hallucination and

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theory and mental illness in hopes of making more

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Speaker 1: money off its newscasts. Rana Romney. McDaniel's presence as an

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Speaker 1: NBC News employee legitimizes the election deniers and the conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theorists and Trump. It is an act of journalistic self defenestration,

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Speaker 1: and for the future of democracy in this country, an

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Speaker 1: act of self immolation. Until NBC News fires Rona McDaniel

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Speaker 1: and all those responsible for her it, and MSNBC and

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Speaker 1: CNBC and all the local NBC stations and every other

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Speaker 1: NBC Comcast universal property, they all can no longer be

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Speaker 1: considered part of an actual news organization. Also of interest

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Speaker 1: here has promised the full story of all of the times,

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Speaker 1: all the times I know about when NBC and MSNBC

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Speaker 1: talent stood up to management and said if you do this,

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Speaker 1: I'm out, or I'm going public, or other risky things

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Speaker 1: that nobody said or did about the hiring of Ronald McDaniel.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just about me. It takes a little

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Speaker 1: while to tell the whole story, but only like twenty

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Speaker 1: seven minutes. But first, on this all new edition of

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Speaker 1: Countdown show, Hey Otani addresses the media. But it's not

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Speaker 1: what he said, it's what he didn't say that just

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Speaker 1: made the baseball gambling scandal way worse. And now, surprise, surprise,

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Speaker 1: there's another sports gambling scandal in basketball. This is about

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Speaker 1: the three pointer that never was from Why Downtown doubts

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Speaker 1: that overhang. That's next. That's just countdown. This is countdown

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Speaker 1: with Keith Oberman. Oberman.

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Speaker 3: This is Sports Center. Wait check that not anymore. This

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Speaker 3: is countdown with Keith Olberman.

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Speaker 1: In Sports Dateline Los Angeles. One assumes show Hey Otani's

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Speaker 1: people think they made the scandal involving his former interpreter

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Speaker 1: and friend and maybe involving him. Show he Otani that

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Speaker 1: they made it go away yesterday by having the seven

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollar Dodger read a statement to the media

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Speaker 1: yesterday and then not take any questions. But it did

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Speaker 1: not go away because those questions did not go away.

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Speaker 1: The explanation was very simple. Otani says he never bet

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Speaker 1: on baseball or any sports. He never asked anybody to

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Speaker 1: bet on his behalf. He never went to a bookie.

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Speaker 1: He says, is now fired interpreter and friend. If a

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Speaker 1: Misuhara stole all the money from him, that Misuhara ran

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Speaker 1: up the massive illegal gambling debts himself at least four

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Speaker 1: and a half million, and also that Misuhara never told

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Speaker 1: Otani that the story had begun to leak out. Otani

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Speaker 1: implied that the interpreter went to Otani's spokespeople last week

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Speaker 1: and lied to them too, by by telling them Otani

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Speaker 1: was covering for a friend in trouble and paying his debts,

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Speaker 1: and that Otani wanted him to have his handlers let

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Speaker 1: Missahara tell the story. In an interview with ESPN, Otani

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Speaker 1: says Misuhara never asked him for permission to talk to

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Speaker 1: his people, never asked him for permission to do the interview,

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Speaker 1: and that the spokespeople never double checked with Otani that

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Speaker 1: Misihara was not making it all up, which is exactly

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Speaker 1: what Otani says happened. Otani insists that the first time

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Speaker 1: he heard anything about Missahara gambling or about him Otani

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Speaker 1: paying the debts was when Misihara addressed the Dodger team

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Speaker 1: after a game last week in South Korea to warn

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Speaker 1: them that the story was about to break. This is

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Speaker 1: all plausible, This is all believable. This has all happened before. Employees,

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Speaker 1: even trusted ones do rip off their employers, even their friends,

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Speaker 1: even their relatives all the time, even for millions, and

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Speaker 1: mix this part in. If you are somebody's translator, it

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Speaker 1: would be all that much easier to get away with it.

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Speaker 1: But sho Haotani never addressed, didn't take questions about one

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Speaker 1: pivotal detail. If he did not know Missihara gambled, if

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Speaker 1: he did not know Mizihara owed a bookie four and

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Speaker 1: a half million or more. If he did not know

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Speaker 1: Missihara owed somebody that amount of money, how did the

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Speaker 1: money get wired from sho Haotani's bank account into the

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Speaker 1: bank account of the bookie. At no point in his

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Speaker 1: statement did Otani even imply that he had foolishly given

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Speaker 1: Misihara access to his accounts, or even that Missihara had

426
00:30:52,075 --> 00:30:57,475
Speaker 1: somehow improperly gained access to his accounts. As long as

427
00:30:57,595 --> 00:31:06,955
Speaker 1: questions about that remain unanswered, the story remains alive. Dateline

428
00:31:06,995 --> 00:31:09,275
Speaker 1: toronto I said to a friend yesterday that the over

429
00:31:09,355 --> 00:31:12,995
Speaker 1: under on an actual sports gambling game fixing scandal after

430
00:31:13,035 --> 00:31:16,355
Speaker 1: the Otani stuff was now six months. I was off

431
00:31:16,435 --> 00:31:19,835
Speaker 1: by five months thirty days. In about twenty two hours,

432
00:31:20,675 --> 00:31:24,395
Speaker 1: ESPN quote sources who say the National Basketball Association is

433
00:31:24,435 --> 00:31:28,155
Speaker 1: investigating a fringe player named John Tay Porter of the

434
00:31:28,195 --> 00:31:34,355
Speaker 1: Toronto Raptors. On January twenty sixth, Draft Kings, the official

435
00:31:34,555 --> 00:31:38,795
Speaker 1: betting something of the NBA, had reported increased interest from

436
00:31:38,795 --> 00:31:42,555
Speaker 1: its betters on what are called prop bets involving John

437
00:31:42,595 --> 00:31:45,955
Speaker 1: Tay Porter, combination bets based on his statistics in the

438
00:31:45,955 --> 00:31:49,355
Speaker 1: game that night. And that night, the over unders for

439
00:31:49,475 --> 00:31:52,555
Speaker 1: Porter's stats were set at five and a half points,

440
00:31:52,955 --> 00:31:55,635
Speaker 1: four and a half rebounds, one and a half assists,

441
00:31:55,635 --> 00:31:59,595
Speaker 1: and one half of a three point shot. But Porter

442
00:31:59,755 --> 00:32:02,475
Speaker 1: played only four minutes in that game and then left

443
00:32:02,475 --> 00:32:05,275
Speaker 1: the game, and the team said he had reaggravated a

444
00:32:05,315 --> 00:32:09,995
Speaker 1: previous eye injury. Ultimately, he scored no points. He had

445
00:32:10,035 --> 00:32:13,675
Speaker 1: only three rebounds, only one assist, no three pointers. In

446
00:32:13,715 --> 00:32:17,235
Speaker 1: other words, if you bet the under on all of

447
00:32:17,275 --> 00:32:20,115
Speaker 1: his stats in a prop bet on John Tay Porter,

448
00:32:20,475 --> 00:32:24,595
Speaker 1: you won a bundle. Draftking said it was in fact

449
00:32:24,635 --> 00:32:28,555
Speaker 1: the biggest money winner for betters of any NBA player

450
00:32:28,595 --> 00:32:33,355
Speaker 1: props from games that night and then last week March

451
00:32:33,395 --> 00:32:37,915
Speaker 1: twenty first, Draftking Sportsbooks reported that prop bets involving Porter

452
00:32:38,435 --> 00:32:41,555
Speaker 1: produced the number one money maker the previous night in

453
00:32:41,595 --> 00:32:44,435
Speaker 1: basketball betting. In the game that night, Porter scored no points.

454
00:32:44,675 --> 00:32:47,395
Speaker 1: He attempted only one shot, he got two rebounds. He

455
00:32:47,435 --> 00:32:51,315
Speaker 1: played only three minutes because he left the game early

456
00:32:51,395 --> 00:32:55,835
Speaker 1: because of what the team said was an illness. Porter

457
00:32:55,955 --> 00:32:58,955
Speaker 1: did not play in Toronto's game Saturday night, personal reasons.

458
00:32:59,475 --> 00:33:03,115
Speaker 1: He did not play in Toronto's game last night, personal reasons.

459
00:33:03,835 --> 00:33:06,755
Speaker 1: It is a huge, huge mess. From this angle, it

460
00:33:06,755 --> 00:33:11,155
Speaker 1: looks like a bottomless pit. It's not game fixing, per se,

461
00:33:11,635 --> 00:33:13,755
Speaker 1: But what it looks like is like a cousin of

462
00:33:13,795 --> 00:33:16,715
Speaker 1: what they used to call point shaving. Point shaving was

463
00:33:16,955 --> 00:33:21,235
Speaker 1: deliberately missing shots to keep a game close in order

464
00:33:21,315 --> 00:33:25,315
Speaker 1: to beat the expectations of odds makers. Point shaving nearly

465
00:33:25,355 --> 00:33:28,195
Speaker 1: destroyed college basketball in the nineteen fifties and again in

466
00:33:28,235 --> 00:33:32,795
Speaker 1: the late seventies and early eighties. And no, sorry, you

467
00:33:32,835 --> 00:33:35,275
Speaker 1: cannot bet on whether or not they banned John Tay

468
00:33:35,395 --> 00:33:39,955
Speaker 1: Porter for a season for life or not at all.

469
00:33:40,075 --> 00:33:46,235
Speaker 1: At least you can't bet on it legally. I think

470
00:33:46,275 --> 00:33:56,315
Speaker 1: you can't. Postscripts to the news, some headlines, some updates,

471
00:33:56,315 --> 00:33:59,755
Speaker 1: some snarks, some predictions, and in this edition, a lot

472
00:33:59,795 --> 00:34:03,675
Speaker 1: of sadness. Dateline, Central Park in New York. The worst

473
00:34:03,755 --> 00:34:07,315
Speaker 1: of our fears here has come true. Flacco, the Eurasian

474
00:34:07,355 --> 00:34:10,755
Speaker 1: owl who escaped or was freed from his enclosure in

475
00:34:10,755 --> 00:34:13,555
Speaker 1: the zoo here in February twenty twenty three, and who

476
00:34:13,595 --> 00:34:16,355
Speaker 1: died after a collision with a Manhattan building on February

477
00:34:16,355 --> 00:34:20,675
Speaker 1: twenty fourth of this year, had residue of four different

478
00:34:20,795 --> 00:34:23,875
Speaker 1: rat poisons in his system when he died, and the

479
00:34:23,955 --> 00:34:28,955
Speaker 1: virus contracted from eating infected pigeons. To reduce the post

480
00:34:29,035 --> 00:34:32,755
Speaker 1: mortem report from Central Park to its essentials, the rat

481
00:34:32,755 --> 00:34:36,435
Speaker 1: poison and the disease quote would have been debilitating and

482
00:34:36,555 --> 00:34:40,195
Speaker 1: ultimately fatal even without a traumatic injury, and may have

483
00:34:40,315 --> 00:34:44,835
Speaker 1: predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building.

484
00:34:45,795 --> 00:34:49,915
Speaker 1: His admirers, and this city was and is filled with them,

485
00:34:50,395 --> 00:34:55,315
Speaker 1: wondered why his wonderful nighttime hooting had stopped several days

486
00:34:55,315 --> 00:34:58,035
Speaker 1: before he met his end. They suspect now it was

487
00:34:58,075 --> 00:35:02,275
Speaker 1: because he was so sick. There's no evidence this was deliberate.

