Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. What if the other classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Mari Lago were from the Mueller investigation. What if those boxes are not just the result of some Trumpian dying and dash from January, but of a detailed plot to take classified documents specifically about Trump and his conspiracy with Russia, and picked the ones that made Trump look good, claim Trump had declassified them, and then make them public. What if the plot had been described for months on the record, with the accuracy and persistence of a sport play my play announcer by a Trump lackey with a big mouth, a Trump lackey named Cash Patel. That Trump would want Mueller's documents was a hunch I had in the hours after we discovered that the FBI went in to retrieve top secret classified documents from Mari Lago, but before the bigger headline came that at least some of those documents related to nuclear weapons, the kind of thing that got the Rosenberg's arrested for treason and then convicted by Trump's own mentor, Roy Cohne, and then executed naturally. In the light of all that the hunch slipped to back of mind, and it would have stayed there because obviously the newest news of trump Land comes from the courtroom of Judge Bruce Reinhardt. As far as Judge Reinhold, I still have this burning question as to why he felt he needs recute attention Trump lawyer Elena Habba, that's Judge Reinhart, not Judge Reinhold. Reinhardt now says he is inclined to release at least some of the affidavit the Department of Justice and FBI produced as support for the search at Marilago, and he has given the government until next Thursday to propose redactions. So those folks in the government have a new hobby. By the way, if Reinhart releases anything the Trump mob likes, watch how quickly he will go from being doxed to being lionized, or if he releases a lot from the affidavit canonized. But back to what was my hunch. Of all the classified documents Trump would have wanted to steal nuclear weapons documents included which would matter most to him the stuff in the boxes marked Mueller. Again, this was just instinct. For all I know, everything in the boxes is the highest form of classified nuclear secrets. But now there has been reporting that puts a little meat on the imaginary bones here. This is not my work. This light bulb went off over the heads of Laura Rosen and Ryan Goodman from the excellent news site Just Security. They put these elements together, and I am grateful that they did, and I hope you are too. This starts with John Solomon, a one time journalist so dishonest he was dumped by The Hill, by Fox News, and by The Washington Times twice. He was the first person to report that on the third of June, prosecutors had delivered a subpoena to Mari Lago for missing classified materials. This guy, who literally makes stuff up left and right, was the first person we know of to know about that subpoena. And on June twenty, Cash Patel, a popeyed former assistant to Devin Newness whom Trump seriously wanted to make head of the CIA, went on one of the nut job streaming networks and announced he had been appointed as one of Trump's representatives for all business involving the National Archives. Quote, I'm going to march down there, going to identify every Russia Gate document they're keeping from being declassified, and I'm going to start putting it out next week, sending Cash Ptel, one of the guys who tried to mess up the Biden transition, into the National Archives to cherry pick Russia and Mueller documents and use the favorable parts to try to clear Trump, blame the FBI, and circle back to Hillary. That was June. The same day federal investigators went to Mari Lago with a subpoena for the security camera surveillance videos there. And then the next day June, John Solomon, the same guy I just mentioned to knew about the subpoena and nobody else knew about at the time, announced that Trump had also named him as an n a R National Archives Representative with access to the National Archives to look at non public records from his administration. Politico reported it. If you noticed, I didn't quoting them. On June, sa Leiman said Trump specifically directed the Archives to give him access to documents related to the Russia probe that were declassified in the final days of his administration. John Solomon and Cash Patel two of the craziest, most dishonest men in Trump world, and boy is that saying something are sent by Trump to the National Archives to find classified documents about Russia and the Steel dossier and Mueller, and goodness knows what else. And the same day the Feds knock on Mary Lagoons doors, demanding the security video there. Trump is obsessed with vengeance about his conspiracies with Russia. He must convince everybody in the world he was innocent and he was the one who was wronged. Just two weeks ago, when the news of the search broke his lackey, Sean Hannity brought up the Russian Pea tape. Even though Trump got away with it, this is all still front of mind for him. Well now, Ryan Goodman, an attorney former special counsel at the Pentagon now of Just Security, went completely down this rabbit hole Trump's attempts to send two looney operatives into the National Archives where they would grab and publish classified documents, and Goodman found the plan goes back at least a month earlier than we knew and uses the exact same rationale that Trump's defenders are now using about the stuff found at Mari lago to tell would release these classified documents while claiming Trump had declassified them verbally or maybe silently just using his mind. In May, Goodman found quote Patel's spoke with right wing media outlets about Trump's objectives in retaining these documents. He began laying out the defense that the documents had been quote declassified unquote and specifically identified Trump's goal to release information publicly. He described the content of the documents to include matters related to the Russia investigation, but also a much broader range of issues. Patel then gave these quotes to bright Bart That's the Dead and Drunk conservative site on May five. It's information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russia Gate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco, to major national security matters of great public importance. Anything the President felt the American people had a right to know is in there and more. Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves. And Patel quote. ABC News has also gotten into this story. It brought up the network's interview with Patel on June one, and he said all this stuff to them. ABC found a Patel podcast interview in which he also said all this on June, and another podcast which he said it on July four and said his plan was to quote retrieve documents from the National Archives and put them on a website and quote make a big announcement every time they published a new one. All told six interviews in which cash Ptel said, Hey, look at me, I'm about to pinch stuff from the National Archives. So before there was a subpoena delivered to Marilago in June, and before there was a day long search of Marilago in August, and before there was the possible release of some of the affidavit in August or September, this guy cash Pittel was basically stopping strangers on the street and saying, I'm going into the National Archives and I'm going to grab all the Russia documents I can find, and Trump is going to claim he declassified them, and we are going to publish them on a website. Back to Ryan Goodman at just Security, and what we know pretty clearly is a plan, a plot, a scheme, not merely to take classified dot couments from the National Archives but make them public. In other words, the boxes at MARI Lago aren't the whole crime. They are just the end result of a crime scheme. As Ryan Goodman writes, quote, if that scheme involved Trump himself and the Mari Lago documents, it could have significant legal implications for the Justice departments ongoing criminal investigation. Any plan to release the documents could potentially trigger specific elements of the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes designed with the core purpose of preventing unlawful dissemination of classified and other sensitive government documents. In Layman's terms, Cash Patel's big mouth could turn Trump's criminal possession classified government documents into Trump's conspiracy to steal and disseminate classified government documents, and as roy Cone could have told you, that's known as