Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. Trump
Speaker 1: has doubled down on his defiling of Arlington National Cemetery
Speaker 1: Title thirty two, Part five to five to three Subpart
Speaker 1: ce Conduct of Memorial Services and Ceremonies. Memorial services and
Speaker 1: ceremonies at Army National Military Ceremonies will not include partisan
Speaker 1: political activities. Trump's team exploited a memorial event at Arlington
Speaker 1: on Monday, broke the law by privately photographing and filming it,
Speaker 1: physically assaulted Arlington National Cemetery staff who asked him to stop.
Speaker 1: He gave a thumbs up and smiled idiotically while literally
Speaker 1: standing on the graves of dead US military heroes. And
Speaker 1: now his campaign is trying to turn it into an
Speaker 1: online campaign advertisement. By definition partisan political activity. Trump people
Speaker 1: need to be arrested for this because it could have
Speaker 1: been trivial. It could have been there was a miscommunication,
Speaker 1: not even an apology, like anybody in the Trump campaign
Speaker 1: were human enough or honest enough or respectful of our
Speaker 1: war dead enough to apologize just say it was a misunderstanding. No,
Speaker 1: they blamed the cemetery staffer, They blamed the media, They
Speaker 1: blamed Vice President Harris for not being there to commemorate
Speaker 1: the sad anniversary of deaths in Afghanistan, the commemoration Trump
Speaker 1: has illegally turned into a campaign ad, the commemoration Trump
Speaker 1: skipped last year and skipped the year before. Because to
Speaker 1: Trump and to this robot JV. Vance, those buried at
Speaker 1: Arlington are just another product, just another sell, just another gimmick,
Speaker 1: just another brand name to exploit. But Vance, and thank god,
Speaker 1: Vance might be the least intuitive politician of this century.
Speaker 1: He makes Jeb Bush look like George Bush. Vance escalated
Speaker 1: this by swearing at the Vice President of the United
Speaker 1: States and blaming her. Because Trump has been exposed as
Speaker 1: a monster who smiled and gave a thumbs up while
Speaker 1: literally standing on the graves of dead American soldiers. Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't
Speaker 1: even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants
Speaker 1: to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She
Speaker 1: can go to hell that may be marrying lead shit
Speaker 1: for brains there finally learned how to pronounce it's her name.
Speaker 1: Just to twist this knife further, Trump's thug Chris Losovita
Speaker 1: has now doubled down on the attempt by Trump's moron
Speaker 1: Stephen Chung to blame the staff at the National Cemetery
Speaker 1: for Trump breaking the law. Quote for a despicable individual
Speaker 1: to physically prevent Trump's team from accompanying him to this
Speaker 1: solemn event is a disgrace and does not deserve to
Speaker 1: represent the hollowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. You heard
Speaker 1: me right, hollowed ho llowed as in hollowed out, as
Speaker 1: in Trump's brain is hollowed out. You know, these manipulative
Speaker 1: trump isst bastards who hate the troops, who hate this country,
Speaker 1: can't even get the word right. It's hallowed ha llowd
Speaker 1: to honor as holy? Oh, do you want to make
Speaker 1: this worse? Still? Well, to their credit, the news organization's
Speaker 1: Axios and Daily Beast added the notation parenthesis sick and
Speaker 1: parenthesis after las Aveda's unforgivable stupidity. The former Obama staffer
Speaker 1: and Army veteran a captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brandon Friedman,
Speaker 1: noted that other news organizations like NBC simply cut and
Speaker 1: pasted hollowed as if it were the right word, never
Speaker 1: mentioning it was not, but CNN corrected las Avita before publishing.
Speaker 1: They printed hallowed as if he had said that, giving
Speaker 1: no indication that Trump's senior campaign advisor made an offensive mistake,
Speaker 1: claiming he didn't. And worst of all, one news outlet
Speaker 1: first cut and pasted hollowed, then corrected it to hallowed
Speaker 1: without a sick or a note that la Savita made
Speaker 1: the mistake, or even that they the news organization changed
Speaker 1: it after publication. And you already know that the news
Speaker 1: organization that managed to commit three separate journalistic felonies on
Speaker 1: one infuriating quote to cover for Trump. The news organization
Speaker 1: that again has covered for Trump's barbarism. You already know
Speaker 1: it was The New York Times. And of course there
Speaker 1: remains the context for this, the real reason the trumpists
Speaker 1: did not just resolve this with a quick statement, not
Speaker 1: even accepting responsibility, just confirming a miscommunication. America has caught
Speaker 1: on to Trump's insanity and the fact that he doesn't
Speaker 1: care if American soldiers die or are wounded or captured,
Speaker 1: or are asked to shoot other Americans on the street.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is not loyal to the United States of America,
Speaker 1: nor to the memory of anybody buried at Arlington National
Speaker 1: Sene Cemetery, nor at flanders Field, nor in the Ardennes,
Speaker 1: nor at Brookwood. And this issue, his fake patriotism, his
Speaker 1: flag hugging bullshit, his suckers and losers essence, this is
Speaker 1: about to break wide open, because hey, remember this. We're
Speaker 1: only thirteen days removed from this.
Speaker 2: We gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom. That's the
Speaker 2: highest award you can get as a civilian. It's the
Speaker 2: equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version
Speaker 2: it's actually much better because everyone gets the Congressional Medal
Speaker 2: of Honor. That soldiers they're either in very bad shape
Speaker 2: because they've been hit so many times by bullets, or
Speaker 2: they're dead.
Speaker 1: Trump profaned the Medal of Honor. Then he has desecrated
Speaker 1: and blasphemed Arlington and all who lie there now, the
Speaker 1: opposing soldiers, the international despots and generals, the terrorists who killed,
Speaker 1: the men on whose graves Trump might just as well
Speaker 1: have literally danced Monday. They respected our war dead more
Speaker 1: than does Donald Trump, scumbag. I would argue that Trump's
Speaker 1: willingness to metaphorically die on this of all hills with
Speaker 1: his trained monkey JD. Vance by his side, underscores that
Speaker 1: he has never been more dangerous than he is today
Speaker 1: because the reality has somehow pushed its way past the
Speaker 1: nearly infinite amount of self reverence and the diseases and
Speaker 1: the mini strokes and made its way to Trump's core.
Speaker 1: What's made its way to Trump's core is that he
Speaker 1: is now losing, that at the current trajectory, he is
Speaker 1: going to lose, and lose badly, and that there will
Speaker 1: be no immunity so thorough that it will keep him
Speaker 1: from dying in prison. If he did not know that
Speaker 1: before he found out about it last night. More polls,
Speaker 1: more disasters for Trump. These are Fox News polls done
Speaker 1: after the Democratic Convention, done after Trump was endorsed by
Speaker 1: Bear cub Boy Arizona Harris fifty Trump forty nine. It
Speaker 1: had been Trump by five, Georgia Harris fifty Trump forty eight.
Speaker 1: It had been Trump by six. Nevada Harris fifty Trump
Speaker 1: forty eight. That had been Trump by five. North Carolina
Speaker 1: Trump fifty Harris forty nine. It had been Trump by five.