488
00:35:02,675 --> 00:35:05,315
Speaker 1: It was, however, what experts worried a the day he

489
00:35:05,355 --> 00:35:07,275
Speaker 1: got out of the zoo, that he could get sick

490
00:35:07,875 --> 00:35:10,435
Speaker 1: eating the rodent life around here, and that the city

491
00:35:10,995 --> 00:35:14,035
Speaker 1: was also full of poisons out in the open intended

492
00:35:14,515 --> 00:35:19,475
Speaker 1: for rodents or already in rodents I'm not going to

493
00:35:19,515 --> 00:35:23,035
Speaker 1: wax poetic about this striking, huge owl with his eerie,

494
00:35:23,195 --> 00:35:27,395
Speaker 1: glowing orange eyes. But there was something transcendent about him

495
00:35:27,475 --> 00:35:31,875
Speaker 1: living a year free in the neighborhood and yet choosing

496
00:35:31,915 --> 00:35:34,995
Speaker 1: always to stay nearby the humans he had gotten used

497
00:35:35,035 --> 00:35:38,715
Speaker 1: to in captivity. He spent time all around this city.

498
00:35:38,755 --> 00:35:42,115
Speaker 1: He spent evenings as far away as sixty blocks south

499
00:35:42,235 --> 00:35:45,275
Speaker 1: of the park. And then he came back, and he

500
00:35:45,355 --> 00:35:48,955
Speaker 1: settled in in the park's northern reaches, enjoying this place

501
00:35:49,995 --> 00:35:53,275
Speaker 1: just as the humans did. They may build a statue

502
00:35:53,315 --> 00:35:55,595
Speaker 1: to him. I hope they do. It will be nice

503
00:35:55,635 --> 00:35:59,555
Speaker 1: to remember him, But it was much nicer each night

504
00:35:59,675 --> 00:36:06,515
Speaker 1: knowing he was out there. Eight Line, Franklin, North Carolina.

505
00:36:06,715 --> 00:36:09,875
Speaker 1: This news probably will not mean much to you, but

506
00:36:09,995 --> 00:36:13,555
Speaker 1: Bill Jorgensen has died. It will not mean much to

507
00:36:13,595 --> 00:36:16,155
Speaker 1: you unless you know every second of the movie The

508
00:36:16,275 --> 00:36:20,555
Speaker 1: King of Comedy by heart, or unless you used to

509
00:36:20,635 --> 00:36:22,035
Speaker 1: watch this.

510
00:36:22,715 --> 00:36:23,955
Speaker 2: It's ten pm.

511
00:36:24,395 --> 00:36:26,595
Speaker 1: Do you know where your children are?

512
00:36:30,475 --> 00:36:33,755
Speaker 2: The tragedy on twenty eighth Street with nine Nixon talks

513
00:36:33,755 --> 00:36:36,835
Speaker 2: about the dumping of sparrow Agnow money lives still on

514
00:36:36,875 --> 00:36:40,115
Speaker 2: the line in Holland tonight, and for the gossips Jecki's

515
00:36:40,195 --> 00:36:43,635
Speaker 2: German friends on Bill Jorgenson, this is the ten o'clock news.

516
00:36:44,355 --> 00:36:47,995
Speaker 1: That was who anchored the newscast on which I was

517
00:36:47,995 --> 00:36:50,115
Speaker 1: an intern when I was nineteen years old. And you

518
00:36:50,115 --> 00:36:53,075
Speaker 1: can probably understand my uncertainty that I had the skills,

519
00:36:53,915 --> 00:36:58,835
Speaker 1: or the voice, or the shock of white hair to last, say,

520
00:36:59,195 --> 00:37:03,195
Speaker 1: one hour in the business. Thankfully, they did not all

521
00:37:03,275 --> 00:37:06,995
Speaker 1: sound like Bill Jorgensen. He was a news anchorman in Columbus,

522
00:37:07,075 --> 00:37:10,475
Speaker 1: Ohio in the fifties, Cleveland starting in nineteen sixty one,

523
00:37:11,075 --> 00:37:14,675
Speaker 1: and New York from nineteen sixty seven through nineteen eighty three.

524
00:37:14,715 --> 00:37:17,715
Speaker 1: He pioneered the concept of the ten o'clock news here

525
00:37:17,795 --> 00:37:21,835
Speaker 1: when all the other stations had network dramas on or reruns.

526
00:37:22,595 --> 00:37:25,795
Speaker 1: The newscast aimed to tell you everything that happened that

527
00:37:25,915 --> 00:37:32,235
Speaker 1: day in one hour, seriously everything. This was made more

528
00:37:32,315 --> 00:37:36,275
Speaker 1: plausible by the fact that Bill Jorgenson kinda sounded like God.

529
00:37:38,115 --> 00:37:40,595
Speaker 1: He did not suffer fools gladly, and he thought all

530
00:37:40,595 --> 00:37:43,755
Speaker 1: television executives were fools. I'd like to say I got

531
00:37:43,755 --> 00:37:47,515
Speaker 1: that from him, but I doubt it. By nineteen seventy eight,

532
00:37:47,675 --> 00:37:49,875
Speaker 1: year twelve for him in New York. He had pretty

533
00:37:49,915 --> 00:37:52,355
Speaker 1: much run out of patience with the executives at Channel five,

534
00:37:52,755 --> 00:37:55,995
Speaker 1: and he was beginning to lash out, and everybody agreed

535
00:37:56,115 --> 00:37:58,675
Speaker 1: a month or two off would be a good idea.

536
00:37:59,435 --> 00:38:02,155
Speaker 1: So he bought a Winnebago and he and the wife

537
00:38:02,195 --> 00:38:05,675
Speaker 1: took off to see America on a sabbatic They laughed

538
00:38:05,715 --> 00:38:08,675
Speaker 1: about a week or ten days before my internship at

539
00:38:08,715 --> 00:38:12,675
Speaker 1: Channel five started. My story with Bill Jorgensen can be

540
00:38:12,715 --> 00:38:16,235
Speaker 1: summarized in four phone calls. My first week at the

541
00:38:16,235 --> 00:38:19,155
Speaker 1: news assignment desk. The phone rings. I am a clan

542
00:38:19,275 --> 00:38:23,435
Speaker 1: call for anyone from Kansas City, Missouri, from Bill Jorgensen.

543
00:38:23,875 --> 00:38:29,355
Speaker 1: Will you accept the charges impulsively? I made an executive decision,

544
00:38:29,955 --> 00:38:33,035
Speaker 1: we will operator. The next voice seemed to be coming

545
00:38:33,075 --> 00:38:35,635
Speaker 1: not from the phone, not from Kansas City, but from

546
00:38:35,715 --> 00:38:39,795
Speaker 1: some sort of pa system vibrating above the city, from

547
00:38:39,835 --> 00:38:44,955
Speaker 1: way above my head, this is Jorgensen. Get me Monsky,

548
00:38:45,035 --> 00:38:50,435
Speaker 1: please Monsky, Mark Monsky, or as it said in the

549
00:38:50,475 --> 00:38:55,355
Speaker 1: credits to our newscast, Mark bvs Monsky, Director of News,

550
00:38:55,795 --> 00:39:02,115
Speaker 1: Mark B von summer Monsky, the boss, the news director.

551
00:39:02,355 --> 00:39:05,595
Speaker 1: The bad news was Mark b. Von sum Monsky carried

552
00:39:05,595 --> 00:39:09,475
Speaker 1: a gun. The good news was he liked me, I

553
00:39:09,595 --> 00:39:13,315
Speaker 1: told his secretary. His secretary handled the call, got Monsky.

554
00:39:13,435 --> 00:39:16,075
Speaker 1: Three minutes later, Monsky came out and said to all

555
00:39:16,075 --> 00:39:18,595
Speaker 1: of us at the desk, me included for God's sake,

556
00:39:18,755 --> 00:39:21,835
Speaker 1: Jorgensen just called from Kansas City. They were having breakfast

557
00:39:21,915 --> 00:39:24,355
Speaker 1: at the International House of Pancakes. They come out, he

558
00:39:24,435 --> 00:39:27,315
Speaker 1: and the wife, to the parking lot and somebody has

559
00:39:27,515 --> 00:39:30,155
Speaker 1: stolen the win of Bago. We got to get them

560
00:39:30,195 --> 00:39:33,195
Speaker 1: out of there. They have nothing. Wire them some cash

561
00:39:33,315 --> 00:39:37,355
Speaker 1: or something. Hereupon, the news director reached into his pocket

562
00:39:37,475 --> 00:39:40,675
Speaker 1: and grabbed a stack of bills. Here's five hundred bucks.

563
00:39:41,995 --> 00:39:45,435
Speaker 1: The sabbatical had not started all that well. On the

564
00:39:45,475 --> 00:39:48,355
Speaker 1: other hand, only once before in my life had I

565
00:39:48,475 --> 00:39:54,635
Speaker 1: seen five hundred dollars in cash. The sabbatical had been noticed, however,

566
00:39:54,955 --> 00:39:57,395
Speaker 1: We interns were given instructions on what to do when

567
00:39:57,435 --> 00:40:00,715
Speaker 1: we got phone calls like well, like phone call number two.

568
00:40:01,555 --> 00:40:04,675
Speaker 1: What happened to Bill Jargenson asked the woman who said

569
00:40:04,795 --> 00:40:08,795
Speaker 1: she was from Booton, New Jersey. He's on assignment, ma'am.

570
00:40:08,915 --> 00:40:12,195
Speaker 1: I said, we expect him back in I believe two weeks,

571
00:40:12,515 --> 00:40:17,675
Speaker 1: perhaps sooner. She laughed at me. Yeah, sabbatical like you.

572
00:40:17,875 --> 00:40:23,635
Speaker 1: Bastard's assigned George Sharmon to a sabbatical. There had been

573
00:40:23,715 --> 00:40:27,355
Speaker 1: three primary anchors of the Channel five ten o'clock news, Jorgensen,

574
00:40:27,715 --> 00:40:30,195
Speaker 1: his deputy George Sharmon, who also had a shock of

575
00:40:30,235 --> 00:40:33,915
Speaker 1: white hair, and their deputy, Bill McCreary. And then one

576
00:40:33,995 --> 00:40:36,995
Speaker 1: day George Sharmon was gone and a new kid from

577
00:40:36,995 --> 00:40:40,595
Speaker 1: California had replaced him. They did this to the assignment

578
00:40:40,635 --> 00:40:43,315
Speaker 1: desk one weekend as well. I was interning for Steve,

579
00:40:43,435 --> 00:40:47,035
Speaker 1: the assignment editor, on Friday and said goodbye and have

580
00:40:47,075 --> 00:40:48,635
Speaker 1: a nice weekend to him, and he said the same

581
00:40:48,635 --> 00:40:52,315
Speaker 1: to me. And then on Monday, I was working for Joe,

582
00:40:52,475 --> 00:40:56,115
Speaker 1: the new assignment editor. I said to my first mentor

583
00:40:56,195 --> 00:41:00,195
Speaker 1: at Channel five, a researcher named Stanley Pinsley, as quick

584
00:41:00,395 --> 00:41:05,475
Speaker 1: as death. And Stanley paused, and he congratulated me. You

585
00:41:05,555 --> 00:41:08,675
Speaker 1: figured out the entire news business and you're only nineteen.

586
00:41:10,675 --> 00:41:13,595
Speaker 1: Bill Jorgensen came back to the newsroom soon after. I

587
00:41:13,675 --> 00:41:16,395
Speaker 1: had not known him before, I didn't really know him now.