espionage. Goodman also notes at Just Security that one of the documents voluntarily released by the Department of Justice at the affidavit hearing before Judge Reinhardt on Thursday, showed there was a possible violation of eighteen US Code one five one nine. This law literally comes with multiple choice boxes to justify a search. One box says a search for a person. One box says a search for property used in a crime. One box says a search for fruits of crime illegally possessed, and one box says evidence of a crime. Many thought that only the box reading fruits of crime illegally possessed would be checked, meaning this was all only about getting the documents back. But that box is checked, and so is the box for evidence of a crime. In other words, the search at Mari Lago was also about establishing the grounds to charge people with crimes. Trump looking at you, bub There's one last Trump story that ties this all together and beautifully. The British newspaper The Guardian reported early in the week that the big thing in Trump Land right now is finding the rat some employee who had tipped off the Department of Justice. Hugo Lowell reported in The Guardian that first they thought it was Nicholas Luna, the Trump body man who quit in March, or maybe Molly Michael, the former Oval Office operations chief who stayed with Trump has submitted her resignation to Trump but has not left his side yet. And where did they get these names, Nicholas Luna, Molly Michael. Then they thought, now it's not them. It's got to be employees at Mari Lago, maybe at the golf course. Finally, citing unnamed sources, Lowell reports the Trump mob focused on quote, anyone who had not yet been suspected, including members of Trump's family unquote. So this is a puzzlement. Who tipped the d o J and the National Archives that Trump had boxes of secret materials over there near the Mara Lago pool. Who isn't it obvious? Doesn't this new reporting by just Security spell it out? The National Archives and d o J and FBI found out there was a plot to steal secrets, disseminate secrets, and then claim invisible declassification of secrets. Because this moron cash Patel kept talking about it for four months to everybody who would stop long enough to listen to him. There isn't a mole, There isn't a rat, There isn't a source. There isn't a family member who secretly hates Donald. There's a Trump cultist who said, Hey, I'm gonna go take documents. Everybody come watch me take documents, or go look at our website, because after I go there to take the documents that I've taking the documents, we are going to post the documents. Yea for stealing documents still ahead on Countdown. The Republican congressman who insists that the FBI director appointed by Trump was actually appointed by Biden. The County Republican party that used a logo on Facebook showing hooded members of the KKK has now apologized, I don't get this story. Apologize why they're apologizing to Republicans and KKK and hooded Klansman. What's the what's the apology? For? CNN cancels its media criticism show and fires the host. This augurs really badly for any attempt to keep the network's new Trump friendly owners from swinging it to the right, because the guy they installed is a guy I used to work with at MSNBC and why do I know him? Plus worst Persons and James Thurber. That's next. This has Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman coming up. Mike Glendale promises this time he really really means it. This his seven twenty ninth election votes summit. This one will really be the one that convinces you or his name is not P. T. Barnum. First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day. For this one, we go to Philadelphia, where Carlos has been at the SPC A shelter there for one thousand, two hundred and fifty two days. Unbelievable. He's so good with other dogs. Volunteers say he should go into an adult's only home that already has dogs, and they think he'd be good with cats too. Why is he still in the shelter. He's nervous, he needs time to adjust, and he's a black pibble terrier mix and people who go to a shelter ignore dark dogs medium sized. If you're in the Philly area, give Carlos a chance. Behavior at p spc A dot org is the email, or just go to my Twitter feed for dogs, indeed Tom Jumbo Grumbo. There you will find the tweet about Carlos. To see photos, email addresses, links all you need. And you can also help him by just retweeting my biography of Carlos. Spread the word Tom Jumbo Grumbo on Twitter. Thank you coming up here. In Worse, a Republican candidate reminds you that you're quote voting with the ballot before we have to vote with bullets. CNN's first lurch to the right. They fire the guy who gets more flak from the right wing per minute of airtime of anybody on cable news since Me and James Third Brewer's Wonderful Fable. The piece like Mongoose, but first postscripts to the news, some headlines, some thoughts, some snark. Dateline date in Ohio. You could almost set your watch by them. Republican Congressman Mike Turner, the one who said Trump did nothing wrong because you could find that nuclear stuff on your phone, and anyway, the documents are two years old. He went on CNN yesterday and explained that this is all happening because Joe Biden appointed the FBI director Chris Ray. When the host pointed out that Trump appointed FBI Director Chris Ray, Turner would not concede the point quote he serves at the pleasure of this president, so he is an appointee of the current president, which sounds great until you remember that the phrase serves at the pleasure of the president is not a real thing. It's just a line from the TV drama The West Wing. Date Line Jackson, Wyoming turns out Harriet Hagaman, the ex never Trumper who unseated Liz Cheney in Wyoming, is already lying Hagaman. She's the one wonderfully described as looking like every member of the comedy troupe kids in the Hall, if they were all playing the same character at the same time. Hagaman told Sean Hannity that Cheney was not gracious in defeat and did not concede. Quote she didn't addressed any kind of concession or anything else. Politico has found a tape of somebody recording Cheney as she left Hagaman a voicemail, and the voicemail went as follows, quote, Hi, Harriet, it's Liz Cheney calling. It's about eight thirteen on Tuesday the sixteen. I'm calling to concede the election and congratulate you on the win. Thanks, bye bye. Look it wasn't the Gettysburg addressed, but it sure sounds like an addressed the concession that Hagaman had lied about and said it didn't address, and she lied about it. Dateline, Florida, the Overstock CEO Nutguy Patrick Byrne filed one of the motions that would un seal the Trump lawrant affidavit. In his sworn affidavit accompanying his motion, Burne says he personally heard Trump on December nine appoint as special counsel with top secret security clearance Sydney Powell. This is somehow supposed to explain Trump stealing stuff. And speaking of which, dateline Springfield, Missouri, it's that time again, another Mike Lendell's summit. No no, no, really, no no, no no, don't shut off the podcast. This is the one. This will decide all of it. Nobody on Earth will be able to say the election was stolen after this one quote. I'm telling you everybody, it's over for them, he says, because this is the moment of truth summit. Twelve hours of impenetrable bull crap on Saturday, and then twelve more hours of more impenetrable bull crap on Sunday, and then another summit like when like whenever pillows sales drop off, don't forget to use the special code for two dollars off. One of these crap pillows are special code. This week is sucker. This is Sports Center. Wait check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman from the Worldwide Sports What position in any sport produces more controversies per star than NFL quarterback? The National Football League and its Players Association have now settled the Deshaun Watson sexual misconduct disaster, or at least they think they have. They have agreed that Watson will be suspended for eleven games without pay after he was accused by more than two dozen massage therapists. The Cleveland Brown's quarterback will also pay a five million dollar fine. He'll undergo an evaluation by behavioral experts, and he'll have to adhere to their treatment program, and then he can apply for reinstatement. Watson issued a fulsome statement over his own name that included the words disciplinary support, apologize, paying, accountability, best version of myself, et cetera. And then Watson met with