EPISODE 204: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Chris Licht or somebody close to him has inadvertently confessed that the network did, as accused, illicitly pack the live crowd at the Trump Town Hall with Trump Supporters, and lied to the public when it insisted the crowd would represent the entire voting mix for the New Hampshire GOP Primary.
A CNBC story (and it has all the ear-marks of a cable network public relations department clean-up operation) says Licht has defended the concept of the Town Hall ad insisted "history will look kindly" on his decisions but that CNN could've done some things better, including introducing the live crowd to the TV audience so viewers would know WHY THE LIVE CROWD SUPPORTED TRUMP. Licht or the Licht-adjacent leaker never stopped to think that they were admitting that the audience WAS stacked, hat the crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore they never stopped to think that saying that in retrospect they should have talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists before they started booing Kaitlan Collins and before Trump started to egg them on, supports the accusations by the Republican Governor OF New Hampsher Chris Sununu, and the former Republican Governor OF New Jersey Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they saw in that studio at St. Anselm’s College was a Trump supporter they recognized by sight. It also supports the accusation by Chris Christie that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the crowd. In one fell swoop, CNN has just admitted it was an almost-entirely pro-Trump crowd, and they shouldn’t have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else, but that they DID, and Licht wishes they hadn’t done that. Lie. To the viewers. To the nation. This elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance, into a literal kind of deception, a three-card Monte game, in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully-loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose executives and announcers lied that it was some kind of news or public events broadcast.
Lastly, and maybe worst of all, the CNBC piece hints that a network may be considering another Trump Town Hall. Read the tea leaves in the article and it's pretty clear that the network thinking about a Trump Town Hall 2 - that's leaking what it would do to improve on the first one...is CNN.
B-Block (19:54) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Yesterday's lead? About the shocker inside the Rudy Giuliani sex story? That he was offering pardons for $2,000,000 apiece and splitting the money with Trump? Turns out the exact same story - Giuliani offering pardons for $2M/per - was reported in real time; The bid to expel George Santos and why a vote is imminent; and the good news is, Dianne Feinstein talked to a couple of reporters yesterday. The bad news is, she doesn't know where she's been the last three months. (25:13) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: DeSantis joins the chorus of people who never read the Bible but are still calling NYC's alleged Subway Strangler "A Good Samaritan;" a Trump shill Congresswoman insists she's NOT a Trump shill; and Lauren Boebert is divorcing her husband and he is reportedly furious. God! Why?
C-Block (30:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Shiloh, thrown from a car in Atlanta (30:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: This scenario playing out at CNN? Turning it into a right-wing propaganda network while pretending you're just making sure "all voices are heard?" The reason I keep talking about it, and feel so strongly about it, is that 20 years ago this spring MSNBC tried the exact same thing. Even put on a fascist commentator - literally wearing a Brownshirt on the air - named Michael Savage. And not only did ratings vanish but Savage embarrassed the company so badly he had to be fired. Then went all the producers. Then the executives. Finally the president of MSNBC, and the head of NBC News. It does not end well - as it won't end well for Licht and CNN.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. CNN chairman Chris Lickt or someone leaking on his behalf to a reporter from CNBC has inadvertently admitted that the network did pack the live crowd at the Trump town hall with Trump supporters, and licked Or a colleague inadvertently also admitted he and CNN lied about who was going to be in that audience. They have thus managed to reignite the tire fire just when it seemed to be dying down to just a putrid smolder, and on the eve of CNN's annual advertising presentation, no less, and Lickt has reportedly boasted, quote history will look kindly on the network's decision to give Trump an hour of uninterrupted propaganda. Let me read you three paragraphs from Alex Sherman's piece for the CNBC website, and I think it'll be obvious what the lie was and where the confession is. Quote. Lickt has acknowledged internally there are some things he wished the network had done differently. Unquote well, me too, I wish the network had hired a different CEO. Sorry. Quoting again, Lickt said he wished he had introduced the in person audience to TV watchers so that viewers could better identify who they were. CNBC quotes its sources familiar with his thinking. The crowd was a main character in the event, as many Trump supporters cheered his responses and jeered CNN host Caitlin Collins when she challenged him. Lickt would have liked to openly question the crowd before the town hall began, so the TV audience could better understand who they were and why they were supporting Trump. From the day this Chernobyl was announced, CNN announced, announced, again, and reiterated, and said afterwards that the crowd was to be four hundred Republican and independent voters who were planning on voting in