Speaker 1: That is a total swing in four states to Harris
Speaker 1: of twenty five points. Maintime the Republican Commissioner of Miami
Speaker 1: Dade County in Florida commissioned to poll there. It's Harris
Speaker 1: forty seven Trump forty seven. Florida a long shot still
Speaker 1: to be sure is in play Harris forty seven, Trump
Speaker 1: forty seven. They are tied in Miami Dade. The Harris
Speaker 1: campaign just bought time for TV ads tying Trump to
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five. They bought it in the Swing States,
Speaker 1: and they bought it in the West Palm Beach market
Speaker 1: wherein lies Mara crapshack and maybe worse than everything else,
Speaker 1: Trump is beginning to kill off Republicans down ballot, especially
Speaker 1: the ones closest to him psychopathically. The Fox poll in
Speaker 1: Arizona scores the Senate race there as Reuben Diego fifty six,
Speaker 1: Carrie Lake forty one, forty one forty one last week
Speaker 1: of August. How in the hell is Carrie Lake going
Speaker 1: to be able to afford to buy nine hundred more
Speaker 1: camera filters this late in this race. The Fox powl
Speaker 1: in North Carolina scores the governor's race there as Josh
Speaker 1: Stein fifty four. Mark deserves killing, saying that of his
Speaker 1: opponents Robinson forty three fifty four to forty three Stein.
Speaker 1: The Fox pol in Nevada scores the Senate race there
Speaker 1: as Jackie Rosen fifty five, Sam Brown forty one. The
Speaker 1: Florida Politics website poll for the fourth District congressional race
Speaker 1: there shows the brand new Democratic congressional nominee Whitney Fox
Speaker 1: at forty eight compared to the incumbent Republican Anna Paulina.
Speaker 1: If that is your real name, Luna forty four. I
Speaker 1: am not saying this will happen. None of the people
Speaker 1: around Trump are this smart. But Richard Nixon was driven
Speaker 1: from office half a century ago, not by Democrats, but
Speaker 1: by Republican senators and congressmen who went to the White
Speaker 1: House and explained to him that not only would he
Speaker 1: be impeached and convicted and remove from office, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: all of them were going to lose in the midterms
Speaker 1: because of him. Trump doesn't care. But Trump is not
Speaker 1: just on a trajectory to lose and lose outside the
Speaker 1: margin of insurrection, but on a trajectory to take down
Speaker 1: his entire party on November fifth. Thus, however, he becomes
Speaker 1: indescribably dangerous. He is seeing this for what it is
Speaker 1: electoral victory or electoral theft through a contingent election, or
Speaker 1: death in jail. It is tangible to him now with
Speaker 1: definable features. This is a man so detachable reality that
Speaker 1: he may think himself immortal for all we know, or
Speaker 1: invincible or unbeatable. And yet the reality is clearly beginning
Speaker 1: to get through, and he has thus become the cliche
Speaker 1: of all cliches, the cornered and wounded animal, capable of
Speaker 1: trying anything. Yesterday, Trump reposted four despicable memes, even by
Speaker 1: Trump's standards of despicability, parenthetically, a day after his spokesman
Speaker 1: mocked Kamala Harris's campaign for unseriousness because it was posting memes.
Speaker 1: Spiritual Street Fighter seventeen retruthed by Donald J. Trump. All
Speaker 1: Roads lead to Obama retruth if you want public military tribunals,
Speaker 1: a picture of Trump with President Obama aka pro Boss
Speaker 1: retruthed by Donald J. Trump. Indict the Unselect J Six Committee,
Speaker 1: sedition retruth if you want to lock them up from
Speaker 1: Beware of Penguin retruth by Donald J. Trump. Funny and
Speaker 1: it's a picture of Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. I'm
Speaker 1: quoting this quote funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers
Speaker 1: differently unquote and most importantly from Proud American seventeen seventy six,
Speaker 1: retruth by Trump, how to actually fix the system and
Speaker 1: pictures in orange jumpsuits not very well done of Joe
Speaker 1: and Hunter Biden and Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Doctor Fauci,
Speaker 1: Bill Gates, and Kamala Harris. That last count Proud American
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six is one of Trump's favorites. It recently
Speaker 1: reported hosted an image calling for the murder of Vice
Speaker 1: President Harris and Governor Walls. I guess we are fortunate
Speaker 1: that Trump yesterday anyway, did not repost the work of
Speaker 1: an account labeled the Rise of Rod, which has posted
Speaker 1: five times on Trump's social in the last year, pro
Speaker 1: Hitler video and statements like quote Adolf Hitler was right.
Speaker 1: The Holocaust was the hollow hoax. Jews have been capitalizing
Speaker 1: on n word for thousands of years. These are Trump's people,
Speaker 1: these and JD. Van's. This is going to get far
Speaker 1: worse before it gets any better, and it gets better
Speaker 1: only when Trump is defeated beyond the margin at which
Speaker 1: the corrupted Georgia electoral process can try to thwart the
Speaker 1: certification of Kamala Harris's would be victory. It gets better
Speaker 1: only when Trumps tried, found guilty, and imprisoned. In the interim,
Speaker 1: it is essential to remember that, as hopeful as we
Speaker 1: should be that we can defeat Trump's efforts to destroy
Speaker 1: all right America from within for his own personal benefit,
Speaker 1: we must remember he is desperate enough to try anything now, or,
Speaker 1: more correctly, since at heart he is a weak and
Speaker 1: pusillanimous coward, he is desperate enough to try to get
Speaker 1: others to try anything now. Since it is Trump's people
Speaker 1: who have dragged Hitler into this from as far back
Speaker 1: as Charlottesville and even earlier, right from that point to
Speaker 1: these creatures on Trump's social let us invoke Hitler for
Speaker 1: a good reason. We need to treat Trump right now
Speaker 1: as if he were Hitler Hitler with access to nukes. Okay,
Speaker 1: this has to be lightened somewhat halfy. There are two
Speaker 1: stories of some amusement quality. I cannot fully convey this.
Speaker 1: This is a video. It's a visual thing posted by
Speaker 1: a very talented guy named Dan Wilbur who my old
Speaker 1: friend Lauren Michael should be calling about cameos. It is
Speaker 1: a ninety second video of this Dan Wilber as jd Vance,
Speaker 1: complete with mismatched haircut and too much eyeliner, trying to
Speaker 1: order the doughnuts. Go and find it on social media.
Speaker 1: In the interim, the audio is damned good on its own.
Speaker 3: Hey, I'm jd Vance and I'm running for vice president
Speaker 3: with whom I'd rather not say. Well, I'll just get
Speaker 3: whatever a normal human person would get you. And what
Speaker 3: do you do for work? Right? Youna?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 3: It's a donut? Okay? And what about that it's also
Speaker 3: a donut? Okay? How long you how long you've been here?
Speaker 1: How long you have you.
Speaker 3: Been a black at a job? And how long have
Speaker 3: you been black? I'm sorry, hey, folks, she doesn't want
Speaker 3: to be on camera, so just blur her face out,
Speaker 3: and while you're at it, blur my face out too.
Speaker 3: I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm so sad.
Speaker 3: I'm so tired. Hey, you don't have any like lean
Speaker 3: protein back there, right, like some soilent or tilapia or something. Now,
Speaker 3: just donuts, donut. It's like a beignet or a croqune bouche.