reporters and said quote, I'll continue to stand on my innocence. Just because you know, settlements and things like that happened, don't It doesn't mean a person is guilty for anything. I feel like a person has an opportunity to stand on his innocence and prove that we proved that from a legal side. Well, it's nice to see Deshaun Watson has clearly learned his lesson his usen and had a game the system. It's much simpler for fans of Tampa Bay's anti Deluvian quarterback Tom Brady. They just don't know where he is. Year old Brady has now been away from the team for eight days, tending to quote personal things somewhere. And the man who said that, Coach Todd Bowls, says he doesn't know when Brady will be back. He won't even begin to worry about it until like Sunday. There's no definitive date for me, Coach bowl says, but we'll check on it, We'll keep in touch and we'll find out. So if you've seen Tom Brady, please call one eight hundred old QB twelve. That's one eight hundred old QB twelve. We've put out a silver alert for him. Stell ahead on the firing of Brian Stelter by CNN. It is far worse than you're being told because the guy who did it used to be Joe Scarborough's henchmen at MSNBC. First the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. Lebrons, the Prime Minister of Norway Jonah's gar Store. You will recall hearing Monday about the execution of Freya, a female walrus who had been driven twelve hundred miles south of her home and into the waters around Oslo because of climate change. When the humans in Oslow would not listen to the authorities warning that they had to stop risking their own safety by getting so close to the pound and very friendly walrus. Naturally, Norway solved the problem by killing Freya the walrus. Now Prime Minister Store has defended the decision, saying Norway is a seafaring country and quote sometimes we have to make unpopular decisions. Meanwhile, Anguish residents have already raised thousand croner. It was about dollars to build a statue of Freya. Maybe put up a statue of this idiot Prime Minister. To our runner up, Stephen Lowell, Twitter bought Avatar come to life, who is running as the Republican candidate for the Minnesota the state Senate in District fifty two. He's bald, he's bearded, he's wearing aviators, and he's threatening anarchy. We need to grow our teeth back fast, he said at a campaign event in the suburbs of the Twin Cities. So part of those teeth in this particular set of terms is voting with the ballot before we have to vote with bullets. Didn't you always think that if somebody campaigned like that, they just get arrested on the spot. Oh well, f y I, in case you prefer your government not by bullets. The Democrat in District fifty two is the incumbent, Jim Carlson. Go Jim, But our winners the Lawrence County Republican Party of Alabama, which welcome to new chairman on a Facebook account by posting an image of a red, white and blue Republican elephant. Then it turned out the white spaces between the elephant's red legs formed the outline of the heads of hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. Apparently they just googled the image and found one online and didn't look too closely st that's what they're saying. It had been run originally in Mother Jones magazine, in Chairman Shannon Terry writes, I would like to offer a deep and sincere apology. A picture of a GOP elephant was used and later found to have hidden images that do not represent the views or beliefs of l Lawrence County Republican Party. Wait they're apologizing. The Republicans of Lawrence County, Alabama are apologizing for using hooded Klansmen in their in their logo. Why I don't I don't understand. Why is this on here? But mcclansman, GOP. I mean, what's the apology? What's the apology for? The apologies for copyright infringement? Infringement is that it I just I just doing Lawrence County, Alabama. Republic k k K cans today's worse persons in the world. Time for our number one story on the Countdown, and since it is the weekend edition, we will give you your Thurber in a moment. But for once things I've promised not to tell is topical, so it will make a rare appearance on the Friday and weekend edition now. Yesterday, CNN canceled its weekly show reviewing the media, Reliable Sources, the only SUNCH program in mainstream television. CNN also fired its host Brian Stelter after nine years at the network. I've had problems with some of Brian's work since he founded the TV newser blog while he was in college in two thousand four, later at The New York Times, but I've never had any problem with his intent nor his work ethic, and his stuff on CNN made him such a target from the far right that you would have thought he was me or that he was on the air seventeen hours a day on CNN rather than once a week. The reason was simple. After MSNBC cut a deal to stop calling out Fox News, pretty much nobody in television called out Fox News and the rest of the lunatic right propaganda machine except Stelter. His firing was no surprise. You may not know it, but CNN was recently taken over by a company owned by billionaire Trump downer John Malone, and Malone intends to vary gradually reduced CNN to at best twenty four hours a day. Of both sides, is him think Michael Smirconish on a loop, Stelter did the most damage to the right. Therefore, Stelter was the first to go. He will not be the last. CNN's new president. Chris Licked is there to dismantle the liberal parts of CNN. I know this because I worked with him at MSNBC, where he decided that part of his job was to try to dismantle the liberal parts of MSNBC. When Stelter was fired, The Daily Beasts impeccable media guy Lachland Cartwright reported that quote everything about this rollout points to Discovery board member John Malone and Discovery CEO David Zaslov. A source familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast Chris Licked did not want to do this. I am sure the quote is accurate, and I'm sure whoever told Cartwright that believes the quote to be true, But it misses the point. What Chris Lick wants to do is whatever John Malone and David Zaslov tell him to do. He is a corporate lackey. Worse, he's a corporate henchman. So here's the story I promised not to tell. Perhaps the most amazing thing about my ten years at MSNBC was the fact that Joe Scarborough and his producers, especially his chief henchman, ever got their own show on the air. Because nobody I have ever worked with in radio or television, in sports or news in the twentieth century or the one ever spent more time trying to screw with other programs on the same network than did Joe Scarborough. And until just about the time I left in two thousand eleven. The guy he sent in to do most of the sabotage for him was this henchman guy. The reason this should matter to you now is Scarborough's henchman was Chris Licked, the new president of CNN. And if they scoured the nation to find the worst person to run CNN in a time when democracy is threatened one political party and tepidly defended by another, it's Chris Licked. I know, I know. You turn on the TV and you see Joe Scarborough and you see exactly what I see. A blank, dazed, darting, paranoid, no soul, stupid check engine light. Look. But if you don't trust me, trust my scars. My Joey Scars behind that vapid face is a master saboteur. Early in two thousand eight, the late Tim Russert called me and warned me that the GOP had upped its pressure on me. He said he had heard from somebody in New York, that somebody in New York was going into the office of the president of NBC News saying that Joe Scarborough couldn't get his friend John McCain to come on to his new Morning Show because I was so critical of McCain. On Countdown, Tim was not sure it was Scarborough, but if it wasn't, who else could have gotten in to see the president of NBC New Wos other than Scarborough or his executive producer. The evidence for the new CNN president, Mr Licht being directly involved in interfering with programming to benefit somebody else's friends or political cronies was vague in two thousand and eight, but not at all vague two years later. Early in January two thousand ten, the Republican candidate to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy, Scott Brown, the former semi nude model, was at a rally when one of his supporters talked about quote shoving a curling iron up the backside of the Democratic Senate candidate Martha Cokeley. Scott Brown clearly heard the remark from the crowd and responded, quote, we could do that. On January eighteenth, on Countdown, I did a brief commentary