588
00:41:17,075 --> 00:41:19,515
Speaker 1: He came out of his office only occasionally, might as

589
00:41:19,515 --> 00:41:22,115
Speaker 1: well have won to worn a hood over his head,

590
00:41:22,875 --> 00:41:27,035
Speaker 1: no eye contact. He ducked out a side door one

591
00:41:27,115 --> 00:41:29,395
Speaker 1: night that they didn't fire the assignment editors. So at

592
00:41:29,435 --> 00:41:31,795
Speaker 1: nine forty five we all sat back and prepared to

593
00:41:31,795 --> 00:41:35,035
Speaker 1: finally exhale after a crazy day and watch the actual

594
00:41:35,075 --> 00:41:38,515
Speaker 1: newscast in progress. And now comes phone call number three

595
00:41:39,275 --> 00:41:44,395
Speaker 1: Channel five News. This is Jorgenson. Who's this? I thought, quickly,

596
00:41:44,835 --> 00:41:47,555
Speaker 1: I'm an intern. You wouldn't know me, he thought quickly,

597
00:41:47,835 --> 00:41:52,355
Speaker 1: fair enough, Tell Gary, Kay and Troffy and Jay. Tell

598
00:41:52,395 --> 00:41:57,795
Speaker 1: them the elevator to the studio is stuck. Use the stairs. Goodbye.

599
00:41:59,395 --> 00:42:02,955
Speaker 1: I did as told. I went back to producer's rowe. Hey,

600
00:42:03,235 --> 00:42:05,195
Speaker 1: Bill just called to tell you the levator to the

601
00:42:05,235 --> 00:42:08,915
Speaker 1: studio as stuck, so use the stairs. Jay, who I

602
00:42:08,955 --> 00:42:14,475
Speaker 1: believe was the director that night, looked up optimistically, is

603
00:42:14,475 --> 00:42:17,115
Speaker 1: is he on it? When I shook my head no.

604
00:42:17,755 --> 00:42:21,995
Speaker 1: The look of disappointment verging on tears on Jay's face

605
00:42:22,515 --> 00:42:28,555
Speaker 1: remains to this day indescribable. Towards the end of my internship,

606
00:42:28,595 --> 00:42:32,515
Speaker 1: things went south with Bill Jorgenson and he took another sabbatical. Now,

607
00:42:32,555 --> 00:42:35,035
Speaker 1: the newscast was anchored by the kid from California whose

608
00:42:35,075 --> 00:42:38,435
Speaker 1: name was John Rowland and Bill McCreary, and they were

609
00:42:38,435 --> 00:42:41,275
Speaker 1: great to me. As was Bill Mazer, the sportscaster for

610
00:42:41,315 --> 00:42:43,835
Speaker 1: whom I interned half the time. They were all great

611
00:42:43,915 --> 00:42:47,395
Speaker 1: to me. My friend Stanley Pinsley was the writer, Bobby Campbell,

612
00:42:47,475 --> 00:42:51,715
Speaker 1: all of them. Bill McCreary also did the sports on Fridays,

613
00:42:51,755 --> 00:42:54,075
Speaker 1: and one Friday he and Bill Maser were going to

614
00:42:54,075 --> 00:42:56,835
Speaker 1: both be off and their backup was to and they

615
00:42:56,875 --> 00:43:00,475
Speaker 1: and the sports producer Cliff Gelb decided I should do

616
00:43:00,555 --> 00:43:04,555
Speaker 1: the sports cast, and they were serious. Mark bvs My

617
00:43:05,835 --> 00:43:08,795
Speaker 1: told them, no, no, you're not serious. Even he said,

618
00:43:09,195 --> 00:43:13,195
Speaker 1: soon enough, kid, you'll do it. Soon enough. I went

619
00:43:13,275 --> 00:43:15,555
Speaker 1: back to Cornell for my senior year, and I realized

620
00:43:15,595 --> 00:43:19,075
Speaker 1: our newscasts, which were unsurpassed for a college radio station,

621
00:43:19,835 --> 00:43:24,315
Speaker 1: we're running at about nine miles an hour, while Bill

622
00:43:24,435 --> 00:43:27,515
Speaker 1: Jorgenson's ten o'clock news was doing one hundred, one hundred

623
00:43:27,555 --> 00:43:30,475
Speaker 1: and twenty sometimes two hundred and fifty miles an hour.

624
00:43:31,475 --> 00:43:34,395
Speaker 1: I thought to myself, you're gonna have to step it

625
00:43:34,475 --> 00:43:38,035
Speaker 1: up a little. Anyway. One night the next March, there's

626
00:43:38,075 --> 00:43:41,035
Speaker 1: a ring in my apartment at two oh seven Delaware Avenue, Ahaca,

627
00:43:41,115 --> 00:43:43,355
Speaker 1: New York, and it's a phone call, phone call number four,

628
00:43:43,395 --> 00:43:45,835
Speaker 1: and it's my friend Stanley Pinsley calling from Channel five,

629
00:43:46,195 --> 00:43:48,555
Speaker 1: and I'm going to emphasize this is what he told

630
00:43:48,555 --> 00:43:52,275
Speaker 1: me in nineteen seventy nine. It was only later confirmed

631
00:43:52,315 --> 00:43:56,035
Speaker 1: for me by one other source. So who knows, Uh,

632
00:43:56,235 --> 00:44:00,555
Speaker 1: you missed it, Bubby Stanley said, Jargonson's back. Well, he

633
00:44:00,795 --> 00:44:03,195
Speaker 1: was back. He comes in, he does a week, he's

634
00:44:03,195 --> 00:44:06,715
Speaker 1: shaky as hell, and the general manager take him to lunch.

635
00:44:06,995 --> 00:44:09,475
Speaker 1: They tell him we're letting you go, and he's like,

636
00:44:09,555 --> 00:44:11,835
Speaker 1: okay with it. He's very calm. He has a little

637
00:44:11,835 --> 00:44:14,435
Speaker 1: meeting with the senior staff and he thanks everybody and

638
00:44:14,475 --> 00:44:18,355
Speaker 1: he apologizes and everybody goes, ah, great, But you know,

639
00:44:18,475 --> 00:44:22,275
Speaker 1: he just wasn't right even for him. So today, evidently

640
00:44:22,355 --> 00:44:24,515
Speaker 1: before I got in, he's got a little practical joke

641
00:44:24,555 --> 00:44:26,515
Speaker 1: to play on everybody. And from what he said as

642
00:44:26,515 --> 00:44:28,915
Speaker 1: they took him out of the building, he thought this

643
00:44:28,955 --> 00:44:32,155
Speaker 1: would show everybody he was handling his firing. Okay, So

644
00:44:32,275 --> 00:44:34,835
Speaker 1: I guess about five, he comes out of his office

645
00:44:34,875 --> 00:44:37,675
Speaker 1: carrying this big box and on each side of the

646
00:44:37,715 --> 00:44:42,115
Speaker 1: box it's got one word stenciled on it, dynamite. And

647
00:44:42,155 --> 00:44:45,355
Speaker 1: he stands by producer's row and he says, if I

648
00:44:45,475 --> 00:44:48,635
Speaker 1: have to go I'm taking all ues with me, and

649
00:44:48,715 --> 00:44:51,195
Speaker 1: the box doesn't look real, but who knows with Jorgensen.

650
00:44:51,275 --> 00:44:54,035
Speaker 1: So Choffey hits him high, and Gary Kay hits him low,

651
00:44:54,275 --> 00:44:56,875
Speaker 1: and Jay grabs the box as it falls, and that's

652
00:44:56,915 --> 00:45:02,275
Speaker 1: the last we've seen at Jorgenson. I understand he's resting somewhere.

653
00:45:03,195 --> 00:45:08,955
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you missed it. On March fourteenth, nineteen seventy nine,

654
00:45:09,035 --> 00:45:12,315
Speaker 1: Channel five in New York announced that Bill Jorgensen had resigned,

655
00:45:13,035 --> 00:45:15,275
Speaker 1: and his lawyer told The New York Times he had

656
00:45:15,355 --> 00:45:20,155
Speaker 1: quit to go do something better. And I just assumed, well,

657
00:45:20,195 --> 00:45:22,635
Speaker 1: even as crazy as I found television news in my

658
00:45:22,755 --> 00:45:25,435
Speaker 1: slice of my internship, that would be the end of him.

659
00:45:26,195 --> 00:45:30,115
Speaker 1: And then on April sixth Stanley calls me again, Bobby,

660
00:45:30,195 --> 00:45:34,315
Speaker 1: guess who's the new anchor guy at Channel eleven? Jargonson?

661
00:45:34,635 --> 00:45:38,275
Speaker 1: What a business? You sure you want those job referrals?

662
00:45:39,555 --> 00:45:43,035
Speaker 1: He started on the Channel eleven news at ten on

663
00:45:43,115 --> 00:45:46,875
Speaker 1: April twenty third, nineteen seventy nine. He'd barely been off

664
00:45:46,915 --> 00:45:52,315
Speaker 1: the air one month. He lasted four years. He was

665
00:45:52,435 --> 00:45:55,035
Speaker 1: ninety six when he died, according to his daughter on

666
00:45:55,075 --> 00:45:59,675
Speaker 1: March thirteenth. Nobody noted this, but March thirteenth. This March

667
00:45:59,755 --> 00:46:05,275
Speaker 1: thirteenth was the fifty seventh anniversary of the first edition

668
00:46:05,475 --> 00:46:09,115
Speaker 1: of Channel five to ten o'clock News with Bill Jorgenson.

669
00:46:10,595 --> 00:46:13,635
Speaker 1: Even his obituary in The New York Times said quote,

670
00:46:13,675 --> 00:46:19,115
Speaker 1: mister Jorgenson struggled with station management. Clearly he did not

671
00:46:19,235 --> 00:46:22,315
Speaker 1: struggle enough, however, to outweigh his skill and his drive,

672
00:46:22,435 --> 00:46:26,275
Speaker 1: and his brilliance and his dedication to journalism, and his

673
00:46:26,395 --> 00:46:31,795
Speaker 1: voice and especially his sign off. He was, now that

674
00:46:31,875 --> 00:46:35,875
Speaker 1: I think of it, the last newscaster I knew who

675
00:46:36,035 --> 00:46:38,835
Speaker 1: had his own sign off.

676
00:46:39,555 --> 00:46:42,395
Speaker 2: There's our report for tonight, Bill Jorgenson, for Channel five News.

677
00:46:42,595 --> 00:46:44,355
Speaker 2: Thanking you for your time this time until.

678
00:46:44,155 --> 00:47:10,195
Speaker 1: Next time, stell ahead of us on this all new

679
00:47:10,315 --> 00:47:12,755
Speaker 1: edition of Countdown Things. I promised not to tell the

680
00:47:12,875 --> 00:47:16,355
Speaker 1: damnedest thing about this Rona McDaniels story at NBC News.

681
00:47:17,475 --> 00:47:21,795
Speaker 1: Where are all the people threatening to quit? Hell matdow

682
00:47:21,875 --> 00:47:25,755
Speaker 1: wants threatened to quit over something? I threatened to quit twice,

683
00:47:27,075 --> 00:47:31,795
Speaker 1: at least that I remember. Joe Scarborough blackmailed his bosses twice.

684
00:47:31,835 --> 00:47:34,075
Speaker 1: Hayes refused to go on one night. And then there

685
00:47:34,115 --> 00:47:36,995
Speaker 1: was the time John McCain bullied NBC News into offering

686
00:47:37,155 --> 00:47:41,675
Speaker 1: me and was helped by Tom Brokaw A lot of

687
00:47:41,795 --> 00:47:44,115
Speaker 1: things I promised not to tell in the wake of

688
00:47:44,555 --> 00:47:48,555
Speaker 1: help Me, Rana coming up first, still more idiots to

689
00:47:48,595 --> 00:47:50,955
Speaker 1: talk about. The daily roundup of the miscrants, morons and

690
00:47:50,995 --> 00:47:55,835
Speaker 1: Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worse persons in

691
00:47:55,875 --> 00:48:00,355
Speaker 1: the world. First the Bronze Worse Rhys Davis, one of

692
00:48:00,395 --> 00:48:04,555
Speaker 1: the nicest guys in sportscasting and somebody I met thirty

693
00:48:04,715 --> 00:48:07,675
Speaker 1: years ago at ESPN. And what's the one thing you

694
00:48:07,755 --> 00:48:09,795
Speaker 1: do not want? In the middle of the show, Hey

695
00:48:09,795 --> 00:48:14,075
Speaker 1: Otani Jazz and March Madness and the new thing in

696
00:48:14,115 --> 00:48:17,355
Speaker 1: the NBA with the guy from the Raptors what you

697
00:48:17,435 --> 00:48:22,475
Speaker 1: don't want? Is a controversy over sports gambling. On ESPN,

698
00:48:23,475 --> 00:48:25,475
Speaker 1: Reese Davis is doing a segment with the new face

699
00:48:25,515 --> 00:48:28,035
Speaker 1: of wagering there named Aaron Dolan, and she goes so

700
00:48:28,275 --> 00:48:30,835
Speaker 1: overboard trying to get people to bet one way and

701
00:48:30,915 --> 00:48:34,035
Speaker 1: with ESPN's betting service, by the way, suppress press that.