Speaker 3: I would love to eat those again. Have you ever
Speaker 3: been to Paris? What if we tried this over again
Speaker 3: and I went somewhere else?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I just want to.
Speaker 3: Do How long have you been here? How long have
Speaker 3: I been in here? It feels like thirty years. It's
Speaker 3: there a fridge back there, you can put me in
Speaker 3: and lock it. I'm and I do not want to
Speaker 3: do this anymore.
Speaker 1: Extra points to Dan Wilbur for the soilent green shout
Speaker 1: out in there it's people letting out Powell and more
Speaker 1: substantially humor wise. Remember David McCormick. He was the hedge
Speaker 1: fund loser who couldn't even beat doctor Oz for the
Speaker 1: Trump nomination for the Senate in Pennsylvania two years ago.
Speaker 1: This time they let McCormick have the nomination without opposition.
Speaker 1: I guess because he brings his own opposition with him.
Speaker 1: The polls have him down between five and ten to
Speaker 1: Senator Bob Casey in Pennsylvania. And this is because Dave
Speaker 1: McCormick is a dits end wokeness. Also a collection of
Speaker 1: ditzes with a screen shot. New details released on Philadelphia shootings.
Speaker 1: Police say suspect is gang member from Al Salvador breaking.
Speaker 1: The man in Philadelphia who gunned down and tried to
Speaker 1: kill eight innocent Americans is an illegal immigrant. He's a
Speaker 1: MS thirteen member from l Salvador. Dave McCormick, Republican nominee
Speaker 1: for the Senate from Pennsylvania, retweets all this, adding MS
Speaker 1: thirteen gang members are terrorizing Philadelphians because of Harrison Casey's
Speaker 1: radical open border policies. It's a bad thing. It's a
Speaker 1: bad thing when people get shot. It's also irrelevant to
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Senate race because, as the Casey communications team
Speaker 1: helpfully noted, quote Dave, this story is from This story
Speaker 1: is from Philadelphia, Mississippi. Say good night, Dave. Also of
Speaker 1: interest here on this all new edition. If this is
Speaker 1: where do you usually hit? Stop a couple of pieces
Speaker 1: of business. First, Gonna take Tomorrow off. I hope have
Speaker 1: to do a show Monday night for Tuesday. I need
Speaker 1: the long weekend. I really need the long weekend. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, next week we will cross the five
Speaker 1: hundredth episode mark. And also I am considering going to
Speaker 1: five shows a week again down the stretch. Something short
Speaker 1: on Monday's Probably it's not a final call. It's still
Speaker 1: back out of it, but it is the stretch of
Speaker 1: more urgent interests. The CNN uncommitted voter who turned out
Speaker 1: to be a committed Trump voter scandal that gets worse.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who fooled CNN is now selling
Speaker 1: t shirts celebrating the fact that he fooled CNN. And
Speaker 1: the saga of the time NBC tried to blackmail me
Speaker 1: by literally threatening to make my parents homeless because I
Speaker 1: said I wanted to quit the show in which we
Speaker 1: slandered President Clinton on behalf of the proto trumpists of
Speaker 1: a quarter century ago. That saga in full. That's next.
Speaker 1: This is Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith oldwoman stell
Speaker 1: ahead of us on this all new edition of Countdown.
Speaker 1: Somebody said to me the other day, boy Bill Clinton
Speaker 1: looked old at the convention, and I stared into space,
Speaker 1: and for a moment I was back in a tiny
Speaker 1: dingy office at thirty Rock a quarter of a century ago,
Speaker 1: and an alleged certified social worker for NBC News was
Speaker 1: threatening to sue me, bankrupt me, and put my parents
Speaker 1: out onto the street if I tried to quit doing
Speaker 1: the MSNBC show that had accidentally formed around me, in
Speaker 1: which each night we helped the primordial version of the
Speaker 1: current fascist push in this country to try to run
Speaker 1: a coup against Bill Clinton. Nah, good times, Great oldies.
Speaker 1: The story of the threat to blacklist me because I
Speaker 1: would not smear Bill Clinton ahead in things I promised
Speaker 1: not to tell first. There are still more new idiots
Speaker 1: to talk about. The daily roundup of the miss Grant's
Speaker 1: morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute two days
Speaker 1: worse persons in the world. Lebron's Attorney General, Ken Paxton
Speaker 1: of Texas, I'm looking at you, Ken, I'm over here. Well,
Speaker 1: he's in Texas. He doesn't work for the people of Texas.
Speaker 1: He's just a rogue lawyer using the power of the
Speaker 1: state to crush political opposition. The other day, the League
Speaker 1: of United Latin American Citizens LOULAC did something it has
Speaker 1: never done before, and it has been in business since
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine. It endorsed a presidential candidate. Guess which one,
Speaker 1: and guess the response of private prosecutor's star Chamber Ken.
Speaker 1: The Latino group lu LAC has written to the Justice
Speaker 1: Department asking for an investigation by the FEDS. After Ken
Speaker 1: Paxton sent agents of Texas to raid the homes of
Speaker 1: the leaders of LULAC and other Latino Democrats in Texas.
Speaker 1: Laptops and cell phones seized. The CEO of lu LAC
Speaker 1: says that last week Lydia Martinez, an eighty seven year
Speaker 1: old woman who lives in San Antonio and is a
Speaker 1: thirty five year LULAC member who works to expand voter
Speaker 1: registration among seniors and veterans in South Texas, got a
Speaker 1: knock on her door. She opened it to find nine
Speaker 1: officers in tactic gear with firearms who said they were
Speaker 1: executing a search warrant. The eighty seven year old Ms
Speaker 1: Martinez was questioned for more than three hours about her
Speaker 1: voter registration efforts. Paxton's excuse, and Paxton needs to be
Speaker 1: in prison, was that there has been vote harvesting in
Speaker 1: Texas and illegal voting in Texas and he's going to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of it. Of course, there hasn't
Speaker 1: been any. The record remains intact. Ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: all illegal voting in this country is done by Republicans.
Speaker 1: This bastard Paxton. What he should get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of is hell to borrow the vice presidential candidate's terminology
Speaker 1: for today from the Republican Party. The runner up worser
Speaker 1: CNN Gary Tuckman, whoever manages the place? And I'm assuming
Speaker 1: here there's still somebody managing the place. There's no evidence
Speaker 1: of that. Actually, their journalistic malpractice is now on a
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars T shirt with their disaster printed on it,
Speaker 1: available for you without a prescription. Remember the CNN Bryant
Speaker 1: Rosato scandal. I mean it's from three days ago. Thirty
Speaker 1: five year CNN veteran Tuckman conducted a panel after the
Speaker 1: DNC acceptance speech by Vice President Harris. Eight avowedly undecided voters.
Speaker 1: Having heard her speak, they met with him on the
Speaker 1: air live from Allentown, Pennsylvania. One of the eight said
Speaker 1: they remained undecided. Six of the eight said they were
Speaker 1: now ready to vote for Harris. One of the eight
Speaker 1: said he was also now ready to vote for Trump.
Speaker 1: This is Bryant Risotto, and after some pressing, he revealed
Speaker 1: that not only did he go into that focus group
Speaker 1: intending to vote for Trump, but that he told CNN,
Speaker 1: and in fact personally told Gary Tuckman, that he was
Speaker 1: intending to vote for Trump. He says Tuckman approached him
Speaker 1: and a friend at a restaurant and he asked They
Speaker 1: asked him who they were voting for, and they told him.