about how unsuitable Brown was for public office. I said he was quote an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, x nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees unquote, I had quotes from Brown. I had videotape of him disparaging his minority opponent in a local election to her face at a debate. To back up what I said. An hour later, Joe Scarborough commenced a tweet storm against me. Quote Alberman calls Brown a homophobic, racist, reactionary who supports violence against women. How reckless and how sad it's no longer enough to simply disagree with someone. I'm sorry, I just fell into my Scarborough impression. Justice went Beck called the president racist. This sort of rhetorical extremism must be discouraged. Chapened the debate. End quote and impression. Now there was a standing rule at MSNBC. You want to criticize another MSNBC personality, go ahead, have a blast, but it must be on the air on MSNBC, and the other person must have an opportunity to reply in real time, in this aim show or in some kind of face to face way. No hit and run, no Joe Scarborough tweet storms. If you criticize them by name or by inference in any other medium newspaper, interview, radio, social media, you were to receive an automatic suspension. The next day, January called the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, and I asked how long Joe Scarborough's automatic suspension was gonna be. Griffin asked me to come into the office a little earlier than usual and to go see him. He said he had already had a meeting about the tweets that morning with Scarborough's executive producer, Chris Licht. Griffin explained that Scarborough, according to lickt, considered Scott Brown a friend. More importantly, Chris Licked warned Griffin that if Griffin followed through and enforced the suspension rule, Scarborough would have no other option than to go to the press and tell reporters, especially reporters at right wing website nights like Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller, that he Scarborough had been suspended because he Scarborough was a conservative, but I was a liberal, and that I and not Phil Griffin ran MSNBC. What can I do? Griffin was scared. I told him he could fire Scarborough and Licked because they had just tried to blackmail him, and eventually he was going to have to fire them both anyway, but that I knew he would not do this, and that I knew now that he would not suspend Scarborough either, and Griffin did not suspend him. Partial score Scarborough's friends to MSNBC's rules of behavior, nothing but Phil Griffin did send out a memo to the entire company insisting that anybody who criticized another MSNBC show or host in another medium would be suspended, except Scarborough, who had just done exactly that and then threatened his own employers. On January, Brian Stelter's old blog TV news Or got a copy of Griffin's memo. They wondered why Scarborough had not been suspended, so they called the MSNBC president and they printed quote Griffin responds to TV news Or, quote an important rule was broken. I spoke to Keith and he said, in the spirit of teamwork and the free flow of ideas, he didn't think it warranted punishment or suspension. I also talked to Joe and he apologized to me. That's why I made the decision that this didn't rise to the level of punishment. But I felt it was necessary to reiterate my long standing policy bull crap. Reiterate my long standing policy which I just did not enforce against Joe Scarborough. The whole thing was totally fabricated, licked, and Scarborough had threatened to smear their own bosses in the right wing echo chamber. It should have been both fired on the spot. In May two thousand ten, Scarborough said something on the air about a Democrat getting away with not being investigated for something. I forget the details. I didn't bother to look it up. You can if you want. Then. Marcos militzis the editor of the Daily Coast website, and not just a regular contributor to Countdown, but somebody who had been promoting the show and the MSNBC brand on that website every day for five years. Marcos sent a snarky but legitimate tweet questioning Scarborough's credentials to criticize others who had not been investigated for stuff. Marcos invoked the staffer who died in an accident in Joe Scarborough's congressional office. Scarborough then attacked Melitus on Twitter, inaccurately claiming Melitsus had accused Scarborough of murder. A few days after that, I got a phone call from the MSNBC president, Phil Griffin, and if you got a phone call rather than a call to come into his office. You know he was really scared. Griffin told me Chris Licked has been in to see me. Joe won't put up with having Marcos Militzis on his network anymore. Not only that, but Licks as many of Joe's friends who also appear in Dayside and prime Time won't come on if Marcos Melitzis is permitted to continue. Here, Chris is insisting that Marcos be banned from MSNBC immediately. Chris says he's afraid that if we don't do that, Joe won't come into work tomorrow. Upon hearing that, I laughed and I congratulated Phil Griffin on the clear win win he'd just been given. But Phil was very bad at enforcing MSNBC's rules, but very good at creating new ones on the spot to protect Joe Scarborough and Chris Licked and their friends. I'm banning Melitze's for many further appearances on MSNBC, I said, Phil, he's a contributor to my show. You are suspending my contributor who has driven hundreds of thousands of viewers to countdown at MSNBC. And I don't have any say in it. You are owned by Joe Scarborough and Chris Licked. What you now have to worry about is whether I tell this story on the air tonight or I just wait and tell it later. Phil now got conciliatory because he was scared again and said it could be just a suspension if I cooperated. So I called Marcos. He said he enjoyed his contributions to Countdown. He also did occasional appearances on the old Ed Schultz MSNBC show, and he said if there were a chance at resuming them, he preferred to at least try that. So Marcos and I went along with Griffin suspending Marcus Melitz's and to my knowledge, Marcus Melitzus has not been seen on MSNBC since. I wish I had better notes on some of my conversations from the two thousand eight nine, ten eleven era about those conversations with the hosts and the producers of the other shows like Schultz and Rachel Maddows Show, and even Chris Matthews and Hardball. I must have heard a variation of this statement a dozen times from these people. Guess who was in Griffin's office explaining that such and such as Joe's friend and Phil really needs to make sure we lay off him Chris Licked. It was usually an expletive in the middle between Chris and Licked. I remember one of my producers at the MSNBC A version of Countdown telling me that one of the other producers told him that Licked had gone to NBC News President Steve Cappus with an actual list of Republicans that Matto and Olberman needed to stop criticizing because they were Joe's here's the word again friends, and we were hurting morning Joe. What's amazing is that, setting aside the issues of unrevealed torrid love affairs, when CNN fired its nine PM host Chris Cuomo, president Jeff Zucker, and senior vice president Alison Gallas, they fired them in essence because they interfered with CNN content and practices in order to do favors for people who were their friends, or, in Cuomo's case, their relatives at MSNBC interfering with MSNBC content and practices to do favors for friends. It was seemingly the only reason Chris Licked had a job. So CNN got rid of left wingers for a terrible violation of journalistic ethics, and then hired his president, a right wing henchman who had committed exactly the same journalistic ethical problems, and who, for his act, the first one of his career at CNN, killed off the only national television show that regularly held up Fox News, News Max and all the rest to the world to show that they were the threats to democracy that they are. This is CNN, so necessarily the Thurber will be a little truncated tonight because I'm about out of reading material, as in I can't talk much longer. But one of his fables is doubly important. Right at the moment when I was negotiating to leave MSNBC without anybody suing anybody else, we finalized all the arrangements in the middle of the last show except one. NBC did not want me to read this particular therb or fable, and I had to switch to another one because they felt in planning to do so, I was attacking them, possibly because I was attacking