the state's Republican primary next February. The need to quote better identify who they were and better understand who they were could not have been an issue. We were supposed to have already known who they were. They were presented as some sort of cross section of Republicans in New Hampshire. All of CNN's rationalizations in advance of the telecast a week ago tonight were defensive but specific. The idea that this idiot. Licked now regrets not introducing them during the broadcast so viewers could better understand why they were supporting Trump confirms in big, glowing, read capital letters that the audience members were or supporting Trump. Lickd and CNN just confessed that the crowd CNN pick was not representative of the four out of ten New Hampshire Republicans who do not support Trump, that it was a room full of almost nothing but Trump's supporters, and CNN and Licked lied about that. And everybody on CNN who did not acknowledge that fact before the town hall or after it was an accessory before or after the fact to this fundamental, unforgivable dishonesty. Licked or whoever leaked this on his behalf, and this has all the earmarks of a cable network public relations department cleanup operation never stopped to think that they were admitting that the audience was stacked, that the crowd was full of Trump plants. Furthermore, they never stopped to think that saying that in retrospect, they should have talked to some of the room full of Trump cultists before they started booing. Caitlin Collins and before Trump started to egg them on supports the accusation by the Republican governor of New Hampshire Chris Sanunu and the former Republican Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, that virtually everybody they saw in that studio at Saint Anselm's College was a Trump supporter that they recognized by sight. This licked or licked adjacent leak also supports the accusation by Chris Christie that CNN let Trump choose who would be in the crowd in one fell swoop. CNN has just admitted it was an almost entirely pro Trump crowd and they should not have deceived the viewers into thinking anything else but that they did and licked wishes that they had not done that lie to the viewers to the nation. This elevates this disaster from mere television and journalistic malfeasance into a literal kind of deception. A three card Monte game in which a bluntly, nakedly, unforgivably biased, slanted, fully he loaded fascist political rally was televised by a network whose executives and announcers lied and told America it was some kind of news or public events broadcast nobody is going to do this. But frankly, given these revelations, these accidental revelations by Chris Lick or whoever was leaking on his behalf, this CNBC story turns the disaster into something that the Senate Commerce Committee should conduct a hearing into and the Department of Justice should investigate. This is no longer just journalistic prostitution. It is quite literally commercial fraud and people should be grilled over it and maybe be indicted over it. Again, I'm not kidding you nor myself, this will not happen. Chris Lick will not be indicted. Chris Lick will not be called in front of some Senate Commerce subcommittee. But this underscore is the degree to which the people now running CNN, and in particular Chris lickt have figuratively left our planet and are now operating completely inside a fantasy land in which, no, they didn't just destroy the network's reputation. They didn't finish off Anderson Cooper's career. They didn't expose their supposed new star Caitlin Collins as an unpleasant lightweight. They didn't flush away even the fig leaf that, no matter how badly that all has gone in the last year, especially last Wednesday. It was intended as some kind of corrective. It was a good gesture. It was some kind of restoration of journalistic ballots. They illicitly loaded the audience, they eliminated dissent. They lied about it, and when caught they said maybe they could have done better by not lying about it. And the rest of the article is about how Licked thinks that there's a bit of blowback now, but that'll all get better and CNN will prevail in the long term. I mean, the numbers came out last night. It did win the demo ratings race last week before it sank into fourth place in a three team league. History will look kindly. CNBC's sources claim Lickt has told people both inside and outside CNN on the network's decision to interview Trump in front of cheering supporters in a live town hall format pacedeboy, stop digging, stop talking, You're not good at it. It is impossible to believe, even from my perspective, as somebody who's been telling you that Chris lick was brought in to destroy CNN since I think the very first episode of this series last August. It is still impossible for me to believe that a full week after the most irredeemably disastrous programming decision in the history of cable news, CNN's chairman is continuing to find new ways to make it worse. Surely, by now you would think he would have run out of extremities to metaphorically shoot himself in instead licked or whoever leaked on his behalf to a reporter from CNBC managed to collect all the ashes of their networks and their careers and somehow managed to light them ablaze anew. And this happens on the eve of the twenty twenty three Upfront presentation for advertisers for CNN and its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. If you were on your way to that event at the theater at Madison Square Garden to buy advertising on CNN, and you read this piece at the CNBC website, you would instead skip the event in Madison Square Gardens theater. And it's said, go down the stairs under Madison Square Garden and go into Penn Station and get on a train going anywhere that would get you the f away from CNN. And all that