Speaker 1: Tuckman asked the two men, including Risotto, quoting Risotto, crazy
Speaker 1: part is that CNN invited me knowing I was a
Speaker 1: Trump supporter. Then they said it'll be voters that are undecided,
Speaker 1: not Democrats. They told me to keep an open mind
Speaker 1: and to give Kamala a chance after the speech, since
Speaker 1: she's the new candidate after Biden, So I did hashtag Trump.
Speaker 1: CNN's initial anonymous response to the Midas Network after this
Speaker 1: disaster was quote, when building the panel of voters who
Speaker 1: haven't decided on a candidate, all participants made it clear
Speaker 1: that they indeed hadn't made a final determination. This particular individual,
Speaker 1: who said he had supported Donald Trump in the past,
Speaker 1: expressed to us that after President Biden dropped out of
Speaker 1: the race, his mind became open and he hadn't make
Speaker 1: a final decision on a candidate. Now, the folks at
Speaker 1: the Midas Network report Risotto is using the notoriety provided
Speaker 1: by his CNN appearance to sells for thirty four dollars
Speaker 1: and ninety nine cents each. They show a screenshot of
Speaker 1: his CNN appearance along with the caption she meaning Vice
Speaker 1: President Harris is not ready. You know who's not ready CNN,
Speaker 1: honest to God, is one of the people who was
Speaker 1: there almost at the founding. They should just go dark
Speaker 1: until after the election. Nobody would miss them. I mean,
Speaker 1: run the Kamala Harris Tim Walls interview tonight. In fact,
Speaker 1: have Kamala Harris interview, Tim Walls and vice versa. Send
Speaker 1: Dana Bash home, just then do this interview and then
Speaker 1: shut the network down, tone and bars until we assess
Speaker 1: whether CNN management is suffering an utter loss of cognitive ability.
Speaker 1: He is selling t shirts of how he screwed CNN,
Speaker 1: and still there's somebody worse our winner, Jesse Wat of Fox.
Speaker 1: You might ask yourself how anybody this stupid could be
Speaker 1: a prominent figure at Fox for twenty years, and remember
Speaker 1: he was O'Reilly's henchman, literally that long ago. O'Reilly used
Speaker 1: to send him out to harass people. The answer, of course,
Speaker 1: is Fox looks for people like this. They look for
Speaker 1: stupid people. The dumber a TV guy is, the more
Speaker 1: he is to likely to overhear news that he vaguely
Speaker 1: understands and think, only, how are my bosses couching this?
Speaker 1: If I couch it that way, or even go further,
Speaker 1: they'll give me more money. That's Bill Hemmer, It's Harris Faulkner,
Speaker 1: and it's the champ of them all, this idiot Jesse Waters.
Speaker 1: The debate on the air was over a ban on
Speaker 1: kids having cell phones in schools. There's a lot to
Speaker 1: this debate on both sides. It's actually a legitimate cause
Speaker 1: of concern, whether it's on Fox or PBS. But there's
Speaker 1: one angle for which there can be no debate. Phones
Speaker 1: for kids are vital lifelines in the event of emergency,
Speaker 1: and that's where the topic had gone. But Waters on Fox,
Speaker 1: with arrogance dripping from his voice, said what kind of
Speaker 1: emergency would it be where you couldn't just call the school?
Speaker 1: Even Janine Piro saw what was wrong there. She interrupted
Speaker 1: with quote, oh my god, Waters, of course only he
Speaker 1: knows anything, then interrupts her, why do you need to
Speaker 1: call your child right then? In math class? That never
Speaker 1: had you call? The token liberal on the program, Jessica Tarloff,
Speaker 1: then interrupts him and says, simply school shooter. Now Waters
Speaker 1: is really annoyed. Get them a beeper, he said that,
Speaker 1: Get them a beeper. You and I hear somebody just
Speaker 1: incredibly stupid, suddenly realizing he's made a disastrous mistake live
Speaker 1: on television. He's backed into a corner and like a
Speaker 1: little Trump with racer head hair, he's just decided he's
Speaker 1: going to crash his way out because it's always worked before.
Speaker 1: And what are they going to do? Fire him? He's stupid.
Speaker 1: They want him to be stupid. That's the appeal. What
Speaker 1: I hear is they're talking about kids and schools and emergencies,
Speaker 1: and Jesse Waters, the father of four kids, claims to
Speaker 1: be I'd need to see a paternity test. Honestly, the
Speaker 1: father of four kids immediately thinks of himself, not the kids,
Speaker 1: Not the kids in schools where things like school shootings
Speaker 1: happen because of Republicans like him, not the needs of kids,
Speaker 1: not the needs of his own kids, but his needs,
Speaker 1: him calling them in math class, his emergency, not the
Speaker 1: kids emergency. And this nonsensical fallback here, give your child
Speaker 1: a beeper so that during a school shooting allowed twentieth century,
Speaker 1: noise goes off from his book bag or his belt.
Speaker 1: Waters regularly says something stupid. One critic noted, the trade
Speaker 1: of the malicious snake Tucker Carlson even up for Jesse
Speaker 1: Waters at eight o'clock every night is a win for
Speaker 1: those trying to destroy Fox because it is the triumph
Speaker 1: of sheer stupidity over subversion. But in this case this
Speaker 1: is really bad. Jesse Waters doesn't give a crap about
Speaker 1: your kids. Jesse Waters doesn't give a crap about his kids. Jesse,
Speaker 1: his kids should be taken away from him by the authorities.
Speaker 1: Waters two days worst person in the world, to the
Speaker 1: number one story on the Countdown, and things I promised
Speaker 1: not to tell. And the further I get away from
Speaker 1: the day I left NBC, the more I realize that
Speaker 1: almost everybody there and many who are still there, was
Speaker 1: crazy remains crazy. It is a nest for aggressive ingratitude
Speaker 1: and the rewriting of history to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: who is a success did it all on their own,
Speaker 1: sprang fully grown from the ground, and nobody owes anybody anything.
Speaker 1: And those are the good parts. Then there are the
Speaker 1: really crazy people, the ones who are in charge of
Speaker 1: covering the election, the ones who laid the groundwork years
Speaker 1: ago for the bottomless pit that American news media has
Speaker 1: fallen into, particularly the curse that will, if not corrected,
Speaker 1: kill us all both sides ism Chuck Todd disease. Sadly,
Speaker 1: Katie Turd disease outside of the NBC, Crystal is a disease,
Speaker 1: Ryan Lizzid disease, These New York Times, at this Ohio
Speaker 1: diner disease. It started with the scumbag Roger Ales at
Speaker 1: Fox News, It migrated to ken Starr and the Bill
Speaker 1: Clinton prosecution, and it then became, after the sufficient number
Speaker 1: of refs were worked, the we can't dismiss these sleeze
Speaker 1: balls on the right because even if they are sleeves balls,
Speaker 1: they have public support. We need every viewer we can get.