them. The piece like Mongoose is the starting point of my relationship with James Thurber's daughter Rosemary, and his granddaughter and his publishers. It was my dad fatally sick in the hospital, to whom I would read Thurber every night, who suggested I should read Thurber on the TV news show. I thought he was crazy. I told him if I did that, I'd probably hear from his literary trust. But I did it anyway, and so I read the piece like mongoose, and I heard from his literary trust, because at the moment I read this story, Rosie Thurber was on the horns of the proverbial dilemma. A British publisher wanted to put the piece like Mongoose in an anthology for school kids. It is placements like that which keep an author alive. But that publisher wanted to remove one word from the story, and Rosie was now torn edit her father's work or don't publish her father's work. Unbeknownst to me, she and her daughter, Sarah, we're both countdown viewers, and we're watching as I read the piece like mongoose. Sarah and then called her mother and said, I think you've got your answer right there. Not long after, the British publisher, probably a coincidence, changed its mind about exercising the word amen. The word, by the way, is mongoose. Sexual, which is a perfect creation of the perfect James Thurber. And the complaint from NBC was about the moral to the story, which I will not read first and without any other pointless ado the piece like mongoose, Like James Thurber. In co Brick Country, a mongoose was born one day who didn't want to fight cobras or anything else. The words spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to fight cobra's He didn't want to fight anything else. It was his own business. But it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the piece like mongoose, And the word went around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of mongoose is um. He's crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. A sick, said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters. Strangers who had never laid eyes on the piece like mongoose remembered they had seen him crawling on his stomach or trying on cobra hoods were plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses, said another. Finally, the rumors spread that the mongoose had venom in his staying like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't get you your own, folks, may I've done all the damage I can do here, and actually a little more. No extra charge. But this is where I ask you to rate and review the podcast. Fib tell them it's outstanding, and you listen to it twice. The Countdown theme is from Beethoven's Ninth Arrange, produced and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and drums by Brian Ray and produced by t k O Brothers. That's John and Brian and me. The other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by no horns allowed. Our sports music the Alderman theme from the ESPN two show Alderman, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, incorporated musical comments here and there by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, and our announced here today was my friend Larry David. Let's countdown with this the nine days since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. A new episode Monday morning till then. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of I Heart Radio. What if the other classified documents Trump stole and stashed at Mari Lago were from the Mueller investigation. What if those boxes are not just the result of some Trumpian dying and dash from January, but of a detailed plot to take classified documents specifically about Trump and his conspiracy with Russia, and picked the ones that made Trump look good, claim Trump had declassified them, and then make them public. What if the plot had been described for months on the record, with the accuracy and persistence of a sport play my play announcer by a Trump lackey with a big mouth, a Trump lackey named Cash Patel. That Trump would want Mueller's documents was a hunch I had in the hours after we discovered that the FBI went in to retrieve top secret classified documents from Mari Lago, but before the bigger headline came that at least some of those documents related to nuclear weapons, the kind of thing that got the Rosenberg's arrested for treason and then convicted by Trump's own mentor, Roy Cohne, and then executed naturally. In the light of all that the hunch slipped to back of mind, and it would have stayed there because obviously the newest news of trump Land comes from the courtroom of Judge Bruce Reinhardt. As far as Judge Reinhold, I still have this burning question as to why he felt he needs recute attention Trump lawyer Elena Habba, that's Judge Reinhart, not Judge Reinhold. Reinhardt now says he is inclined to release at least some of the affidavit the Department of Justice and FBI produced as support for the search at Marilago, and he has given the government until next Thursday to propose redactions. So those folks in the government have a new hobby. By the way, if Reinhart releases anything the Trump mob likes, watch how quickly he will go from being doxed to being lionized, or if he releases a lot from the affidavit canonized. But back to what was my hunch. Of all the classified documents Trump would have wanted to steal nuclear weapons documents included which would matter most to him the stuff in the boxes marked Mueller. Again, this was just instinct. For all I know, everything in the boxes is the highest form of classified nuclear secrets. But now there has been reporting that puts a little meat on the imaginary bones here. This is not my work. This light bulb went off over the heads of Laura Rosen and Ryan Goodman from the excellent news site Just Security. They put these elements together, and I am grateful that they did, and I hope you are too. This starts with John Solomon, a one time journalist so dishonest he was dumped by The Hill, by Fox News, and by The Washington Times twice. He was the first person to report that on the third of June, prosecutors had delivered a subpoena to Mari Lago for missing classified materials. This guy, who literally makes stuff up left and right, was the first person we know of to know about that subpoena. And on June twenty, Cash Patel, a popeyed former assistant to Devin Newness whom Trump seriously wanted to make head of the CIA, went on one of the nut job streaming networks and announced he had been appointed as one of Trump's representatives for all business involving the National Archives. Quote, I'm going to march down there, going to identify every Russia Gate document they're keeping from being declassified, and I'm going to start putting it out next week, sending Cash Ptel, one of the guys who tried to mess up the Biden transition, into the National Archives to cherry pick Russia and Mueller documents and use the favorable parts to try to clear Trump, blame the FBI, and circle back to Hillary. That was June. The same day federal investigators went to Mari Lago with a subpoena for the security camera surveillance videos there. And then the next day June, John Solomon, the same guy I just mentioned to knew about the subpoena and nobody else knew about at the time, announced that Trump had also named him as an n a R National Archives Representative with access to the National Archives to look at non public records from his administration. Politico reported it. If you noticed, I didn't quoting them. On June, sa Leiman said Trump specifically directed the Archives to give him access to documents related to the Russia probe that were declassified in the final days of his administration. John Solomon and Cash Patel two of the craziest, most dishonest men in Trump world, and boy is that saying something are sent by Trump to the National Archives to find classified documents about Russia and the Steel dossier and Mueller, and goodness knows what else. And the same day the Feds knock on Mary Lagoons doors, demanding the security video there. Trump is obsessed with vengeance about his conspiracies with Russia. He must convince everybody in the world he was innocent and he was the one who was wronged. Just two weeks ago, when the news of the search broke his lackey, Sean Hannity brought up the Russian Pea tape. Even though Trump got away with it, this is all still front of mind for him. Well now, Ryan Goodman, an attorney former special counsel at the Pentagon now of Just Security, went completely down this rabbit hole Trump's attempts to send two looney operatives into the National Archives where they would grab and publish classified documents, and Goodman found the plan goes back at least a month earlier than we knew and uses the exact same rationale that Trump's defenders are now using about the stuff found at Mari lago to tell would release these classified documents while claiming Trump had declassified them verbally or maybe silently just using his mind. In May, Goodman found quote Patel's spoke with right wing media outlets about Trump's objectives in retaining these documents. He began laying out the defense that the documents had been quote declassified unquote and specifically identified Trump's goal to release information publicly. He described the content of the documents to include matters related to the Russia investigation, but also a much broader range of issues. Patel then gave these quotes to bright Bart That's the Dead and Drunk conservative site on May five. It's information that Trump felt spoke to matters regarding everything from Russia Gate to the Ukraine impeachment fiasco, to major national security matters of great public importance. Anything the President felt the American people had a right to know is in there and more. Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves. And Patel quote. ABC News has also gotten into this story. It brought up the network's interview with Patel on June one, and he said all this stuff to them. ABC found a Patel podcast interview in which he also said all this on June, and another podcast which he said it on July four and said his plan was to quote retrieve documents from the National Archives and put them on a website and quote make a big announcement every time they published a new one. All told six interviews in which cash Ptel said, Hey, look at me, I'm about to pinch stuff from the National Archives. So before there was a subpoena delivered to Marilago in June, and before there was a day long search of Marilago in August, and before there was the possible release of some of the affidavit in August or September, this guy cash Pittel was basically stopping strangers on the street and saying, I'm going into the National Archives and I'm going to grab all the Russia documents I can find, and Trump is going to claim he declassified them, and we are going to publish them on a website. Back to Ryan Goodman at just Security, and what we know pretty clearly is a plan, a plot, a scheme, not merely to take classified dot couments from the National Archives but make them public. In other words, the boxes at MARI Lago aren't the whole crime. They are just the end result of a crime scheme. As Ryan Goodman writes, quote, if that scheme involved Trump himself and the Mari Lago documents, it could have significant legal implications for the Justice departments ongoing criminal investigation. Any plan to release the documents could potentially trigger specific elements of the Espionage Act and other criminal statutes designed with the core purpose of preventing unlawful dissemination of classified and other sensitive government documents. In Layman's terms, Cash Patel's big mouth could turn Trump's criminal possession classified government documents into Trump's conspiracy to steal and disseminate classified government documents, and as roy Cone could have told you, that's known as espionage. Goodman also notes at Just Security that one of the documents voluntarily released by the Department of Justice at the affidavit hearing before Judge Reinhardt on Thursday, showed there was a possible violation of eighteen US Code one five one nine. This law literally comes with multiple choice boxes to justify a search. One box says a search for a person. One box says a search for property used in a crime. One box says a search for fruits of crime illegally possessed, and one box says evidence of a crime. Many thought that only the box reading fruits of crime illegally possessed would be checked, meaning this was all only about getting the documents back. But that box is checked, and so is the box for evidence of a crime. In other words, the search at Mari Lago was also about establishing the grounds to charge people with crimes. Trump looking at you, bub There's one last Trump story that ties this all together and beautifully. The British newspaper The Guardian reported early in the week that the big thing in Trump Land right now is finding the rat some employee who had tipped off the Department of Justice. Hugo Lowell reported in The Guardian that first they thought it was Nicholas Luna, the Trump body man who quit in March, or maybe Molly Michael, the former Oval Office operations chief who stayed with Trump has submitted her resignation to Trump but has not left his side yet. And where did they get these names, Nicholas Luna, Molly Michael. Then they thought, now it's not them. It's got to be employees at Mari Lago, maybe at the golf course. Finally, citing unnamed sources, Lowell reports the Trump mob focused on quote, anyone who had not yet been suspected, including members of Trump's family unquote. So this is a puzzlement. Who tipped the d o J and the National Archives that Trump had boxes of secret materials over there near the Mara Lago pool. Who isn't it obvious? Doesn't this new reporting by just Security spell it out? The National Archives and d o J and FBI found out there was a plot to steal secrets, disseminate secrets, and then claim invisible declassification of secrets. Because this moron cash Patel kept talking about it for four months to everybody who would stop long enough to listen to him. There isn't a mole, There isn't a rat, There isn't a source. There isn't a family member who secretly hates Donald. There's a Trump cultist who said, Hey, I'm gonna go take documents. Everybody come watch me take documents, or go look at our website, because after I go there to take the documents that I've taking the documents, we are going to post the documents. Yea for stealing documents still ahead on Countdown. The Republican congressman who insists that the FBI director appointed by Trump was actually appointed by Biden. The County Republican party that used a logo on Facebook showing hooded members of the KKK has now apologized, I don't get this story. Apologize why they're apologizing to Republicans and KKK and hooded Klansman. What's the what's the apology? For? CNN cancels its media criticism show and fires the host. This augurs really badly for any attempt to keep the network's new Trump friendly owners from swinging it to the right, because the guy they installed is a guy I used to work with at MSNBC and why do I know him? Plus worst Persons and James Thurber. That's next. This has Countdown. This is Countdown with Keith Olberman coming up. Mike Glendale promises this time he really really means it. This his seven twenty ninth election votes summit. This one will really be the one that convinces you or his name is not P. T. Barnum. First, in each edition of Countdown, we feature a dog in need whom you can help. Every dog has its day. For this one, we go to Philadelphia, where Carlos has been at the SPC A shelter there for one thousand, two hundred and fifty two days. Unbelievable. He's so good with other dogs. Volunteers say he should go into an adult's only home that already has dogs, and they think he'd be good with cats too. Why is he still in the shelter. He's nervous, he needs time to adjust, and he's a black pibble terrier mix and people who go to a shelter ignore dark dogs medium sized. If you're in the Philly area, give Carlos a chance. Behavior at p spc A dot org is the email, or just go to my Twitter feed for dogs, indeed Tom Jumbo Grumbo. There you will find the tweet about Carlos. To see photos, email addresses, links all you need. And you can also help him by just retweeting my biography of Carlos. Spread the word Tom Jumbo Grumbo on Twitter. Thank you coming up here. In Worse, a Republican candidate reminds you that you're quote voting with the ballot before we have to vote with bullets. CNN's first lurch to the right. They fire the guy who gets more flak from the right wing per minute of airtime of anybody on cable news since Me and James Third Brewer's Wonderful Fable. The piece like Mongoose, but first postscripts to the news, some headlines, some thoughts, some snark. Dateline date in Ohio. You could almost set your watch by them. Republican Congressman Mike Turner, the one who said Trump did nothing wrong because you could find that nuclear stuff on your phone, and anyway, the documents are two years old. He went on CNN yesterday and explained that this is all happening because Joe Biden