702
00:48:34,235 --> 00:48:36,555
Speaker 1: Reese comes back with a joke about how over the

703
00:48:36,555 --> 00:48:39,355
Speaker 1: top she is. But the joke is comparatively subtle, as

704
00:48:39,475 --> 00:48:42,835
Speaker 1: is Reese. You know, what he says. Some would call

705
00:48:42,875 --> 00:48:45,835
Speaker 1: this wagering gambling. The way you've sold this, I think

706
00:48:46,035 --> 00:48:48,995
Speaker 1: what it is is a risk free investment. That's the

707
00:48:48,995 --> 00:48:51,835
Speaker 1: way to look at it. Now. Reese Davis is so

708
00:48:51,995 --> 00:48:54,635
Speaker 1: straight laced that it's genuinely tough to tell when he's

709
00:48:54,715 --> 00:48:58,635
Speaker 1: kidding around. So the reaction was, oh God, no, he

710
00:48:58,835 --> 00:49:01,755
Speaker 1: just said a bet was a risk free investment, like

711
00:49:01,795 --> 00:49:06,755
Speaker 1: you couldn't lose. Tweeted a clarification and an apology. But

712
00:49:06,795 --> 00:49:09,195
Speaker 1: this is another one of the risks of sports gambling,

713
00:49:09,435 --> 00:49:12,275
Speaker 1: besides the whole oh yeah, now we have to ban

714
00:49:12,395 --> 00:49:15,955
Speaker 1: you from basketball for life kind of thing. Jokes about

715
00:49:15,995 --> 00:49:20,835
Speaker 1: gambling can't be funny because people who are gambling, at

716
00:49:20,915 --> 00:49:24,315
Speaker 1: least some of them, are not necessarily in full control

717
00:49:24,395 --> 00:49:29,435
Speaker 1: of their minds at that moment. By the way, two

718
00:49:29,475 --> 00:49:32,755
Speaker 1: other ESPN talent, Dan Orlovsky and Mike Greenberg, they made

719
00:49:32,755 --> 00:49:36,155
Speaker 1: a dinner bet again mentioning ESPN's betting site on Twitter

720
00:49:36,395 --> 00:49:38,955
Speaker 1: x same day, and I was flashed back to the

721
00:49:39,035 --> 00:49:40,715
Speaker 1: day the guy in charge of Sports Center in the

722
00:49:40,755 --> 00:49:43,355
Speaker 1: nineties would not let me and Dan Patrick and the

723
00:49:43,395 --> 00:49:46,955
Speaker 1: other fellas in an ESPN Fantasy Baseball league conduct our

724
00:49:47,075 --> 00:49:51,115
Speaker 1: player draft at our desks because it was too close

725
00:49:51,195 --> 00:49:54,275
Speaker 1: to the newsroom and it made him feel uncomfortable. We

726
00:49:54,355 --> 00:49:57,515
Speaker 1: had to go do it in the cafeteria. I swear

727
00:49:59,395 --> 00:50:03,355
Speaker 1: the runners up worser Jeff Yass and dishonest Jay Trump.

728
00:50:03,995 --> 00:50:06,475
Speaker 1: So now we know what happened when Yas, who owns

729
00:50:06,515 --> 00:50:08,955
Speaker 1: thirty three billion dollars worth of TikTok, met with Trump

730
00:50:09,035 --> 00:50:11,675
Speaker 1: and suddenly Trump went from having threatened to ban TikTok

731
00:50:11,715 --> 00:50:14,995
Speaker 1: within forty five days to demanding that it not be banned.

732
00:50:15,795 --> 00:50:19,115
Speaker 1: The deal to merge that holding company with Trump's Truth

733
00:50:19,315 --> 00:50:22,715
Speaker 1: Social disaster site and at minimum get him out from

734
00:50:22,755 --> 00:50:25,715
Speaker 1: under the financial sort of damicles. It represents. The biggest

735
00:50:25,755 --> 00:50:28,715
Speaker 1: institutional investor in that holding company that's going to merge

736
00:50:28,715 --> 00:50:33,075
Speaker 1: with Truth Social is Susquehanna International, which was co founded

737
00:50:33,115 --> 00:50:39,195
Speaker 1: by Jeff Yas. Always good to keep track of what

738
00:50:39,795 --> 00:50:44,595
Speaker 1: Trump has been bought with this time, but our winner

739
00:50:44,835 --> 00:50:48,995
Speaker 1: the worst Charlie Kirk. When last we heard from Balloonhead,

740
00:50:49,035 --> 00:50:52,195
Speaker 1: he was calling for live televised pay per view executions

741
00:50:52,515 --> 00:50:55,555
Speaker 1: of those trying to bring Trump to justice and forcing

742
00:50:55,635 --> 00:50:59,595
Speaker 1: kids to watch the executions. Now he wants rubber bullets,

743
00:50:59,675 --> 00:51:03,875
Speaker 1: whips and machine guns at the border. Quote, at what

744
00:51:03,995 --> 00:51:06,035
Speaker 1: point is it time to start to at least use

745
00:51:06,115 --> 00:51:08,875
Speaker 1: rubber bullets or use some sort of tear gas to

746
00:51:08,915 --> 00:51:12,475
Speaker 1: prevent this and quail this invasion? At what point do

747
00:51:12,515 --> 00:51:15,595
Speaker 1: we use real force? Why do we have a military?

748
00:51:16,075 --> 00:51:17,835
Speaker 1: Why do we have men with guns if we can't

749
00:51:17,915 --> 00:51:20,035
Speaker 1: use them? Of course you should be able to use

750
00:51:20,035 --> 00:51:25,755
Speaker 1: whips against foreigners. See, I don't know. My thought is

751
00:51:25,835 --> 00:51:29,195
Speaker 1: apart from this being country made up as a haven

752
00:51:29,555 --> 00:51:34,355
Speaker 1: for people in trouble who are fleeing other lands, apart

753
00:51:34,355 --> 00:51:38,315
Speaker 1: from the fact that everybody here is the descendant of

754
00:51:38,355 --> 00:51:41,795
Speaker 1: an immigrant. Apart from that, maybe we should never resort

755
00:51:41,875 --> 00:51:45,115
Speaker 1: to more force at the border than we used when

756
00:51:45,235 --> 00:51:48,995
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk's friends, many of whom got there thanks to

757
00:51:49,035 --> 00:51:52,675
Speaker 1: his turning point, USA attacked the capitol on January sixth,

758
00:51:53,835 --> 00:51:56,235
Speaker 1: Or we shouldn't use more force than we plan to

759
00:51:56,315 --> 00:51:59,315
Speaker 1: use when they try it again next fall and winter, whips,

760
00:51:59,475 --> 00:52:04,075
Speaker 1: rubber bullets, military with guns. And as to Charlie, Charlie,

761
00:52:04,075 --> 00:52:06,155
Speaker 1: and if you see him, you're gonna need an elephant

762
00:52:06,235 --> 00:52:10,235
Speaker 1: tranquilizer gun to bring him down with that gigantic inflated

763
00:52:10,435 --> 00:52:16,315
Speaker 1: bean of his. Kirk he is two days worst person

764
00:52:17,195 --> 00:52:33,195
Speaker 1: if he's a person in the way. Now to the

765
00:52:33,275 --> 00:52:35,795
Speaker 1: number one story on this all new edition of Countdown

766
00:52:35,835 --> 00:52:38,075
Speaker 1: and Things I promised not to tell. And in the

767
00:52:38,115 --> 00:52:41,395
Speaker 1: wake of the Rna McDaniel train wreck at MSNBC and

768
00:52:41,515 --> 00:52:46,275
Speaker 1: NBC News well train wrecks, how could the number one

769
00:52:46,355 --> 00:52:52,835
Speaker 1: story not be this long Before MSNBC staffers forced their

770
00:52:52,875 --> 00:52:56,075
Speaker 1: networks chief to guarantee them they would never have to

771
00:52:56,075 --> 00:52:59,875
Speaker 1: put Rana McDaniel on their shows, there were at least

772
00:53:00,075 --> 00:53:04,515
Speaker 1: six incidents in which on air talent at MSNBC stood

773
00:53:04,555 --> 00:53:09,115
Speaker 1: up Ben said no and no it was These were

774
00:53:09,155 --> 00:53:13,555
Speaker 1: not always good things, but they underscore a reality management

775
00:53:13,795 --> 00:53:17,515
Speaker 1: cannot get away with everything, and it is often incumbent

776
00:53:18,115 --> 00:53:22,875
Speaker 1: upon talent to make sure that is the case. I'll

777
00:53:22,875 --> 00:53:24,915
Speaker 1: get through the two times I threatened to quick as

778
00:53:24,995 --> 00:53:26,955
Speaker 1: quickly as I can. I got back to MSNBC. In

779
00:53:26,955 --> 00:53:30,835
Speaker 1: two thousand and three, as NBC tried to swing MSNBC

780
00:53:30,915 --> 00:53:34,275
Speaker 1: to the hard right right of Fox, it put on

781
00:53:34,355 --> 00:53:37,795
Speaker 1: the disgusting radio host Michael Savage. Gave him a weekend

782
00:53:37,835 --> 00:53:40,235
Speaker 1: show that was an audition for a weeknight show, and

783
00:53:40,275 --> 00:53:42,515
Speaker 1: of course he couldn't resist telling a caller he was

784
00:53:42,555 --> 00:53:45,635
Speaker 1: a sodomite and should get AIDS. And they got fired.

785
00:53:46,195 --> 00:53:49,675
Speaker 1: But before that, they had guaranteed me upon my return

786
00:53:49,755 --> 00:53:52,675
Speaker 1: that the one thing that would never appear in Countdown

787
00:53:52,915 --> 00:53:58,115
Speaker 1: was a Michael Savage segment. Sure enough, one day, just

788
00:53:58,195 --> 00:54:00,155
Speaker 1: weeks into the show, I come in and there in

789
00:54:00,195 --> 00:54:04,075
Speaker 1: the rundout of my show page, like C eleven or something,

790
00:54:04,675 --> 00:54:09,555
Speaker 1: Michael Savage commentary. Three minutes within moments, the executive producer

791
00:54:09,555 --> 00:54:12,075
Speaker 1: of the show came in and said the Savage commentary

792
00:54:12,195 --> 00:54:14,515
Speaker 1: was running, whether I liked it or not, and that

793
00:54:14,515 --> 00:54:17,235
Speaker 1: the executive who had guaranteed to me that this would

794
00:54:17,275 --> 00:54:21,355
Speaker 1: never happen, Phil Griffin, was traveling, so I couldn't complain

795
00:54:21,395 --> 00:54:24,035
Speaker 1: to him, and that was it, and he left. So

796
00:54:24,235 --> 00:54:26,435
Speaker 1: I called my agent and I said to her, very calmly,

797
00:54:27,475 --> 00:54:29,155
Speaker 1: I have no choice here. I got to quit, right,

798
00:54:29,515 --> 00:54:32,235
Speaker 1: And she said, and she had just spent seven weeks

799
00:54:32,315 --> 00:54:35,035
Speaker 1: negotiating the new contract by which I returned to the

800
00:54:35,075 --> 00:54:38,515
Speaker 1: place I had left five years earlier. She said, yeah,

801
00:54:38,595 --> 00:54:43,195
Speaker 1: you have to quit immediately, but call Phil first. And

802
00:54:43,275 --> 00:54:46,155
Speaker 1: I called Phil's office, and just as the executive producer said,

803
00:54:46,155 --> 00:54:48,595
Speaker 1: he was not there. So I told his assistant, Well,

804
00:54:48,635 --> 00:54:50,195
Speaker 1: I don't want to dump this problem on you, but

805
00:54:50,235 --> 00:54:52,795
Speaker 1: you should find him so he can decide who's doing

806
00:54:52,835 --> 00:54:55,995
Speaker 1: Countdown tonight, because if there's a Michael Savage commentary running

807
00:54:55,995 --> 00:54:59,475
Speaker 1: in it, I'm not doing Countdown tonight. In fact, this

808
00:54:59,555 --> 00:55:01,795
Speaker 1: is the sound of me calling a cab right now.