Speaker 1: It's a declining marketplace. Instead of saying what American News
Speaker 1: once said to the sleeze balls of any party like
Speaker 1: Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin or any of the others,
Speaker 1: which was, screw you, We're going to write or broadcast
Speaker 1: about your perfidy every day until you die, they looked
Speaker 1: at ken Starr's read thin persecution of Bill Clinton and said, well, no,
Speaker 1: they've found nothing in two months, in six months, in
Speaker 1: two years. But What if they find something later and
Speaker 1: it turns out we opposed them and we were wrong.
Speaker 1: We'll get killed by right wing media and our fascist
Speaker 1: bosses like Bob Wright, ken Starr and his thugs who
Speaker 1: went after Bill Clinton played the American news media, especially
Speaker 1: TV news like the proverbial two dollar banjo. No news
Speaker 1: in the Clinton Lewinsky scandal, no problem. A quick phone
Speaker 1: call Alisa Meyers at NBC or any of several correspondents
Speaker 1: at CNNABC or CBS, or anybody at Fox, and suddenly
Speaker 1: there was breaking news and another alleged victim ready to
Speaker 1: do a tiery on camera interview which had already aired
Speaker 1: a dozen times with clips on every network before anybody
Speaker 1: realized the alleged victim hadn't actually alleged anything. It was putrid,
Speaker 1: but worse, it was profitable. And if you questioned it,
Speaker 1: if you said, this isn't journalism, the other networks, the
Speaker 1: other newspapers, the others invest in this story. A real
Speaker 1: time twenty four to seven soap opera would go do
Speaker 1: any length to attack you. And what would your own
Speaker 1: network do? Hell sir, That's why I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: this story in full. I haven't before almost by accident.
Speaker 1: I had become the face of the star Clinton Lewinsky
Speaker 1: story on cable news early in nineteen ninety eight, and
Speaker 1: one day I had enough. I decided to get out,
Speaker 1: and the reaction at NBC News was to try to
Speaker 1: prevent me from leaving. It was going to be a
Speaker 1: hostage situation, to literally threaten my career, my income, my future,
Speaker 1: my family, to try to force me to keep working there,
Speaker 1: to keep pushing whatever Ken Starr was cooking. Until you
Speaker 1: were in the middle of that, you can never really
Speaker 1: imagine what television executives will do for ratings or money.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes they are worse than politicians. By that point,
Speaker 1: I had been in TV for sixteen years. I was
Speaker 1: already thirty nine years old, I had some gray hair,
Speaker 1: I'd already been through the grinding machinery of local news
Speaker 1: in Boston and Los Angeles. I had already made my
Speaker 1: mark on SportsCenter and moved on. I thought I had
Speaker 1: seen it all, ha ha, dumb me. I had not, however,
Speaker 1: seen NBC News President Andrew Lack, nor had I imagined
Speaker 1: that he would actually have ready to go at a
Speaker 1: moment's notice, an employee who would be willing to try
Speaker 1: to blackmail me, literally threatened to bankrupt me and my
Speaker 1: parents and put them, as Lacks employee phrased it, quote
Speaker 1: on the street. This was in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. As I said, I had decided I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do the nightly show anymore. That was devoted
Speaker 1: to covering the Bill Clinton Monacolunsky story, whether there was
Speaker 1: any news about it that day or not, and especially
Speaker 1: since the network was devoted to portraying the Clinton Lewinski
Speaker 1: story as the worst thing to happen to America since
Speaker 1: the Civil War. The problem was the shows I did
Speaker 1: for Andy Lack's MSNBC in nineteen ninety eight. They were
Speaker 1: making millions of dollars a week in profit, and the
Speaker 1: rest of the network was losing money. It had never
Speaker 1: had ratings before. I wanted to do something else, something else,
Speaker 1: anything else, fifty percent Lewinski, fifty percent, something else inside NBC.
Speaker 1: Failing that outside NBC, stay in news, go back to sports,
Speaker 1: do it in New York, go to Los Angeles, anything
Speaker 1: except the show as it was constituted. So, through his personnel,
Speaker 1: Vice president Elena Nachmanoff, an otherwise fairly pleasant person, there
Speaker 1: came a message from Andy Lack in May of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight. If you go see our personnel consultant, a
Speaker 1: woman named Deborah Byrne, and you talk to her frankly,
Speaker 1: we will consider letting you leave NBC immediately. I went
Speaker 1: first off. Elena Akhmanoff told me on Friday afternoon, June fifth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, some of us understand where you're coming from,
Speaker 1: about the madness of covering this scandal every night like this.
Speaker 1: So you're the good Sport Award winner for doing this today, Keith.
Speaker 1: You'll like Deborah byrn She's a certified social worker, and
Speaker 1: she's done great things for us. She saved a lot
Speaker 1: of people who were in trouble. I don't mean ethical
Speaker 1: crises like yours, Keith, I mean people who were passed
Speaker 1: out drunk at their desks. I didn't stop to ask
Speaker 1: her what she thought was worse. In any event, Elena
Speaker 1: walked me through a labyrinth of hallways at thirty Rock
Speaker 1: in New York to the office of this Deborah burn
Speaker 1: She was a bespectacled, bent looking woman of about sixty,
Speaker 1: with badly dyed hair and a fiercely aggressive handshake. She
Speaker 1: was not big, but Frankly, I was not convinced I
Speaker 1: could take her in a fight if it came to that,
Speaker 1: and from the get go her manager suggested it might
Speaker 1: come to that. I am not an employee of NBC
Speaker 1: or MSNBC, and I'm not beholden to them. Deborah Burn
Speaker 1: began loudly and too quickly. I work on a contractual basis,
Speaker 1: meaning I don't get ten percent of anything, and I
Speaker 1: don't get money for attracting more business. It was clear
Speaker 1: whatever money they gave her, it did not go to
Speaker 1: office decorps. There were a dozen filing cabinets, no windows,
Speaker 1: two lamps, her high back chair, a metal desk, and
Speaker 1: the plain wooden chair at its side on which I
Speaker 1: was instructed to sit. I'm not here to be critical
Speaker 1: of NBC or MSNBC or Andy Lack. I'm not here
Speaker 1: to be critical of you. I'm an impartial observer and
Speaker 1: I'm simply here to help Nachman off. The talent vice
Speaker 1: president was still there, and Burn turned to her for
Speaker 1: the record. Elena, I need you to describe the company's
Speaker 1: position about Keith's employment. Keith, Elena said, understands that if
Speaker 1: he chooses not to work for NBC, as NBC wants
Speaker 1: him to work, he will have to face consequences. Now,
Speaker 1: this was a slightly changed story from the one Elena
Speaker 1: Knackmanoff had given me even minutes earlier. But once she
Speaker 1: had given me in her own office, gone was the
Speaker 1: Good Sport Award winner crap. Obviously, She said, We're not
Speaker 1: going to release you from your contract, Keith. If you
Speaker 1: want to be on the beach for the next two
Speaker 1: years plus whatever remains after that, so be it. That's
Speaker 1: his contract status, Deborah with a crisp thanks. Deborah burn
Speaker 1: now dismissed the vice president of NBC News who left.