appointed the FBI director Chris Ray. When the host pointed out that Trump appointed FBI Director Chris Ray, Turner would not concede the point quote he serves at the pleasure of this president, so he is an appointee of the current president, which sounds great until you remember that the phrase serves at the pleasure of the president is not a real thing. It's just a line from the TV drama The West Wing. Date Line Jackson, Wyoming turns out Harriet Hagaman, the ex never Trumper who unseated Liz Cheney in Wyoming, is already lying Hagaman. She's the one wonderfully described as looking like every member of the comedy troupe kids in the Hall, if they were all playing the same character at the same time. Hagaman told Sean Hannity that Cheney was not gracious in defeat and did not concede. Quote she didn't addressed any kind of concession or anything else. Politico has found a tape of somebody recording Cheney as she left Hagaman a voicemail, and the voicemail went as follows, quote, Hi, Harriet, it's Liz Cheney calling. It's about eight thirteen on Tuesday the sixteen. I'm calling to concede the election and congratulate you on the win. Thanks, bye bye. Look it wasn't the Gettysburg addressed, but it sure sounds like an addressed the concession that Hagaman had lied about and said it didn't address, and she lied about it. Dateline, Florida, the Overstock CEO Nutguy Patrick Byrne filed one of the motions that would un seal the Trump lawrant affidavit. In his sworn affidavit accompanying his motion, Burne says he personally heard Trump on December nine appoint as special counsel with top secret security clearance Sydney Powell. This is somehow supposed to explain Trump stealing stuff. And speaking of which, dateline Springfield, Missouri, it's that time again, another Mike Lendell's summit. No no, no, really, no no, no no, don't shut off the podcast. This is the one. This will decide all of it. Nobody on Earth will be able to say the election was stolen after this one quote. I'm telling you everybody, it's over for them, he says, because this is the moment of truth summit. Twelve hours of impenetrable bull crap on Saturday, and then twelve more hours of more impenetrable bull crap on Sunday, and then another summit like when like whenever pillows sales drop off, don't forget to use the special code for two dollars off. One of these crap pillows are special code. This week is sucker. This is Sports Center. Wait check that not anymore. This is Countdown with Keith Alberman from the Worldwide Sports What position in any sport produces more controversies per star than NFL quarterback? The National Football League and its Players Association have now settled the Deshaun Watson sexual misconduct disaster, or at least they think they have. They have agreed that Watson will be suspended for eleven games without pay after he was accused by more than two dozen massage therapists. The Cleveland Brown's quarterback will also pay a five million dollar fine. He'll undergo an evaluation by behavioral experts, and he'll have to adhere to their treatment program, and then he can apply for reinstatement. Watson issued a fulsome statement over his own name that included the words disciplinary support, apologize, paying, accountability, best version of myself, et cetera. And then Watson met with reporters and said quote, I'll continue to stand on my innocence. Just because you know, settlements and things like that happened, don't It doesn't mean a person is guilty for anything. I feel like a person has an opportunity to stand on his innocence and prove that we proved that from a legal side. Well, it's nice to see Deshaun Watson has clearly learned his lesson his usen and had a game the system. It's much simpler for fans of Tampa Bay's anti Deluvian quarterback Tom Brady. They just don't know where he is. Year old Brady has now been away from the team for eight days, tending to quote personal things somewhere. And the man who said that, Coach Todd Bowls, says he doesn't know when Brady will be back. He won't even begin to worry about it until like Sunday. There's no definitive date for me, Coach bowl says, but we'll check on it, We'll keep in touch and we'll find out. So if you've seen Tom Brady, please call one eight hundred old QB twelve. That's one eight hundred old QB twelve. We've put out a silver alert for him. Stell ahead on the firing of Brian Stelter by CNN. It is far worse than you're being told because the guy who did it used to be Joe Scarborough's henchmen at MSNBC. First the daily roundup of the miscreants, morons and Dunning Kruger effects specimens who constitute today's worst persons in the world. Lebrons, the Prime Minister of Norway Jonah's gar Store. You will recall hearing Monday about the execution of Freya, a female walrus who had been driven twelve hundred miles south of her home and into the waters around Oslo because of climate change. When the humans in Oslow would not listen to the authorities warning that they had to stop risking their own safety by getting so close to the pound and very friendly walrus. Naturally, Norway solved the problem by killing Freya the walrus. Now Prime Minister Store has defended the decision, saying Norway is a seafaring country and quote sometimes we have to make unpopular decisions. Meanwhile, Anguish residents have already raised thousand croner. It was about dollars to build a statue of Freya. Maybe put up a statue of this idiot Prime Minister. To our runner up, Stephen Lowell, Twitter bought Avatar come to life, who is running as the Republican candidate for the Minnesota the state Senate in District fifty two. He's bald, he's bearded, he's wearing aviators, and he's threatening anarchy. We need to grow our teeth back fast, he said at a campaign event in the suburbs of the Twin Cities. So part of those teeth in this particular set of terms is voting with the ballot before we have to vote with bullets. Didn't you always think that if somebody campaigned like that, they just get arrested on the spot. Oh well, f y I, in case you prefer your government not by bullets. The Democrat in District fifty two is the incumbent, Jim Carlson. Go Jim, But our winners the Lawrence County Republican Party of Alabama, which welcome to new chairman on a Facebook account by posting an image of a red, white and blue Republican elephant. Then it turned out the white spaces between the elephant's red legs formed the outline of the heads of hooded members of the Ku Klux Klan. Apparently they just googled the image and found one online and didn't look too closely st that's what they're saying. It had been run originally in Mother Jones magazine, in Chairman Shannon Terry writes, I would like to offer a deep and sincere apology. A picture of a GOP elephant was used and later found to have hidden images that do not represent the views or beliefs of l Lawrence County Republican Party. Wait they're apologizing. The Republicans of Lawrence County, Alabama are apologizing for using hooded Klansmen in their in their logo. Why I don't I don't understand. Why is this on here? But mcclansman, GOP. I mean, what's the apology? What's the apology for? The apologies for copyright infringement? Infringement is that it I just I just doing Lawrence County, Alabama. Republic k k K cans today's worse persons in the world. Time for our number one story on the Countdown, and since it is the weekend edition, we will give you your Thurber in a moment. But for once things I've promised not to tell is topical, so it will make a rare appearance on the Friday and weekend edition now. Yesterday, CNN canceled its weekly show reviewing the media, Reliable Sources, the only SUNCH program in mainstream television. CNN also fired its host Brian Stelter after nine years at the network. I've had problems with some of Brian's work since he founded the TV newser blog while he was in college in two thousand four, later at The New York Times, but I've never had any problem with his intent nor his work ethic, and his stuff on CNN made him such a target from the far right that you would have thought he was me or that he was on the air seventeen hours a day on CNN rather than once a week. The reason was simple. After MSNBC cut a deal to stop calling out Fox News, pretty much nobody in television called out Fox News and the rest of the lunatic right propaganda machine except Stelter. His firing was no surprise. You may not know it, but CNN was recently taken over by a company owned by billionaire Trump downer John Malone, and Malone intends to vary gradually reduced CNN to at best twenty four hours a