I have quoted so far from this article is the smarter part of it. Quote Licked and other CNN executives also pointed to direction elements CNN could have done differently, such as focusing the camera only on Collins when she tried to fight off Trump's lies about election fraud in twenty twenty, rather than using wide shots on both Trump and Collins. That way, CNN could draw the audience's focus to the substance of the question rather than the spectacle of trump enquote, why sure, Chris, That was the solution to Trump lying like an out of control fire hose. Keep him off camera while he's lying, inst keep a close up on the dead look in the host's eyes as they ran the gamut of emotions from A to B. That's the way you fight Trump's lies. Calling for camera one instead of camera three, Chris, not you know, deciding not to put a psychotic liar on live in primetime where virtually no fact checking method known to man could shut him up while an audience of the cheerleaders you lied about inviting encouraged him to go in for the kill. Quote. CNN could have also graphically shown each question while Trump spoke. Lick apparently offered to the CNBC people emphasizing his answers didn't always match the topic at hand. Yes, that's it, Chris, exactly, That's what the thing needed last week. Better graphics. Not don't ever do something like this live, or if you are going to do it live, you have a fact checker in a studio, backstage or in another state or country, and you go to the fact checker to counter Trump's lies while you shut off Trump's microphone. No, don't do that. Better graphics, Jesus H. Christ. Incidentally, the way I know that this story was not somebody near Chris Lickt surreptitiously calling up this Alex Sherman fella and telling him off the record what Pasteboy said. The reason I know that this all came from Lickt or via an intermediary with licked approval. The way I know they also think this went well. The way I know all this is the simple fact that deep in the piece, it switches. It goes from microscopic grudging, brain dead, maya culpa weak, pointless, stupid but vaguely looking like introspection and verging on regret. It goes from that to something else, which Lickt has always been magnificently skilled at blaming other people. Quote, Lickt said he wished that after the town hall, he'd had the network anchors focus on the news Trump made. Say the real problem here isn't Chris licks utter lack of minimal journalistic standards and morality and the decisions he made that burned CNN to the ground in seventy minutes. No no, no, no, no, no no. It's the others, the others who did not do what they should have telepathically known. Chris Lickt wanted. The example in the CNBC story is Trump's claim that he could have settled Ukraine in twenty four hours. Quote CNN could have gone live to a reporter in Ukraine as an example, which would have reminded the audience of the network's journalistic range. Well, yes, that would have been an interesting alternate option. A stupid one, but an alternate. What is the reaction there in key of Charlie to Trump lying, tell me, you know, in between those Russian bombs dropping on your head. On the other hand, it or anything else, would have reduced the time spent post Trump rally in which Trump prostitutes like Congressman Byron Donald's got to spew his own fire hose of lies on CNN, a happenstance, by the way, which Chris Christie said was also part of Chris Lick's offered to Trump when he went in the tank to get Trump on CNN. We'll put your surrogates in the postgame show better graphics.
Holy crap.
So now what if you waghe through all the Chris Licked off the record comments praising Chris Licked. There is a frightening germ of news in there. Quote. Other networks will likely follow CNN's lead in booking Trump interviews. NBC and its news networks have been in contact with many of the US presidential candidates, including Trump. NBC isn't likely to do a Trump town hall given how CNNs went unquote, but there is the implication, as there has been for the last week, that other Trump town halls are under consideration actively inside American television networks. More town halls after that the Titanic was not enough, You're going to launch another one? Well where then Fox Newsmax one American News like he hasn't already done infomercials for each in every possible format. So what networks? NBC is a no from this story CBS for a Trump town hall ABC on their broadcast channels, I don't think so on their news streaming services. Trump would not give those streaming services seventy seconds, let alone seventy minutes. The terrifying thing is if you accept this and other reporting that some executives looked at the hinden Trump CNN disaster and saw only the three point three million viewers, and that somebody is considering another live Trump town hall, and that it's not NBC or ABC or CBS or CNBC or MSNBC, and Chris Licht has all these stupid ideas about how he could have made his Trump town hall go better. That if there really is a network considering another live Nuremberg rally with Trump, if all that is true, there is only one inevitable conclusion quote. Lickt continues to stand by the concept of the town hall, telling people both inside and outside CNN that history will look kindly on the network's decision. Well, if he really believes that it is sadly, tragically, unavoidably true that the network that must be thinking about televising another Trump town hall is CNN. Lauren Bobert getting divorced husband furious, God, why would you be furious about that? Marjorie Taylor, Karen Green wants to talk to the manager, all the managers. She proposed three impeachments in one day. And they asked Dianne Feinstein about her absence from the Senate, and Dianne Feinstein's answer was basically, what absence? Uh oh, that's next. This discountdown.