Speaker 1: Burne produced and opened and probably large folder with my
Speaker 1: name on it in improbably large letters, so I could
Speaker 1: they had a folder on me ostentatiously shuffled quickly through
Speaker 1: one hundred assorted documents, got to a blank form of
Speaker 1: some kind, and asked me to describe the circumstances that
Speaker 1: had brought me into her office. I explained I was
Speaker 1: asked to come in. I also explained my conviction that
Speaker 1: I had made a complete mistake going into news in
Speaker 1: the first place, that I missed doing sports, and on
Speaker 1: top of all that, there had now emerged this new
Speaker 1: kind of news, which I felt was against my personal
Speaker 1: ethics and beliefs about what I should be doing, or
Speaker 1: in fact, what the media should be doing. I threw
Speaker 1: in the word pollution a couple of times. Very grand
Speaker 1: of me, I thought. She didn't look up at me.
Speaker 1: Once all of media is becoming polluted in the way
Speaker 1: you've described. She yanked off her glasses and staring at me,
Speaker 1: not with anger, but with annoyance. You should learn how
Speaker 1: to live with it. It'll be a lot easier for
Speaker 1: everybody if you just do that. You're not a child.
Speaker 1: Grow up. Maybe next time you'll learn to read the
Speaker 1: contract before you sign it. I had to fight a smile.
Speaker 1: This wasn't some sort of counselor. This was Andy LAX's enforcer.
Speaker 1: She'd be threatening to break my legs before we were done.
Speaker 1: They might bring in Brokaw to narrate it. I uh,
Speaker 1: I did read the contract thoroughly, I said, suppressing my laughter.
Speaker 1: This isn't about the contract. This is about my morals
Speaker 1: and nobody else's morals, I said, not NBC's not, mister Lax,
Speaker 1: just mine. I don't like the way the news industry
Speaker 1: is handling this story. I have no delusion about being
Speaker 1: able to change the news industry. I don't even feel
Speaker 1: it's my responsibility to try to change the news industry.
Speaker 1: This is about my ethics and my incorrect choices related
Speaker 1: to TV news and TV sports. Now, she put her
Speaker 1: glasses back on. She wrote some notes. She chuckled as
Speaker 1: she wrote them. You may indeed miss sports as you
Speaker 1: put it, and you may feel that sincerely, but it's
Speaker 1: nonetheless an adolescent fantasy. And as to the pollution of
Speaker 1: the media, that's also part of this fantasy world you
Speaker 1: live in. You're grown up now, and you have to
Speaker 1: live with the consequences of your actions. You heard what
Speaker 1: Elena said. If you try to break this contract, NBC
Speaker 1: will punish you severely. This is David and Goliath here, Keith,
Speaker 1: and you're just not seeing it. I started to reply
Speaker 1: something about how I had come down there as there's
Speaker 1: a gesture of compromise at their request, and then she
Speaker 1: shouted me down. You'll have to learn to compromise. She
Speaker 1: emphasized the word as if I had not only not
Speaker 1: just said it, but as if she had just invented it.
Speaker 1: This is what the company wants, this is what the
Speaker 1: audience wants, and you signed the contract. That's your responsibility.
Speaker 1: I've been an NBC employee for twenty years, and they're
Speaker 1: very big, and they're very successful, and they just won't
Speaker 1: sit idly by. This will be David and Goliath, and
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry to have to break it to you.
Speaker 1: But you are not Goliath. I asked her why she
Speaker 1: had just said she'd been an NBC employee for twenty years.
Speaker 1: Two minutes after telling me that she was not an
Speaker 1: NBC employee, she looked at me. She snickered. She wrote
Speaker 1: that down too, Otherwise she just kept talking. Television viewers
Speaker 1: are fickle, and if you're off the air for two years,
Speaker 1: it'll be real difficult to get back on. People will
Speaker 1: forget you. That's the real world now. Deborah Burn paused
Speaker 1: and looked over at nothing over in the corner of
Speaker 1: the room. I have a daughter who isn't realistic, she
Speaker 1: suddenly whispered, just like you, lives in a world of
Speaker 1: her own. She judges others and moralizes to them too.
Speaker 1: She's tall like you too. It's difficult for parents to
Speaker 1: have to look up at their children and discipline them.
Speaker 1: Your height has always made it difficult for your parents
Speaker 1: to discipline you. Thus you remain a headstrong child. The
Speaker 1: defeat in her voice was total and as disturbing as that,
Speaker 1: and this whole line was getting I really did think
Speaker 1: somebody was gonna pop out from between those filing cabinets
Speaker 1: to tell me I'd been punked, or that this was
Speaker 1: a remake of candid Camera or something. I patiently explained
Speaker 1: to Deborah Burn that I had not been born at
Speaker 1: my current height of six three and a half inches, that,
Speaker 1: in fact, my mother was taller than me until I
Speaker 1: was probably twelve thirteen years old. That my father was
Speaker 1: still taller than me until I got to college. But
Speaker 1: your mother is short, she blurted, with great satisfaction. I
Speaker 1: need descriptions of your parents, of their personalities, for my diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and please stop giving me your obviously prepared answers. I
Speaker 1: was still trying at this point. I started to describe
Speaker 1: my parents. She cut me off. Father passive, of course,
Speaker 1: this time I actually couldn't stop laughing. I said that
Speaker 1: was not my father at all, that he usually did
Speaker 1: what he damned well pleased. This annoyed Deborah Burn. No,
Speaker 1: he's passive. I can tell I'm a professional, Keith. He
Speaker 1: didn't stand up to your mother, did he? He never
Speaker 1: told her to grow up or act her age? Did he?
Speaker 1: That means he was passive. I could see her writing
Speaker 1: the word passive in block letters on one of the
Speaker 1: forms in which she'd been putting her notes. She then
Speaker 1: detached this page theatrically. She stuck it into the large
Speaker 1: pile of documents on the top of the thing, and
Speaker 1: she grabbed a fresh page from a stack to her right.
Speaker 1: What about your parents' finances, I explained, they were both retired,
Speaker 1: so you take care of them. I began to answer
Speaker 1: that they were both extremely independent, when she cut me
Speaker 1: off again. I said, so you are responsible for them financially,
Speaker 1: don't evade me. My amusement at this obviously deranged woman
Speaker 1: now began to be overcome by anger. I swallowed both
Speaker 1: the anger and the amusement, and I explained I handled
Speaker 1: their finances, so your their sole financial support, just as
Speaker 1: Elena Nachmanoff's report to me indicates. I thought, so, so
Speaker 1: you're the superstar in the family, are you. I began
Speaker 1: to try to bring us back to this planet, when
Speaker 1: Deborah Byurn rose in her chair and leaned in toward
Speaker 1: me and tell me, Keith, what exactly will your parents
Speaker 1: do for money? What will keep them from being out
Speaker 1: on the street when their precious superstar is blacklisted from television.
Speaker 1: This purported social worker who worked for NBC or didn't
Speaker 1: work for NBC, or maybe both, depending on which minute
Speaker 1: it was, went into detail about the threat she was
Speaker 1: now making on behalf half of NBC News MSNBC, Andy
Speaker 1: lack Lanna nackman Off, and our corporate parent ge. Even
Speaker 1: if I simply quit the Clinton Lewinsky Show, indeed quit television,
Speaker 1: NBC would declare that my contract was still in force.