809
00:55:02,995 --> 00:55:07,275
Speaker 1: Amazingly enough, Phil Griffin called five minutes later and said, okay,

810
00:55:07,315 --> 00:55:09,195
Speaker 1: we won't run it. We won't run it, but you

811
00:55:09,275 --> 00:55:11,435
Speaker 1: got to find me some non political reason to not

812
00:55:11,555 --> 00:55:14,955
Speaker 1: run it. So I went along with his little game.

813
00:55:14,995 --> 00:55:17,275
Speaker 1: And I looked at the commentary and the guy was

814
00:55:17,435 --> 00:55:21,715
Speaker 1: dressed head to toe in brown, and he kept repeating himself.

815
00:55:21,875 --> 00:55:23,675
Speaker 1: And I called Phil and they told him that, and

816
00:55:23,675 --> 00:55:26,035
Speaker 1: Phil said, look good enough, we'll just put it in

817
00:55:26,035 --> 00:55:30,915
Speaker 1: Scarborough's show. The other one I've told many times. It's

818
00:55:30,955 --> 00:55:33,435
Speaker 1: early two thousand and eight. Now, five years later, and

819
00:55:33,435 --> 00:55:35,795
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get them to let me have somebody

820
00:55:35,795 --> 00:55:40,195
Speaker 1: that Phil Griffin had fired Rachel Maddow, guest host Countdown.

821
00:55:40,875 --> 00:55:42,955
Speaker 1: I have gotten them to the point where they have

822
00:55:43,035 --> 00:55:45,995
Speaker 1: told me they have hired her as an MSNBC contributor

823
00:55:46,155 --> 00:55:50,715
Speaker 1: for fifty thousand dollars a year for comparison Ronald McDaniel

824
00:55:50,755 --> 00:55:54,795
Speaker 1: got three hundred thousand. Except one night I discovered they've

825
00:55:54,875 --> 00:55:58,195
Speaker 1: lied to me. They have not hired her. She was

826
00:55:58,235 --> 00:56:02,475
Speaker 1: still working for free. And that night was a primary night.

827
00:56:02,755 --> 00:56:04,675
Speaker 1: And I looked down at our rundown of the prime

828
00:56:04,675 --> 00:56:08,835
Speaker 1: imary coverage Republicans and Democrats, and there's no Rachel. And

829
00:56:08,875 --> 00:56:11,075
Speaker 1: I asked the executive producer who took over after I

830
00:56:11,075 --> 00:56:13,995
Speaker 1: got the first executive producer fired. Why not? She says, Well,

831
00:56:14,395 --> 00:56:17,555
Speaker 1: Rachel ran out of cash, so when Larry King offered

832
00:56:17,555 --> 00:56:19,475
Speaker 1: her two hundred and fifty dollars to go on his

833
00:56:19,555 --> 00:56:23,235
Speaker 1: show tonight on CNN, she had to take it. I'm sorry.

834
00:56:23,675 --> 00:56:25,875
Speaker 1: So now I have to call her and apologize and

835
00:56:25,915 --> 00:56:28,155
Speaker 1: offer her all the cash in my wallet except the

836
00:56:28,195 --> 00:56:30,355
Speaker 1: five bucks I'm saving for the tip for the driver

837
00:56:30,515 --> 00:56:33,995
Speaker 1: that night. And Rachel says okay. And I literally hire

838
00:56:34,035 --> 00:56:36,395
Speaker 1: her for MSNBC out of my own pocket for four

839
00:56:36,475 --> 00:56:38,715
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven dollars. And I call Phil Griffin

840
00:56:38,755 --> 00:56:42,395
Speaker 1: and I say, you lied to me again. So now

841
00:56:42,435 --> 00:56:45,275
Speaker 1: here's the deal. You get her the fifty K you

842
00:56:45,395 --> 00:56:48,475
Speaker 1: told me you gave her, and you make her a contributor.

843
00:56:48,475 --> 00:56:51,955
Speaker 1: And if you don't I'll be walking out in the

844
00:56:51,955 --> 00:56:55,155
Speaker 1: middle of the primary coverage tonight, or maybe in the

845
00:56:55,155 --> 00:56:58,155
Speaker 1: middle of my show tomorrow night. You'll never know when.

846
00:56:59,275 --> 00:57:02,195
Speaker 1: Do you know how fast they can draw up a contract?

847
00:57:03,355 --> 00:57:06,155
Speaker 1: Rachel had Hers. I think that night at latest the

848
00:57:06,155 --> 00:57:11,835
Speaker 1: next morning. The other small ticket talent victory was on

849
00:57:11,875 --> 00:57:13,475
Speaker 1: my behalf, but I had nothing to do with it.

850
00:57:13,795 --> 00:57:18,075
Speaker 1: On the day, NBC suspended me for making donations to

851
00:57:18,195 --> 00:57:22,275
Speaker 1: three Democratic candidates in twenty ten because that violated NBC

852
00:57:22,355 --> 00:57:25,555
Speaker 1: News employee rules, even though they had drawn up a

853
00:57:25,635 --> 00:57:29,235
Speaker 1: contract that specified several different times that I was not

854
00:57:29,435 --> 00:57:32,355
Speaker 1: an NBC News employee and subject to none of the

855
00:57:32,435 --> 00:57:35,475
Speaker 1: rules or the benefits of being an NBC News employee,

856
00:57:35,635 --> 00:57:38,435
Speaker 1: and they wound up having to rescind the suspension and

857
00:57:38,555 --> 00:57:41,395
Speaker 1: pay me anyway, and having to negotiate a settlement with

858
00:57:41,435 --> 00:57:43,715
Speaker 1: me because what they had done was preach my contract,

859
00:57:44,155 --> 00:57:47,595
Speaker 1: which was ultimately when I left in twenty eleven. That

860
00:57:47,955 --> 00:57:52,475
Speaker 1: night it went down and in four hours, two hundred

861
00:57:52,475 --> 00:57:56,995
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people signed an online petition demanding my reinstatement.

862
00:57:57,755 --> 00:58:01,355
Speaker 1: NBC asked Chris Hayes, who was then just getting started

863
00:58:01,395 --> 00:58:05,075
Speaker 1: as my new fill in and spinoff show candidate. After

864
00:58:05,355 --> 00:58:08,595
Speaker 1: Matdow and Lawrence O'Donnell, they asked Chris to do countdown

865
00:58:08,595 --> 00:58:12,155
Speaker 1: and he said no. I've had my differences with Chris

866
00:58:12,195 --> 00:58:15,635
Speaker 1: since then, but given that if he had a contract

867
00:58:15,635 --> 00:58:17,555
Speaker 1: at that point, it could not have been for more

868
00:58:17,955 --> 00:58:20,915
Speaker 1: than the fifty k they sort of gave Rachel three

869
00:58:20,995 --> 00:58:25,475
Speaker 1: years earlier. Saying no was ballsy, courageous, and principle. Again.

870
00:58:25,715 --> 00:58:28,795
Speaker 1: Standing up to management, however, is not necessarily a weapon

871
00:58:29,035 --> 00:58:32,235
Speaker 1: that can only be used by the righteous. At the

872
00:58:32,275 --> 00:58:35,475
Speaker 1: height of the Roni McDaniel thing, I saw Steve Schmidt

873
00:58:35,475 --> 00:58:39,235
Speaker 1: ask rhetorically what would Tom Brokaw have done? And the

874
00:58:39,315 --> 00:58:41,955
Speaker 1: answer would have been he would have done whatever was

875
00:58:41,995 --> 00:58:45,795
Speaker 1: best for Tom Brokaw. In August two thousand and eight,

876
00:58:45,835 --> 00:58:47,955
Speaker 1: there was a story coming out of the NBC News

877
00:58:47,995 --> 00:58:50,995
Speaker 1: management end of the third floor at thirty Rock that

878
00:58:51,075 --> 00:58:56,435
Speaker 1: a Republican goon with extra chins named Ed Gillespie had

879
00:58:56,475 --> 00:59:00,115
Speaker 1: been in there with Phil Griffin and the president of

880
00:59:00,195 --> 00:59:04,835
Speaker 1: NBC News, Steve Campus, trying to get me silenced, were

881
00:59:04,915 --> 00:59:09,235
Speaker 1: fired or off the convention coverage or something. They didn't

882
00:59:09,355 --> 00:59:12,675
Speaker 1: like Chris Matthews, but it was me they wanted fired,

883
00:59:13,435 --> 00:59:17,315
Speaker 1: and the story was that somebody prominent from NBC News

884
00:59:17,395 --> 00:59:22,035
Speaker 1: was in there with Gillespie or was invoked by Gillespie.

885
00:59:22,075 --> 00:59:26,195
Speaker 1: The rumor mill was not certain. And then on September fifth,

886
00:59:26,235 --> 00:59:29,675
Speaker 1: I found out without as much as a meeting, NBC

887
00:59:29,835 --> 00:59:32,915
Speaker 1: ordered me and Chris Matthews off the coverage of the

888
00:59:33,035 --> 00:59:38,315
Speaker 1: upcoming presidential debates between McCain and Obama. Within twelve hours,

889
00:59:38,355 --> 00:59:41,115
Speaker 1: my agent had the complete story and with it the

890
00:59:41,155 --> 00:59:45,115
Speaker 1: identity of which prominent NBC news guy had been in

891
00:59:45,155 --> 00:59:48,795
Speaker 1: there with the Republican Party hack. Within three weeks that

892
00:59:48,955 --> 00:59:52,555
Speaker 1: NBC News guy was boasting about being in there. On

893
00:59:52,595 --> 00:59:56,715
Speaker 1: September twenty ninth, a lengthy and glowing profile appeared in

894
00:59:56,755 --> 01:00:02,435
Speaker 1: The New York Times of Tom Brokaw. Quote. Mister Brokaw

895
01:00:02,515 --> 01:00:05,555
Speaker 1: said that over the summer he had advocated within the

896
01:00:05,635 --> 01:00:09,395
Speaker 1: executive suite of NBC News to modify the anchor duties

897
01:00:09,435 --> 01:00:12,355
Speaker 1: of the MSNBC hosts Keith Olberman and Chris Matthews on

898
01:00:12,395 --> 01:00:18,315
Speaker 1: election night and on nights when there were presidential debates. Unquote.