This is countdown with Keith Oberman.
Postscripts to the new use some headlines, some updates, some snarks, some predictions. Dateline, New York. A follow off to the lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani yesterday, not the work naked part, nor the anti semitic part, the selling presidential pardons for two million dollars a piece in splitting the dough with Trump part. Nobody seemed to notice this yesterday.
I didn't.
My friend since nineteen seventy four, the great columnist from Philadelphia, Will Bunch, he noticed it from the New York Times of January seventeenth, twenty twenty one, a story about the former CIA agent John Kiriaku, who had been convicted of a legally disclosing classified information about twenty twelve, and who gave a Trump ally fifty thousand dollars to lobby Trump for a pardon before Trump left office. There was a PostScript to this quote. Mister Kiriaku was separately told that mister Trump's personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Juliani, could help him secure a pardon for two million dollars. Mister Kiriaku rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that mister Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the FBI Special Counsel's Office. Mister Smith, please thank you. I'll wait Dateline Washington. As we discovered during the Trump administration, if you impeach somebody in the House, but the other party is running the Senate, your impeachment can be just a performative act, a stunt. Having said that, it is still pretty impressive. Marjorie Taylor Barney Rubble getting divorced from Taylor. Karen Green announced yesterday she was introducing articles of impeachment against the FBI Director Christopher Ray, and she introduced articles of impeachment against the US Attorney in the District of Columbia, Matthew Graves. And she continued to press for articles of impeachment against the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro majorcis because well, because three performative stunts gets three times thelicity that just one will. Dayline Washington something slightly more substantial in the case of Congressman George if that is your real name, Santos, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia of California has introduced a privileged motion to expel Santos from the House. Making it privileged means it still needs a three quarters vote to eject Katara Ravacha's alter ego, but it has to be voted upon within two days of being introduced, and it will at least get Republicans on the record like they care, even the ones who already said he should resign.
He he, thank you.
Nancy Faus. Dateline Washington. Reporters Benjamin Orescus of the La Times and Jim Newle of Slate say they ran into Senator Dianne Feinstein after she voted yesterday at the Capitol. I'll just read a combination of their two stories. Quote. When a fellow reporter asked her what the response from her colleagues had been like since her return, the conversation took an odd turn. Quote, what have I heard about? What she asked about your return. The reporter replied, I haven't been gone. She said, you should follow the I haven't been gone. I've been working. When asked whether she meant that she'd been working from home, she turned feisty. No, I've been here. I've been voting, she said, please, you either know or don't know. So Senator Feinstein thinks she's been in Washington the last three months. And when she got mad with two reporters for questioning about about that, the phrase that she used to reply to them was you either know or don't know. Truer words have never been spoken. Still, Ah boy, oh boy. Coming up a little more on Licked and CNN and Deja vu all over again. Twenty years ago, another cable news outlet suddenly decided to go hard right that did not go well MSNBC and the day it fired Michael Savage and pretty much everybody in church. First, the daily round up of the Miss Grant's morons and Dunn Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. The brons. South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, like the old Bob and Ray character who announced he was not going to make the mistake most political candidates did. He was going for the nomination of both parties. Mace just blah blah blah about the Bull Durham investigation and then said, I am the furthest thing from a Trump shill, but what the FBI did to him is ft. Yeah. Last February, after he endorsed her primary opponent, Mace flew to New York and stood outside Trump Tower and videoed herself pledging fealty to the fuery. She is, in fact the definition of a Trump shill. The runner up, Ron DeSantis, who has joined the chorus insisting that New York's alleged subway strangler Daniel Penny, is in fact the real victim here after he put a disturbed man in a choke hold for fifteen minutes until the man died, when he simply could have restrained him or subdued him until the police came, like a normal person and not a potential murderer. DeSantis has called Penny quote a good Samaritan. And here is a reminder, anybody, including Ron DeSantis, who calls him a good Samaritan, has never read a Bible in their life, because in the story in there about the good Samaritan, spoiler alert, The good Samaritan doesn't kill anybody but our winner. Jason Bobert, husband of the congresswoman and former MacDonald's night manager. It was revealed yesterday she has filed for divorce from him. They met when she was sixteen and he was just about to be arrested for exposing himself to other young women in a bowling alley. Apparently this is the way of all Congressional Karens. The Taylor Greens are getting divorced too. As I mentioned, the punchline here is Jason Bobert was reported to be furious when he was served with her divorce papers.