Speaker 1: It would suspend me, It would not pay me. It
Speaker 1: would then sue me for the salary it had already
Speaker 1: paid me. Then it would sue me for the money
Speaker 1: it had spent on promoting the show. Then it would
Speaker 1: get a court order extending my contracts indefinitely until the
Speaker 1: suspension ended, and then it would suspend me some more.
Speaker 1: Let that sink in, she said, first time I ever
Speaker 1: heard that phrase, Let that sink in. And then she
Speaker 1: didn't even pause for a second to let me let
Speaker 1: that sink in. Instead, she burst out with this the
Speaker 1: greatest of all the non secutors on a day of
Speaker 1: non sequiturs. You have what I would classify as a
Speaker 1: Howard Stern kind of personality, And how I was back
Speaker 1: to actually biting my tongue to keep from laughing at
Speaker 1: the image of a bunch of therapists at a conference somewhere,
Speaker 1: drily discussing the parameters of the Howard Stern kind of personality, Dogmatic, unbending,
Speaker 1: presenting absolutely forceful opinions on the air that no one
Speaker 1: is permitted to disagree with. Imagine going on a date
Speaker 1: with Howard Stern. I tried not to. All he would
Speaker 1: be doing would be talking about himself. It would be unbearable.
Speaker 1: You're like him on the air, and I can see
Speaker 1: that who you are on the airs, who you are
Speaker 1: in life. Of course, I've never seen your show. I
Speaker 1: don't have cable. Ever been married. I recovered from these
Speaker 1: non sequitors quickly enough to explain that I had not
Speaker 1: been married engaged again. No, I thought I might be
Speaker 1: about to be ever had a long term relationship of
Speaker 1: any kind? I told her I had, Oh, really, how
Speaker 1: long term? I answered? Eleven years? And when did that end?
Speaker 1: I calculated it had ended four years previously to the month,
Speaker 1: in fact, And you haven't had an eleven year relationship,
Speaker 1: since I explained to her as pleasantly as I could,
Speaker 1: while I looked to see if there were any emergency exits,
Speaker 1: or calculated if there might be a window somewhere outside
Speaker 1: that I could throw myself through to get out of
Speaker 1: the building as fast as possible. I explained to her
Speaker 1: as pleasantly as possible, but I didn't know any way
Speaker 1: of squeezing an eleven year long relationship into four calendar years,
Speaker 1: so that my answer here would have to be no.
Speaker 1: I told you to stop giving me prepared answers right
Speaker 1: then again, she switched tones and topics. How much do
Speaker 1: you drink? She demanded. I said, I almost never drank.
Speaker 1: She dropped her pen and stared at me again. Well
Speaker 1: what does that mean? I said? I believed I'd had
Speaker 1: four glasses of wine during the current calendar year, and
Speaker 1: it was June. She took the glasses off and leaned
Speaker 1: as far as she could without again rising from her
Speaker 1: chair or falling off it. Well, then, how much drug
Speaker 1: do you do? Told her, I'd never use drug or
Speaker 1: drugs stronger than alcohol, and before I could criticize her grammar,
Speaker 1: she got red and angry. Then, what's that smell on
Speaker 1: your breath. Look, you just don't get this. Do you
Speaker 1: look at my telephone? Keith, and I did as instructed.
Speaker 1: I looked at an ordinary black telephone, although given her
Speaker 1: manifest insanity, for all I knew she would shortly reveal
Speaker 1: it was a direct line to Elvis Presley. If I
Speaker 1: didn't want a black telephone and I have a black telephone,
Speaker 1: I'll just have to make the best of it, won't I,
Speaker 1: I said. I thought she was holding up very well
Speaker 1: under the strain of that disappointment. I instantly regretted the
Speaker 1: snidness of that remark, because it was just going to
Speaker 1: make things worse. And then, to my astonishment, she sat
Speaker 1: back in her chair, ran her hand through her hair,
Speaker 1: and almost whispered, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: The pause in the storm did not last long. You're
Speaker 1: seeing a therapist, it says here you've been discussing these
Speaker 1: so called ethical issues. I said, we've made a lot
Speaker 1: of progress. Well, you can't resolve the work matters without
Speaker 1: getting at the core problems, which are obviously personal and
Speaker 1: family related, not to mention the alcohol and the drug.
Speaker 1: So talking about work with your therapist is probably not
Speaker 1: going to solve this to the satisfaction of NBC. So
Speaker 1: I will need to talk to your therapist, and I
Speaker 1: want you to sign a release here and now permitting
Speaker 1: me to do so, unless that is this therapist of
Speaker 1: yours is working towards making you adjust to the facts
Speaker 1: that you signed this contract and this is your job,
Speaker 1: and this is the real world, and this is David
Speaker 1: and Goliath, and that's all there is to it. And
Speaker 1: you're on the air tonight at eight o'clock, and that's
Speaker 1: it now. She paused and stared off into space again,
Speaker 1: like when she mentioned her daughter. When I was in
Speaker 1: my early twenties, I was traveling from Smith College to
Speaker 1: Montreal by train. She suddenly announced My meeting with her
Speaker 1: went on for two hours. It featured threats against my parents.
Speaker 1: It had her yelling at me, It had her accusing
Speaker 1: me of using alcohol and drug and yet this was
Speaker 1: the only point where I really considered trying to make
Speaker 1: a break for the door. The Montreal Canadians hockey team
Speaker 1: were on that train, very drunk, very happy, very boastful
Speaker 1: of their conquests during their trips to the various cities
Speaker 1: of their hockey league, and one of them, I suspect,
Speaker 1: giving your fantasy world interest in sports, you may have
Speaker 1: heard of him boom boom, Jeffreyon he came over and
Speaker 1: tried to pick me up. I nodded robotically and began
Speaker 1: to wonder if I suddenly leaped from the wooden chair
Speaker 1: and did run out of her office, would she continued
Speaker 1: to tell this story anyway after I left. We didn't
Speaker 1: talk of such things then, not in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: A married man, an athlete, a tall athlete. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: if I was a reporter and this happened, I'd have
Speaker 1: to report it, I'd put it on the news. That's
Speaker 1: just the way the world has changed, the real world,
Speaker 1: that is. Keith. I suggested that at every news organization
Speaker 1: for which I had worked, the code had been the
Speaker 1: same that unless an incident involved the law, or it
Speaker 1: diminished a player's ability or availability in a game, we
Speaker 1: in fact didn't report it, like at ESPN. I related
Speaker 1: a story similar to her own that had occurred in
Speaker 1: Miami at the past World Series in nineteen ninety seven. Well,
Speaker 1: she resumed, indignantly, you might have gotten away with that
Speaker 1: under an old contract or in the sixties, where a
Speaker 1: hippie like you might have fit in. But this isn't
Speaker 1: the sixties. This is the real world of today, and
Speaker 1: you won't get away with that kind of attitude under
Speaker 1: this contract or any other contract in the future. You
Speaker 1: could even go back to your precious sports and you'd
Speaker 1: soon find out about the real world. Don't kid yourself,
Speaker 1: it'll be David and Goliath. I said that the decision
Speaker 1: not to report the story in Miami was made under
Speaker 1: this contract by executives from NBC Sports. And now she
Speaker 1: sat bolt upright and slammed her glasses back on her face.