899
01:00:18,515 --> 01:00:21,955
Speaker 1: This was especially odd because twice during the primary season,

900
01:00:22,155 --> 01:00:24,795
Speaker 1: Brokaw had sent me emails that were so flattering that

901
01:00:24,835 --> 01:00:26,795
Speaker 1: I printed them out cut them up and stuck them

902
01:00:26,835 --> 01:00:29,475
Speaker 1: in my wallet about how well I had balanced the

903
01:00:29,875 --> 01:00:32,995
Speaker 1: commentary part of my job with the anchoring Primary night

904
01:00:33,075 --> 01:00:36,555
Speaker 1: part of my job. Well, that all changed after Tim

905
01:00:36,635 --> 01:00:39,155
Speaker 1: Russert died and suddenly Tom Brokaw was to be the

906
01:00:39,155 --> 01:00:42,475
Speaker 1: moderator of the NBC debate in the debate cycle of

907
01:00:42,515 --> 01:00:45,755
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight presidential election to resume from

908
01:00:45,755 --> 01:00:48,475
Speaker 1: this Times piece. This is how we all found out

909
01:00:48,475 --> 01:00:53,475
Speaker 1: what Brokaw did. He boasted about it quote. Mister Brokaw

910
01:00:53,635 --> 01:00:57,395
Speaker 1: said he had also conducted some shuttle diplomacy in recent

911
01:00:57,435 --> 01:01:01,435
Speaker 1: weeks between NBC and the McCain campaign. His mission, he said,

912
01:01:01,515 --> 01:01:05,555
Speaker 1: was to assure the candidate's aids that despite some negative

913
01:01:05,675 --> 01:01:09,515
Speaker 1: on air commentary by mister Olderman in particular, mister McCain

914
01:01:09,595 --> 01:01:13,635
Speaker 1: could still get a fair shake from NBC News. Mister

915
01:01:13,715 --> 01:01:16,155
Speaker 1: Brocaw said he had been told by a senior McCain

916
01:01:16,275 --> 01:01:20,475
Speaker 1: aide whom he did not name. It was Ed Gillespie,

917
01:01:21,635 --> 01:01:24,355
Speaker 1: that the campaign had been reluctant to accept an NBC

918
01:01:24,515 --> 01:01:27,315
Speaker 1: representative as one of the moderators of the three presidential

919
01:01:27,315 --> 01:01:32,195
Speaker 1: debates until his name was invoked. One of the things

920
01:01:32,235 --> 01:01:34,235
Speaker 1: I was told by this person was that. They were

921
01:01:34,275 --> 01:01:38,875
Speaker 1: so irritated they said, if it's an NBC moderator for

922
01:01:38,995 --> 01:01:42,355
Speaker 1: any of these debates, we won't go. Mister Brocaw said,

923
01:01:42,755 --> 01:01:44,915
Speaker 1: my name came up, and they said, oh, hell, I

924
01:01:44,995 --> 01:01:47,035
Speaker 1: have to do it because it's going to be Brokaw.

925
01:01:48,075 --> 01:01:50,755
Speaker 1: This is not me quoting Tom Brokaw. This is The

926
01:01:50,755 --> 01:01:53,395
Speaker 1: New York Times quoting Tom Brokaw. And in one part

927
01:01:53,435 --> 01:01:58,155
Speaker 1: of this it's Tom Brokaw quoting Tom Brokaw. Translation, the

928
01:01:58,275 --> 01:02:01,555
Speaker 1: GOP said, if Brokaw did not get me and Matthews

929
01:02:01,595 --> 01:02:06,275
Speaker 1: bounced from the MSNBC coverage of all the John McCain

930
01:02:06,835 --> 01:02:10,715
Speaker 1: would not show up for Brocaus debate. So Brocaw went

931
01:02:10,795 --> 01:02:15,235
Speaker 1: in and blackmailed his own bosses. Okay, so now back

932
01:02:15,275 --> 01:02:18,595
Speaker 1: to a righteous bit of talent power at MSNBC. The

933
01:02:18,635 --> 01:02:22,155
Speaker 1: next June two thousand and nine, Fox put huge pressure

934
01:02:22,195 --> 01:02:26,475
Speaker 1: on MSNBC and NBC News and the parent corporation GE

935
01:02:26,875 --> 01:02:31,475
Speaker 1: and NBC's network, and especially the chairman of GE, Jeff Immelt.

936
01:02:31,915 --> 01:02:36,395
Speaker 1: The goal was to silence my on air stories about Fox,

937
01:02:36,795 --> 01:02:41,115
Speaker 1: and especially about Bill O'Reilly. The wild card here was

938
01:02:41,675 --> 01:02:45,955
Speaker 1: this chairman Jeff Immelt. His mother was a fan of

939
01:02:45,995 --> 01:02:49,435
Speaker 1: Bill O'Reilly's watched the show nightly and she heard all

940
01:02:49,475 --> 01:02:52,515
Speaker 1: the stuff about her son and ge so she called

941
01:02:52,555 --> 01:02:55,195
Speaker 1: him up and yelled at him. So the chairman of

942
01:02:55,235 --> 01:02:59,515
Speaker 1: the sixth largest corporation in the world had to do

943
01:02:59,595 --> 01:03:04,475
Speaker 1: something so his ninety something mother would not yell at

944
01:03:04,555 --> 01:03:10,515
Speaker 1: him him again. All of us were hastily summoned that

945
01:03:10,635 --> 01:03:14,995
Speaker 1: day to Jeff Zucker's office. He was president of NBC

946
01:03:15,235 --> 01:03:18,555
Speaker 1: at that point. He told us that Emmelt had told

947
01:03:18,635 --> 01:03:21,475
Speaker 1: him that if there were any more anti Fox stories

948
01:03:21,475 --> 01:03:25,355
Speaker 1: on MSNBC, he Emmelt would simply shut the network off

949
01:03:25,755 --> 01:03:29,515
Speaker 1: and fire everybody. I thought about all the money they'd

950
01:03:29,555 --> 01:03:31,155
Speaker 1: have to pay me and all the work I wouldn't

951
01:03:31,235 --> 01:03:33,515
Speaker 1: have to do, and thought for a second, Hey, that's

952
01:03:33,555 --> 01:03:35,595
Speaker 1: a great idea, and then I thought better of it.

953
01:03:36,555 --> 01:03:38,755
Speaker 1: Zucker asked me what to do, and I said, well,

954
01:03:38,955 --> 01:03:41,555
Speaker 1: I don't know about long term here, but I would

955
01:03:41,555 --> 01:03:44,635
Speaker 1: suggest that for a while, like a few weeks, maybe

956
01:03:45,075 --> 01:03:49,635
Speaker 1: we say, shouldn't do any anti Fox stories until we

957
01:03:49,715 --> 01:03:52,955
Speaker 1: figure out how we can do it safely. Zucker looked

958
01:03:52,955 --> 01:03:55,315
Speaker 1: at me and nodded. He pointed at Phil Griffin and

959
01:03:55,355 --> 01:03:57,155
Speaker 1: my producer and me and he said, you and you

960
01:03:57,235 --> 01:03:59,475
Speaker 1: and you and I will talk tonight or tomorrow, and

961
01:03:59,475 --> 01:04:01,955
Speaker 1: we'll all meet again next week. Until then, nothing about Fox.

962
01:04:02,115 --> 01:04:07,155
Speaker 1: We clear, nothing Silent. There were the assorted noises of

963
01:04:07,195 --> 01:04:12,835
Speaker 1: people rising, producers for Hardball and Rachel's show and my show,

964
01:04:12,915 --> 01:04:16,675
Speaker 1: and Ed Schultz's show and some of the daytime shows.

965
01:04:17,035 --> 01:04:20,715
Speaker 1: And I was almost at the door of Zucker's office,

966
01:04:20,795 --> 01:04:23,195
Speaker 1: which was an office so big that it was, to

967
01:04:23,315 --> 01:04:26,515
Speaker 1: steal the line from the Great Ring Lardner, the size

968
01:04:26,515 --> 01:04:31,355
Speaker 1: of the Yale Bowl, only with lamps. And then a

969
01:04:31,475 --> 01:04:36,795
Speaker 1: voice spoke up, quietly but firmly in the silence. Excuse me.

970
01:04:37,875 --> 01:04:42,035
Speaker 1: It was Rachel Maddow. Excuse me. I will not have

971
01:04:42,115 --> 01:04:47,035
Speaker 1: the content of my show dictated by any corporations, including

972
01:04:47,235 --> 01:04:50,955
Speaker 1: the one I work for. Now. Remember this is June

973
01:04:50,955 --> 01:04:53,595
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. She's only been on the air

974
01:04:53,755 --> 01:04:57,875
Speaker 1: like ten months, and she still felt that way then,

975
01:04:58,555 --> 01:05:02,395
Speaker 1: and especially a corporation I don't work for. I'll walk

976
01:05:02,435 --> 01:05:05,195
Speaker 1: out first. I cannot have the audience wondering what else

977
01:05:05,235 --> 01:05:07,515
Speaker 1: I have not told them. I don't do a lot

978
01:05:07,555 --> 01:05:09,395
Speaker 1: about Fox on my show, but if there's a story

979
01:05:09,395 --> 01:05:13,275
Speaker 1: about Fox, I will not honor this freeze I will

980
01:05:13,315 --> 01:05:16,235
Speaker 1: report that story, and if I am prevented from doing so,

981
01:05:16,515 --> 01:05:20,475
Speaker 1: I will leave this place. Whereupon she left that place,

982
01:05:21,475 --> 01:05:25,395
Speaker 1: just the room. When she was gone, Jeff Zucker exploded

983
01:05:25,435 --> 01:05:27,395
Speaker 1: at me. I told you she was a mistake. You

984
01:05:27,395 --> 01:05:30,915
Speaker 1: didn't listen to me. I told you. Now she's your problem. Oh,

985
01:05:31,035 --> 01:05:33,475
Speaker 1: this is your problem. Get her back on the reservation

986
01:05:33,675 --> 01:05:36,995
Speaker 1: or else. I said a few kind words about Jeff

987
01:05:37,115 --> 01:05:40,795
Speaker 1: Mmel's mother, who was really running the network apparently, and

988
01:05:40,835 --> 01:05:43,755
Speaker 1: they separated us. And then in the elevator, my producer said,

989
01:05:43,955 --> 01:05:46,315
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do about Rachel? And I said

990
01:05:46,435 --> 01:05:48,915
Speaker 1: the f if I know, I said, I did have

991
01:05:48,955 --> 01:05:51,555
Speaker 1: an idea. I said. The only person she was talking

992
01:05:51,555 --> 01:05:54,675
Speaker 1: to in there was herself. This was not some sort

993
01:05:54,715 --> 01:05:58,875
Speaker 1: of brand new surprise for her anymore. The show was successful.

994
01:05:59,195 --> 01:06:02,675
Speaker 1: She was successful. She said, she was a dancing cell

995
01:06:02,715 --> 01:06:05,395
Speaker 1: phone outside a cell phone store one on. She's not

996
01:06:05,475 --> 01:06:08,795
Speaker 1: going back to that voluntarily. So I went in to

997
01:06:08,875 --> 01:06:11,275
Speaker 1: talk to Rachel about an hour later, and I reassured her.

998
01:06:11,315 --> 01:06:14,315
Speaker 1: I said, just give me as much time as the

999
01:06:14,355 --> 01:06:19,395
Speaker 1: French government took before fleeing during the Nazi advance in

1000
01:06:19,515 --> 01:06:22,115
Speaker 1: nineteen forty. I said, give me what was it thirty

1001
01:06:22,275 --> 01:06:25,475
Speaker 1: three days? Give me thirty three days. If we aren't

1002
01:06:25,515 --> 01:06:28,795
Speaker 1: back where we were this morning, we can both quit

1003
01:06:29,435 --> 01:06:33,755
Speaker 1: live on the air together, or I'll quit. They'll start

1004
01:06:33,795 --> 01:06:39,115
Speaker 1: your show early and then you can quit. That'd be fun, huh.