Good God, why.
Jason? In memory of the marriage, flags and fly zippers will be lowered to half staff. Bobert two days worst person had another word that starts.
With pee in the world.
Still ahead on countdown. Let's circle back to Chris Licht's insistence as recently as yesterday that history will look kindly on his career ending, network ending decision to let Trump take the wheel a week ago tonight in the now immortally infamous Trump town hall. Well it won't. And I know this because what Licked is trying to do. I've already lived through this once twenty years ago, when MSNBC tried to swerve hard right. It's centered on a skunk named Michael Savage, and no history did not look kindly on it. The history of it, in fact, was everybody got fired except me. First. Once again, every dog has its day. Shiloh was thrown from a car in Atlanta, nine month old puppy, run of the mill, mutt, soulful eyes, big ears, and now a broken jaw because somebody threw him from a car. Rescue Dog's Rock is fundraising for the surgery via giving Grid. You can find Shiloh there on giving Grid or on my Twitter feeds. Your donations and retweets are humbly solicited. I thank you, and Shiloh thanks you. I'll repeat my point. This is no voting accident. The reason Lick is in charge of CNN is virtually every mainstream media organization in this country has already had the meeting they had at CNN. Let's discuss how if America goes fully fascist in twenty twenty five or earlier, we can still protect this company's profits. I say this not merely because I know most of the people running the mainstream media organizations. But because these conversations have already happened, and they happened long ago, largely because the first not white guy president was elected just seven years and two months after nine to eleven, we forget how seriously and terrifyingly we already have teetered on the edge of full fledged fascism here after the attacks on the World Trades Say, and the Pentagon. Nine to eleven happened between my two tenures at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a half after it happened, and by then the place I went back to work had already hired a sort of Alex Jones prototype radio host named Michael Savage, and it was slowly trying to build him into the host of a weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot. His real name was Michael Wiener, and all you need to know about him is that he was a Wiener who pretended he was a Savage. What happened to him when they tried to stick him into primetime and what he said that led to his firing and the blowing up of the Let's out Fox Fox News plan of the then NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright is a great story. I will relish telling you in a moment, but first a little context to this. MSNBC and Fox Nudes launched within weeks of each other in nineteen ninety six, and for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in December nineteen ninety eight, we were ahead of Fox in many time periods, though CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine to eleven, and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All you need to know about him is that after he left the position of running NBC, he became a contributor to Fox Business. At MSNBC, right gave Oliver North his own show and Laura Ingram her own show. He had given a program to Alan Keyes, a Republican who somehow managed to lose Senate races in two different states and washed out three different times in Republican presidential primaries. His MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches. Though he was alone in a studio with no audience, Alan Keys could not break himself up his habit of spraying the room with his eyes. The viewer at home would see him looking off camera to his left, then looking at the camera, then looking off camera to the right. He went back and forth like a sprinkler. I remember once looking at him and yelling at the TV, hey, hell over here, I'm the one in the middle. Bob Wright also brought in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired Phil Donahue, although to be fair, that was really more about money than it was about politics. But he replaced Dona Hughes's show with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly right leaning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say, the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they changed it to Countdown with Keith Olberman. MSNBC's lineup was remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven, through the beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then I left to go back to sports and baseball at Fox. Then the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hawkin for three months. Then Ali North got his shot a month later. They started having rotating liberals co host with Ali North in April nineteen ninety nine, and it became North and Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months. In May they cut North and Begala to half an hour. In June they canceled them and replaced them with a half hour An Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry was replaced by Lori Doo. In August two thousand, they started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September, they cut that show to four days a week and launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on. Then they canceled that a month later to make room for a newscast with Forest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one, they canceled Forrest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on for the third different time. Then in July they moved the News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm. Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot. Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue. They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that show they launched Countdown with Keith Olrman. That's twenty different shows or formats in four years and four months. So Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing the News at eight, then Scarborough at nine, then Jesse Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character. They began this plot by giving Savage his own show an hour every Saturday afternoon on March eighth, two thousand and three. Everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage sounded kind of threatening, I guess, a kind of red meat fascist. But on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little, cramped looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a bad tupei and a suit that was far worse than that. When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two thousand and three, I got the executive in charge of Primetime to put it in my contract that Michael Savage would never appear on my newscast in any form unless it was an obituary, open and shut. But then on Friday, April twenty fifth, two thousand and three, I came into work. We were about a month into the show, and there in the computer rundown of my newscast was a pre recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon as he saw I was in the office, the executive producer they had hired from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office and said, we have to run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins. So don't think you can call Phil to get it dropped. He's not in New York, he's not reachable, and he left. I called my agent. I told her the story, and I'm matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it, I have to walk out, don't I mind you? She had just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC. She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out, but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving. Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them. It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier if you have the high moral ground. So I called Griffin's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a car to take me home because my contract says you can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody just did nice working with you all, and tell Phil to give me a call sometime sometime. Was three minutes later. Griffin who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You would really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in the contract. I was putting my pens and books in a box as we spoke. I told him he was repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can you look at the commentary and find me a reason, a reason it isn't about politics, why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean, like video quality, or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good racist language or something that'd be great.
Call me back.
The executive producer and I went to the video edit suite, where a guy named Brenda o'melia was cutting out the time Savage had stumbled or flubbed while recording this nonsense. First of all, I said to the Xbox guy who was the producer, Michael Savage is wearing a brown shirt and a brown tie on top of his brown shirt. He is literally dressed like a Hitler brown shirt. The editor Omelia played the whole video for me, and as I dialed Phil Griffin's cell, I started laughing. I said, even for racist, homophobic crap, this thing makes no sense. He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right, because George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small and whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe in a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and he's dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough. Phil Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I think they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm. In fact, I think I might be wrong. They ran two or three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know they intended to, God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was about the time Michael Savage ended his own TV career. On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three, show fifteen out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen, Michael Savage was on the air live on MSNBC when a caller baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so you're one of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, oh, you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote, you should only get aids and die, you pig how's that. Why don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noteses end quote and Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote that I just read that was way better than the commentary they had him record for countdown. Days later, on Monday, Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson, for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news and who consulted on my show on Current TV as recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced, Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent, and Sorenson said he answered yes, I literally had to I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use on the show. It literally says, if you say any of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired for cause and get no money. Remember remember what number four on that list is number four or is quote I hope you get AIDS and die unquote, And then he said, I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob, I literally had to fire him. I had to fire him. It's in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, and then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that we have seen in television news since all the meetings about what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and NBC and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to protect their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said, after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract. Bob Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you have to fire him? I've done all the damage I can do.
Here.
Here are the credits. Most of the music arranged, produced and performed by Brian Ray and John Phillip Schhanelle. They are the Countdown musical directors. All orchestration and keyboards by John Phillip Schanel, guitars, bass and drums by Brian Ray, produced by Tko Brothers. Other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by No horns allowed. The sports music Whenever We actually do sports Again is the Olderman theme from ESPN two and it was written by Mitch Horren Davis courtesy of ESPN, Inc. Musical comments from Nancy Faust. The best baseball stadium organist ever. Our announcer was my friend Stevie van zandt everything else was pretty much my fault. So that's countdown for this, the eight hundred and sixty second day since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. Don't forget to keep arresting him while we still can. The next scheduled countdown is tomorrow. Until then, I'm Keith Olberman. Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldreman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.