Speaker 1: I can't get this done, and just there's one session,
Speaker 1: you know, deathly afraid that she was about to recite
Speaker 1: another memory from the glorious days of rail travel, I
Speaker 1: agreed to return the following Thursday, knowing full well, as
Speaker 1: I said so, that I would never come back to
Speaker 1: her office, even as a hostage or in a body bag. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, she said, as she opened
Speaker 1: her door. But I'm exhausted, I told her. Indeed so
Speaker 1: was I, which was rather unfortunate because now I had
Speaker 1: to go do two live hours of television. Yes, I
Speaker 1: guess you do. She suddenly stared at my feet, then
Speaker 1: quickly up at my head, as if she were estimating
Speaker 1: what size I took in caskets. But you're so much
Speaker 1: taller than I am, so you'll recover more quickly. MSNBC
Speaker 1: had arranged a car service to take me out to
Speaker 1: the studios in New Jersey from thirty Rock, and I
Speaker 1: spent the entire trip writing all this down, page and
Speaker 1: pages of notes and quotes and boom boom jeffreyon and
Speaker 1: my own height at birth. And I called my therapist
Speaker 1: on my phone, and I asked her if there was
Speaker 1: a New York state number that I could call to
Speaker 1: complain about a certified social worker who seemed to be
Speaker 1: certifiable and who had just threatened me. She gave me
Speaker 1: a number I called while still in the car, and
Speaker 1: they said they had no record of any social worker
Speaker 1: named Deborah Burn. When I got to the MSNBC studios
Speaker 1: in Sicaugus, New Jersey, now the home of MLB Network
Speaker 1: of all things, I went to my little office. I
Speaker 1: picked up a small microcassette tape recorder that I kept
Speaker 1: in the desk there, and I went in to see
Speaker 1: my executive producer, Phil Griffin. I explained how this woman
Speaker 1: Burn had threatened me, and I mentioned that I'd called
Speaker 1: the state social worker hotline and appeared that Deborah Burn
Speaker 1: was operating without a license. And as I did this,
Speaker 1: I kept flipping that mini cassette machine from hand to
Speaker 1: hand until I was sure Phil Griffin had gotten the implication.
Speaker 1: Completely phony on my part, But like James Jones says
Speaker 1: in Field of Dreams, there are rules here. No, there
Speaker 1: are no rules here. My executive producer buried his head
Speaker 1: in his hands. Needless to say, the Deborah Burn thing
Speaker 1: had blown up in NBC's face. They went into a
Speaker 1: full fledged panic at the news that she was not
Speaker 1: registered as a certified social worker. And it turned out
Speaker 1: that was a clerical mistake. It was her own clerical mistake.
Speaker 1: She was registered, but she was registered only under her
Speaker 1: maiden name. But for the next few weeks NBC was
Speaker 1: completely on the defensive about me. Soon they were promising
Speaker 1: to make me Tom Brokaw's air apparent if I would
Speaker 1: only stay. I said, yeah, but it says in Brian Williams'
Speaker 1: contract that he's Tom Brokaw's heir apparent. The executive in
Speaker 1: question laughed and said, no, Brian only thinks it says
Speaker 1: in Brian Williams contract that he's Tom Brokaw's heir apparent.
Speaker 1: It can be you stick with the Lewinsky story, oh
Speaker 1: and layoff ken Starr, and I have to think that
Speaker 1: one through too long. If they could make poor Brian
Speaker 1: think that he was the heir apparent when he wasn't,
Speaker 1: they could make me think I was the heir apparent
Speaker 1: when I wasn't as well, and that price laying off
Speaker 1: ken Starr, that was a non starter. The stalemate continued
Speaker 1: for a few weeks until, as I have related here previously,
Speaker 1: a friend in the Sports division revealed that NBC had
Speaker 1: lied to me to get me to sign my contract
Speaker 1: with them, that I was not being paid as they
Speaker 1: had told me, primarily by the News division, but by
Speaker 1: the Sports division. I then met with Monica Lewinsky's first lawyer,
Speaker 1: Bill Ginsburg, to discuss suing NBC over such illegal negotiation tactics.
Speaker 1: Ginsburg thought just leaking the fact that we had met
Speaker 1: would spring me. Sure enough, About six weeks later, Lanna
Speaker 1: Akmanoff suddenly called my agent and told her they were
Speaker 1: willing to sell my contract to Fox Sports in Los Angeles. Yippee,
Speaker 1: so do not doubt what television executives are willing to
Speaker 1: do to protect their ratings and their profits even in
Speaker 1: the event of full fledged fascism. And do not doubt
Speaker 1: what a zealot with even minimal skills at medium manipulation
Speaker 1: like Ken Starr can do to the news you watch
Speaker 1: or hear or read, even after he's dead. Also, most
Speaker 1: relevantly now, as CNN's talent faced the prospect of conforming
Speaker 1: to the right wing party line, or suddenly finding themselves
Speaker 1: with a conservative co host, or finding themselves unemployed, there's
Speaker 1: one more MSNBC story to tell that is relevant. I
Speaker 1: went back there in two thousand and three and we
Speaker 1: did pretty well, and then in twenty ten they began
Speaker 1: to pressure me to change my tone and to add
Speaker 1: in more diverse voices. And they did not mean women
Speaker 1: or members of minority groups, or people like i'd hired,
Speaker 1: like Rachel Maddow. They meant conservative, diverse voices. That's when
Speaker 1: I began to pack my bags, Ti Lee, and a
Speaker 1: few months later I left, And then four years later
Speaker 1: they asked me to come back as long as I
Speaker 1: agreed to have a conservative co host. I passed. But
Speaker 1: here's the problem. I don't know anybody else pressured in
Speaker 1: those ways who has also passed, not at CNN, not
Speaker 1: at MSNBC, not anywhere else. Do not doubt what some
Speaker 1: television talents are willing to do just to remain television talents.
Speaker 1: I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. Please share this podcast with somebody who
Speaker 1: does not listen. Send it to Deborah Byrne, Brian Ray,
Speaker 1: and John Phillip Shaneil. The musical directors have Countdown, arranged, produced,
Speaker 1: and performed most of our music. Mister Chanelle handled the
Speaker 1: orchestration and keyboards, Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass
Speaker 1: and drums, and it was produced by Tko Brothers. Our
Speaker 1: satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball
Speaker 1: stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the
Speaker 1: Olderman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis
Speaker 1: courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Other music arranged and performed by
Speaker 1: the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my
Speaker 1: friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else was pretty much my fault.
Speaker 1: Let's count down for this the sixty ninth day until
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four presidential election. They three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirtieth day since convicted fellon Donald J. Trump's first attempted
Speaker 1: coup against the democratically elected government of the United States.
Speaker 1: Use the September eighteenth sentencing hearing. If it happens, use
Speaker 1: the mental health system. You have this available to you.
Speaker 1: President Biden used presidential immunity to stop him from doing
Speaker 1: it again while we still can and anti Semitic, anti immigration,
Speaker 1: gun nut Republicans plea stop shooting at Trump. The next
Speaker 1: scheduled countdown is Tuesday. I'm going to try to take
Speaker 1: tomorrow off. I'm gonna try. There'll be a bulletin if
Speaker 1: the news requires. Don't make me come out there till
Speaker 1: the next one. I'm Keith Ouldreman. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Ouldreman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.