1005
01:06:39,475 --> 01:06:43,155
Speaker 1: Three nights later, well after midnight on a Friday, my

1006
01:06:43,435 --> 01:06:48,995
Speaker 1: NBC issue BlackBerry buzzed with a quick email from Rachel

1007
01:06:49,035 --> 01:06:52,675
Speaker 1: matdow Hey. She wrote, don't necessarily quote me because I'm

1008
01:06:52,675 --> 01:06:55,355
Speaker 1: really drunk, but just make the best deal you can

1009
01:06:55,435 --> 01:06:57,435
Speaker 1: for us. I trust you. We don't need to do

1010
01:06:57,515 --> 01:06:59,875
Speaker 1: Fox all the time. I never do Fox stories anyway.

1011
01:06:59,995 --> 01:07:02,155
Speaker 1: I just had to say that in the meeting, and

1012
01:07:02,195 --> 01:07:07,355
Speaker 1: this is the best platform we'll ever have eventually, between

1013
01:07:07,435 --> 01:07:10,915
Speaker 1: Rachel being the bad cop and me being the good cop.

1014
01:07:10,995 --> 01:07:12,915
Speaker 1: And I know you're not used to me in that role.

1015
01:07:13,275 --> 01:07:18,395
Speaker 1: We overrode the ban on criticizing Fox. Sadly, the master

1016
01:07:18,555 --> 01:07:21,275
Speaker 1: of threatening management at NBC does not do it for

1017
01:07:21,395 --> 01:07:24,835
Speaker 1: good or for fairness. He does it for himself. Joey

1018
01:07:24,915 --> 01:07:29,995
Speaker 1: Scars Joe Scarborough, you know who he is. He's the

1019
01:07:30,075 --> 01:07:35,795
Speaker 1: conservative turned liberal at the moment, maybe because Trump wouldn't

1020
01:07:35,795 --> 01:07:38,755
Speaker 1: take him as his vice president. In twenty sixteen, but

1021
01:07:38,795 --> 01:07:41,835
Speaker 1: I'm sure this is the way he really feels at

1022
01:07:41,835 --> 01:07:48,835
Speaker 1: the moment. Early in January twenty ten, the Republican candidate

1023
01:07:48,875 --> 01:07:51,795
Speaker 1: to fill the Senate seat of the late Senator Ted Kennedy,

1024
01:07:52,115 --> 01:07:57,955
Speaker 1: Scott Brown, literally a former nude model, was at a

1025
01:07:58,075 --> 01:08:02,635
Speaker 1: rally when one of his supporters talked about quote shoving

1026
01:08:02,755 --> 01:08:06,275
Speaker 1: a curling iron up the back side of the Democratic

1027
01:08:06,315 --> 01:08:10,675
Speaker 1: candidate he was running against, Martha Cochley. Scott Brown clearly

1028
01:08:10,715 --> 01:08:13,475
Speaker 1: heard the remark, and he responded, quote, we could do that.

1029
01:08:14,595 --> 01:08:17,355
Speaker 1: So on January eighteenth, on Countdown, I did a brief

1030
01:08:17,355 --> 01:08:20,915
Speaker 1: commentary about how unsuitable Brown was for public office, and

1031
01:08:20,955 --> 01:08:23,195
Speaker 1: this was another example of it. I said he was

1032
01:08:23,355 --> 01:08:30,115
Speaker 1: quoting an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary x nude model, t bagging,

1033
01:08:30,235 --> 01:08:33,835
Speaker 1: supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom

1034
01:08:33,835 --> 01:08:38,115
Speaker 1: he disagrees unquote. I followed that with quotes from Brown

1035
01:08:38,195 --> 01:08:41,755
Speaker 1: and videotape of him disparaging his minority opponent in a

1036
01:08:41,795 --> 01:08:45,395
Speaker 1: local election to her face at a debate some years earlier,

1037
01:08:45,435 --> 01:08:48,915
Speaker 1: to back up my point of view. One hour later,

1038
01:08:49,035 --> 01:08:53,635
Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough did a tweet storm about me. Quote Olderman

1039
01:08:53,755 --> 01:08:58,795
Speaker 1: calls Brown a homophobic, racist, reactionary who supports violence against women.

1040
01:08:59,115 --> 01:09:03,715
Speaker 1: How reckless and how sad Joe left out. How true

1041
01:09:04,235 --> 01:09:06,715
Speaker 1: It is no longer enough to simply disagree with someone,

1042
01:09:07,155 --> 01:09:09,875
Speaker 1: just as when Beck called the President racist, this sort

1043
01:09:09,875 --> 01:09:13,235
Speaker 1: of rhetorical extreme as it must be discouraged. It cheapens

1044
01:09:13,235 --> 01:09:17,075
Speaker 1: the debate end quote. As we all know. If anybody

1045
01:09:17,075 --> 01:09:21,395
Speaker 1: as an expert on cheapening the debate, it's Joe effing Scarborough.

1046
01:09:22,235 --> 01:09:24,755
Speaker 1: But back to the point of this, there was a

1047
01:09:24,835 --> 01:09:28,275
Speaker 1: standing rule at MSNBC. If you want to criticize another

1048
01:09:28,395 --> 01:09:34,355
Speaker 1: MSNBC personality, go ahead, have a blast, but it can

1049
01:09:34,395 --> 01:09:38,715
Speaker 1: only be done on the air on MSNBC, and that

1050
01:09:39,035 --> 01:09:42,515
Speaker 1: other person must have an opportunity to reply in real time,

1051
01:09:43,115 --> 01:09:46,075
Speaker 1: same show, or in some face to face way. No

1052
01:09:46,315 --> 01:09:50,275
Speaker 1: hit and run, no tweet storms. If you criticize them

1053
01:09:50,275 --> 01:09:52,955
Speaker 1: by name or by inference in any other medium, in

1054
01:09:52,995 --> 01:09:56,795
Speaker 1: a newspaper, interview, on radio, on social media, you were

1055
01:09:56,875 --> 01:10:01,955
Speaker 1: to receive an automatic suspension. The only question was how long.

1056
01:10:02,755 --> 01:10:05,275
Speaker 1: So the next day, the nineteenth of January, called the

1057
01:10:05,315 --> 01:10:10,035
Speaker 1: now president of MSNBC, Phil Backbone of Jelly Griffin, and

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01:10:10,115 --> 01:10:12,955
Speaker 1: I asked him how long Scarborough's suspension was going to be.

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01:10:13,755 --> 01:10:16,115
Speaker 1: He asked me to come into his office. He said

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01:10:16,155 --> 01:10:18,395
Speaker 1: he'd already had a meeting about the tweets that morning

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01:10:18,435 --> 01:10:26,035
Speaker 1: with Scarborough's executive producer, Chris Licked. Remember Chris lickt Griffin

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01:10:26,075 --> 01:10:30,875
Speaker 1: explained that Scarborough considered Scott Brown a friend. More importantly,

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01:10:30,915 --> 01:10:33,835
Speaker 1: Licked had warned Griffin that if Griffin followed through and

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01:10:34,035 --> 01:10:37,835
Speaker 1: enforced the suspension rule, Scarborough would have no other option

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01:10:37,955 --> 01:10:41,955
Speaker 1: than to go to the media and tell reporters, especially

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01:10:42,035 --> 01:10:46,675
Speaker 1: reporters at right wing websites like Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller,

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01:10:47,435 --> 01:10:50,275
Speaker 1: to tell them that he had been suspended because he

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01:10:50,435 --> 01:10:54,155
Speaker 1: was a conservative and I was a liberal. Not that

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01:10:54,235 --> 01:10:56,635
Speaker 1: it was the rules, but because he was a conservative

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01:10:56,635 --> 01:10:58,555
Speaker 1: and I was a liberal, and I and not Phil

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01:10:58,595 --> 01:11:05,395
Speaker 1: Griffin actually ran MSNBC what can I do? Griffin was scared. Scared.

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01:11:05,875 --> 01:11:07,675
Speaker 1: I told him this was his big chance. He could

1073
01:11:07,715 --> 01:11:11,555
Speaker 1: fire Scarborough and Licked they'd just gone into blackmail them. Eventually,

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01:11:11,595 --> 01:11:14,115
Speaker 1: he was going to have to fire them anyway. But

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01:11:14,275 --> 01:11:16,275
Speaker 1: I also said, I know you're not going to do that,

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01:11:16,715 --> 01:11:18,875
Speaker 1: and I know you're not going to suspend Scarborough either,

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01:11:19,275 --> 01:11:24,075
Speaker 1: And he didn't despite the rule. But Griffin did send

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01:11:24,155 --> 01:11:28,435
Speaker 1: out a strongly worded memo to the entire company, insisting

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01:11:28,435 --> 01:11:32,035
Speaker 1: that anybody who criticized another MSNBC show or host in

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01:11:32,115 --> 01:11:37,795
Speaker 1: another medium would be suspended from now on, except Scarborough,

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01:11:38,475 --> 01:11:42,035
Speaker 1: who had just done exactly that and threatened his employers.

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01:11:44,115 --> 01:11:47,715
Speaker 1: Weeks later, just before my birthday, In fact, Brian Stelter's

1083
01:11:47,755 --> 01:11:51,955
Speaker 1: old blog TV newser got a copy of Griffin's memo.

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01:11:52,155 --> 01:11:55,715
Speaker 1: I didn't send it to him. They wondered why Scarborough

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01:11:55,795 --> 01:11:58,155
Speaker 1: had not been suspended, since he'd done exactly what was

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01:11:58,155 --> 01:12:01,715
Speaker 1: described in the memo, so they called the MSNBC president

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01:12:01,755 --> 01:12:04,755
Speaker 1: and then they printed quote Griffin responds to t V

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01:12:04,915 --> 01:12:07,915
Speaker 1: News quote an important rule was broken. I spoke to

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01:12:07,995 --> 01:12:11,155
Speaker 1: Keith and he said, in the spirit of teamwork and

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01:12:11,195 --> 01:12:14,315
Speaker 1: the free flow of ideas, he didn't think it warranted

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01:12:14,315 --> 01:12:19,435
Speaker 1: punishment or suspension. Now when have I ever been accused

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01:12:19,595 --> 01:12:24,635
Speaker 1: of the spirit of teamwork quote? I also talked to

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01:12:24,715 --> 01:12:28,795
Speaker 1: Joe and he apologized to me. That's why I made

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01:12:28,835 --> 01:12:31,315
Speaker 1: the decision that this didn't rise to the level of punishment,

1095
01:12:31,355 --> 01:12:34,115
Speaker 1: but I felt it was necessary to reiterate my long

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01:12:34,195 --> 01:12:40,475
Speaker 1: standing policy one hundred percent bulkrap total fabrication licked and

1097
01:12:40,515 --> 01:12:43,515
Speaker 1: Scarborough had blackmailed their own boss with a threat to

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01:12:43,555 --> 01:12:47,435
Speaker 1: smear them and me to Tucker Carlson, who we had

1099
01:12:47,515 --> 01:12:51,275
Speaker 1: fired two years earlier, into the right wing echo chamber.

1100
01:12:52,835 --> 01:12:55,875
Speaker 1: They all should have been fired on the spot, Griffin included.

1101
01:12:57,235 --> 01:13:00,195
Speaker 1: Emboldened by that win, about three months later, Scarborough said

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01:13:00,235 --> 01:13:02,195
Speaker 1: something on the air about a Democrat getting away with

1103
01:13:02,235 --> 01:13:05,315
Speaker 1: not being investigated for something, which is what his show

1104
01:13:05,435 --> 01:13:08,555
Speaker 1: used to be one hundred percent of the time until

1105
01:13:08,555 --> 01:13:12,475
Speaker 1: Trump turned him down. It was Marcos Malitzus, the editor

1106
01:13:12,515 --> 01:13:15,875
Speaker 1: of the Daily Cohost website, not just a regular contributor

1107
01:13:15,915 --> 01:13:19,755
Speaker 1: to Countdown, but somebody who had been promoting the MSNBC

1108
01:13:19,955 --> 01:13:24,475
Speaker 1: brand and my show and Rachel on that website for

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01:13:24,635 --> 01:13:29,155
Speaker 1: five years. Marcos sent a snarky but legitimate tweet questioning

1110
01:13:29,195 --> 01:13:34,115
Speaker 1: Scarborough's credentials to criticize others who were not investigated. Marcos

1111
01:13:34,155 --> 01:13:37,315
Speaker 1: invoked the staffer who died in an accident in Joe's office.

1112
01:13:37,835 --> 01:13:42,475
Speaker 1: Scarborough went nuts. He attacked Malitsus on Twitter. He inaccurately

1113
01:13:42,555 --> 01:13:46,195
Speaker 1: claimed Malitsus had accused him of murder, and a few

1114
01:13:46,235 --> 01:13:49,035
Speaker 1: days later I got a phone call from Phil Griffin.

1115
01:13:49,795 --> 01:13:52,635
Speaker 1: He told me Chris Lick has been in to see me. Remember,

1116
01:13:52,715 --> 01:13:56,715
Speaker 1: Chris lickt Joe won't put up with having Marcos Malitzus

1117
01:13:56,755 --> 01:14:00,315
Speaker 1: on his network anymore. Not only that, but Lick says

1118
01:14:00,355 --> 01:14:03,755
Speaker 1: many of Joe's friends, who also appear in Dayside and

1119
01:14:03,835 --> 01:14:07,955
Speaker 1: Primetime won't. I'm on if Marcos Mulitzus permitted to continue here,

1120
01:14:08,475 --> 01:14:12,355
Speaker 1: Chris is insisting Marcos must be banned from MSNBC immediately.

1121
01:14:12,435 --> 01:14:14,395
Speaker 1: Chris says he's afraid that if we don't do that,

1122
01:14:14,915 --> 01:14:20,715
Speaker 1: Joe won't come into work tomorrow. I laughed, I said, hallelujah.

1123
01:14:21,195 --> 01:14:26,355
Speaker 1: I congratulated Phil Griffin on the clear win win. Griffin

1124
01:14:26,515 --> 01:14:29,835
Speaker 1: was not a very good executive, except in terms of

1125
01:14:29,915 --> 01:14:35,035
Speaker 1: preserving his paycheck. He was very bad at enforcing MSNBC's rules,

1126
01:14:35,075 --> 01:14:37,835
Speaker 1: but very good at creating new rules on the spot

1127
01:14:37,955 --> 01:14:41,595
Speaker 1: in order to protect Joe Scarborough and Chris Licht's friends,

1128
01:14:41,755 --> 01:14:45,715
Speaker 1: and most importantly, Phil Griffin. I'm banning Mlitsus for any

1129
01:14:45,715 --> 01:14:50,115
Speaker 1: further appearances on MSNBC, I said Phil. He's a contributor

1130
01:14:50,155 --> 01:14:53,355
Speaker 1: to my show. You're suspending my guest who has driven

1131
01:14:53,435 --> 01:14:57,595
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of viewers to this show to MSNBC,

1132
01:14:57,955 --> 01:15:01,435
Speaker 1: and I don't have any say in it. Joe Scarborough

1133
01:15:01,475 --> 01:15:04,475
Speaker 1: and Chris lickt own you, buddy, what you know have

1134
01:15:04,475 --> 01:15:06,075
Speaker 1: to worry about his whether or not I go tell

1135
01:15:06,115 --> 01:15:07,795
Speaker 1: this story on the air tonight, or I wait and

1136
01:15:07,795 --> 01:15:12,515
Speaker 1: I tell it later. Phil scared again, got a little conciliatory,

1137
01:15:12,555 --> 01:15:15,635
Speaker 1: and he said it could be just a suspension if

1138
01:15:15,675 --> 01:15:20,355
Speaker 1: I cooperated. I didn't really feel like cooperating. I'd known

1139
01:15:20,355 --> 01:15:22,675
Speaker 1: Phil Griffin since nineteen eighty one, and my desire to

1140
01:15:22,715 --> 01:15:27,075
Speaker 1: cooperate with him ended about nineteen eighty one. But I

1141
01:15:27,155 --> 01:15:29,515
Speaker 1: thought I'll leave this to Marcos. I told him, and

1142
01:15:29,995 --> 01:15:32,955
Speaker 1: he said he enjoyed his contributions to Countdown. He also

1143
01:15:32,995 --> 01:15:35,715
Speaker 1: did occasional appearances on the Old Ed Schult Show. He said,

1144
01:15:35,715 --> 01:15:37,795
Speaker 1: if there were a chance at resuming them, he prefer

1145
01:15:38,075 --> 01:15:41,915
Speaker 1: to at least try that. So Phil Griffins suspended Marcos Militsus,

1146
01:15:42,115 --> 01:15:45,755
Speaker 1: and to my knowledge that's twenty ten and he has

1147
01:15:45,915 --> 01:15:52,315
Speaker 1: not been on MSNBC since. The suspension has lasted longer

1148
01:15:52,995 --> 01:15:57,035
Speaker 1: than the network had to that point. So that one,

1149
01:15:57,155 --> 01:15:59,755
Speaker 1: obviously is one where the wrong guy stood up and

1150
01:15:59,875 --> 01:16:04,755
Speaker 1: threatened MSNBC and NBC News. Scarborough and Licked prevailed. I

1151
01:16:04,835 --> 01:16:07,795
Speaker 1: did similar things again and again, and after I left,

1152
01:16:07,835 --> 01:16:10,915
Speaker 1: again and again and again and again. Licked was eventually

1153
01:16:10,955 --> 01:16:14,475
Speaker 1: mistaken because of this for some sort of responsible adult producer,

1154
01:16:14,795 --> 01:16:17,235
Speaker 1: and he became president of CNN and screwed that place

1155
01:16:17,315 --> 01:16:19,195
Speaker 1: up so much that a year after he was fired,

1156
01:16:19,195 --> 01:16:21,315
Speaker 1: it still got into a bidding war with NBC for

1157
01:16:21,395 --> 01:16:25,635
Speaker 1: Ronald McDaniel. And instead of saying, you know what, if

1158
01:16:25,675 --> 01:16:29,395
Speaker 1: Scarborough's not suspended, if Marcos is not on the air tonight,

1159
01:16:29,675 --> 01:16:34,115
Speaker 1: I'm walking, I just said, you know, I have a

1160
01:16:34,155 --> 01:16:39,355
Speaker 1: torn rotator cuff that makes being Justice with his shining

1161
01:16:39,555 --> 01:16:43,675
Speaker 1: sword all the time really painful. I mean, I've done

1162
01:16:43,675 --> 01:16:48,875
Speaker 1: it twenty times already this month. This time I'll just

1163
01:16:49,275 --> 01:16:52,235
Speaker 1: I'll just take the money and I'll go, which I

1164
01:16:52,235 --> 01:16:58,395
Speaker 1: did a year later. Sorry, but it should serve All

1165
01:16:58,435 --> 01:17:02,075
Speaker 1: of these stories should serve as reminders to everybody in

1166
01:17:02,155 --> 01:17:23,515
Speaker 1: similar positions. You can do it, at least once I've

1167
01:17:23,515 --> 01:17:25,235
Speaker 1: done all the damage I can do here. Thank you

1168
01:17:25,275 --> 01:17:28,275
Speaker 1: for listening. Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Phillip

1169
01:17:28,315 --> 01:17:32,555
Speaker 1: schaneil arranged, produced and performed most of our music. Seriously.

1170
01:17:32,635 --> 01:17:35,635
Speaker 1: Jeff ML's mother ninety ninety three ninety four years old

1171
01:17:36,115 --> 01:17:38,075
Speaker 1: when We resolved all this when I got the right

1172
01:17:38,155 --> 01:17:40,995
Speaker 1: to criticize Fox back. We had a big dinner, the

1173
01:17:41,035 --> 01:17:44,315
Speaker 1: two of us and Zucker in the executive dining room

1174
01:17:44,315 --> 01:17:48,555
Speaker 1: atop thirty Rock, and I said to him, how old

1175
01:17:48,595 --> 01:17:51,715
Speaker 1: is your mother? He said ninety three or whatever he answered.

1176
01:17:51,715 --> 01:17:56,955
Speaker 1: And I said, so, why don't you just send some

1177
01:17:56,995 --> 01:17:58,795
Speaker 1: guys in there to pull the cable out of the

1178
01:17:58,835 --> 01:18:02,595
Speaker 1: wall so she can't watch Bill O'Reilly's show. Well, he

1179
01:18:02,675 --> 01:18:05,435
Speaker 1: did not respond well to that, and I said, understand,

1180
01:18:05,715 --> 01:18:08,875
Speaker 1: I understand that's stupid and ridiculous and offensive. That's what

1181
01:18:08,915 --> 01:18:10,715
Speaker 1: it's like to us when you say you'd rather take

1182
01:18:10,835 --> 01:18:14,475
Speaker 1: MSNBC off the air than find a solution to this. Well,

1183
01:18:15,195 --> 01:18:18,475
Speaker 1: he listened to that. Mister Ray was on the guitars,

1184
01:18:18,515 --> 01:18:21,675
Speaker 1: bass and drums, and mister Shanelle handled orchestration at keyboards

1185
01:18:21,755 --> 01:18:25,755
Speaker 1: produced by Tko Brothers. I think this cemented in his

1186
01:18:25,875 --> 01:18:29,915
Speaker 1: mind the idea that he was going to sell in BC. Unfortunately,

1187
01:18:29,915 --> 01:18:35,395
Speaker 1: he sold him to comcast more pillows of joenalo any Who.

1188
01:18:36,555 --> 01:18:39,675
Speaker 1: Other music, including some of the Beethoven compositions, were arranged

1189
01:18:39,675 --> 01:18:42,315
Speaker 1: and performed by no horns allowed. The sports music is

1190
01:18:42,355 --> 01:18:45,555
Speaker 1: the Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren

1191
01:18:45,635 --> 01:18:49,395
Speaker 1: Davis courtesy of ESPN inc. Our satirical and pithy musical

1192
01:18:49,435 --> 01:18:53,275
Speaker 1: comments are by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever.

1193
01:18:53,595 --> 01:18:56,475
Speaker 1: Our announcer today was my friend Larry David. Everything else

1194
01:18:56,555 --> 01:18:59,875
Speaker 1: was pretty much my fault. Send me why are you

1195
01:19:00,115 --> 01:19:07,875
Speaker 1: sending improvised explosive devices to Iran Americans? That's countdown for

1196
01:19:07,955 --> 01:19:10,555
Speaker 1: this the two and twenty fifth day until the twenty

1197
01:19:10,635 --> 01:19:14,755
Speaker 1: twenty four presidential election, the one and seventy sixth day

1198
01:19:15,195 --> 01:19:18,875
Speaker 1: since dementia Jay Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically

1199
01:19:18,875 --> 01:19:22,235
Speaker 1: elected government of the United States. Use the fourteenth Amendment

1200
01:19:22,715 --> 01:19:26,555
Speaker 1: and the not regularly given elector objection option provided by

1201
01:19:26,595 --> 01:19:29,915
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Use the Insurrection Act, use the justice system,

1202
01:19:30,035 --> 01:19:32,955
Speaker 1: use the mental health system to stop him from doing

1203
01:19:32,995 --> 01:19:37,515
Speaker 1: it again while we still can. A final addendum on

1204
01:19:37,555 --> 01:19:40,395
Speaker 1: this one topic, as I say to everybody starting in

1205
01:19:40,435 --> 01:19:45,155
Speaker 1: the media business, one thing to remember. There are no adults.

1206
01:19:46,275 --> 01:19:49,235
Speaker 1: The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Boltons is the news

1207
01:19:49,235 --> 01:19:52,235
Speaker 1: warrants till then. I'm Keith Olderman. Good morning, good afternoon,

1208
01:19:52,275 --> 01:20:12,195
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is

1209
01:20:12,235 --> 01:20:17,035
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit

1210
01:20:17,075 --> 01:20:21,755
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.