day. Of both sides, is him think Michael Smirconish on a loop, Stelter did the most damage to the right. Therefore, Stelter was the first to go. He will not be the last. CNN's new president. Chris Licked is there to dismantle the liberal parts of CNN. I know this because I worked with him at MSNBC, where he decided that part of his job was to try to dismantle the liberal parts of MSNBC. When Stelter was fired, The Daily Beasts impeccable media guy Lachland Cartwright reported that quote everything about this rollout points to Discovery board member John Malone and Discovery CEO David Zaslov. A source familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast Chris Licked did not want to do this. I am sure the quote is accurate, and I'm sure whoever told Cartwright that believes the quote to be true, But it misses the point. What Chris Lick wants to do is whatever John Malone and David Zaslov tell him to do. He is a corporate lackey. Worse, he's a corporate henchman. So here's the story I promised not to tell. Perhaps the most amazing thing about my ten years at MSNBC was the fact that Joe Scarborough and his producers, especially his chief henchman, ever got their own show on the air. Because nobody I have ever worked with in radio or television, in sports or news in the twentieth century or the one ever spent more time trying to screw with other programs on the same network than did Joe Scarborough. And until just about the time I left in two thousand eleven. The guy he sent in to do most of the sabotage for him was this henchman guy. The reason this should matter to you now is Scarborough's henchman was Chris Licked, the new president of CNN. And if they scoured the nation to find the worst person to run CNN in a time when democracy is threatened one political party and tepidly defended by another, it's Chris Licked. I know, I know. You turn on the TV and you see Joe Scarborough and you see exactly what I see. A blank, dazed, darting, paranoid, no soul, stupid check engine light. Look. But if you don't trust me, trust my scars. My Joey Scars behind that vapid face is a master saboteur. Early in two thousand eight, the late Tim Russert called me and warned me that the GOP had upped its pressure on me. He said he had heard from somebody in New York, that somebody in New York was going into the office of the president of NBC News saying that Joe Scarborough couldn't get his friend John McCain to come on to his new Morning Show because I was so critical of McCain. On Countdown, Tim was not sure it was Scarborough, but if it wasn't, who else could have gotten in to see the president of NBC New Wos other than Scarborough or his executive producer. The evidence for the new CNN president, Mr Licht being directly involved in interfering with programming to benefit somebody else's friends or political cronies was vague in two thousand and eight, but not at all vague two years later. Early in January two thousand ten, the Republican candidate to fill the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy, Scott Brown, the former semi nude model, was at a rally when one of his supporters talked about quote shoving a curling iron up the backside of the Democratic Senate candidate Martha Cokeley. Scott Brown clearly heard the remark from the crowd and responded, quote, we could do that. On January eighteenth, on Countdown, I did a brief commentary about how unsuitable Brown was for public office. I said he was quote an irresponsible, homophobic, racist, reactionary, x nude model, tea bagging supporter of violence against women, and against politicians with whom he disagrees unquote, I had quotes from Brown. I had videotape of him disparaging his minority opponent in a local election to her face at a debate. To back up what I said. An hour later, Joe Scarborough commenced a tweet storm against me. Quote Alberman calls Brown a homophobic, racist, reactionary who supports violence against women. How reckless and how sad it's no longer enough to simply disagree with someone. I'm sorry, I just fell into my Scarborough impression. Justice went Beck called the president racist. This sort of rhetorical extremism must be discouraged. Chapened the debate. End quote and impression. Now there was a standing rule at MSNBC. You want to criticize another MSNBC personality, go ahead, have a blast, but it must be on the air on MSNBC, and the other person must have an opportunity to reply in real time, in this aim show or in some kind of face to face way. No hit and run, no Joe Scarborough tweet storms. If you criticize them by name or by inference in any other medium newspaper, interview, radio, social media, you were to receive an automatic suspension. The next day, January called the president of MSNBC, Phil Griffin, and I asked how long Joe Scarborough's automatic suspension was gonna be. Griffin asked me to come into the office a little earlier than usual and to go see him. He said he had already had a meeting about the tweets that morning with Scarborough's executive producer, Chris Licht. Griffin explained that Scarborough, according to lickt, considered Scott Brown a friend. More importantly, Chris Licked warned Griffin that if Griffin followed through and enforced the suspension rule, Scarborough would have no other option than to go to the press and tell reporters, especially reporters at right wing website nights like Tucker Carlson's The Daily Caller, that he Scarborough had been suspended because he Scarborough was a conservative, but I was a liberal, and that I and not Phil Griffin ran MSNBC. What can I do? Griffin was scared. I told him he could fire Scarborough and Licked because they had just tried to blackmail him, and eventually he was going to have to fire them both anyway, but that I knew he would not do this, and that I knew now that he would not suspend Scarborough either, and Griffin did not suspend him. Partial score Scarborough's friends to MSNBC's rules of behavior, nothing but Phil Griffin did send out a memo to the entire company insisting that anybody who criticized another MSNBC show or host in another medium would be suspended, except Scarborough, who had just done exactly that and then threatened his own employers. On January, Brian Stelter's old blog TV news Or got a copy of Griffin's memo. They wondered why Scarborough had not been suspended, so they called the MSNBC president and they printed quote Griffin responds to TV news Or, quote an important rule was broken. I spoke to Keith and he said, in the spirit of teamwork and the free flow of ideas, he didn't think it warranted punishment or suspension. I also talked to Joe and he apologized to me. That's why I made the decision that this didn't rise to the level of punishment. But I felt it was necessary to reiterate my long standing policy bull crap. Reiterate my long standing policy which I just did not enforce against Joe Scarborough. The whole thing was totally fabricated, licked, and Scarborough had threatened to smear their own bosses in the right wing echo chamber. It should have been both fired on the spot. In May two thousand ten, Scarborough said something on the air about a Democrat getting away with not being investigated for something. I forget the details. I didn't bother to look it up. You can if you want. Then. Marcos militzis the editor of the Daily Coast website, and not just a regular contributor to Countdown, but somebody who had been promoting the show and the MSNBC brand on that website every day for five years. Marcos sent a snarky but legitimate tweet questioning Scarborough's credentials to criticize others who had not been investigated for stuff. Marcos invoked the staffer who died in an accident in Joe Scarborough's congressional office. Scarborough then attacked Melitus on Twitter, inaccurately claiming Melitsus had accused Scarborough of murder. A few days after that, I got a phone call from the MSNBC president, Phil Griffin, and if you got a phone call rather than a call to come into his office. You know he was really scared. Griffin told me Chris Licked has been in to see me. Joe won't put up with having Marcos Militzis on his network anymore. Not only that, but Licks as many of Joe's friends who also appear in Dayside and prime Time won't come on if Marcos Melitzis is permitted to continue. Here, Chris is insisting that Marcos be banned from MSNBC immediately. Chris says he's afraid that if we don't do that, Joe won't come into work tomorrow. Upon hearing that, I laughed and I congratulated Phil Griffin on the clear win win he'd just been given. But Phil was very bad at enforcing MSNBC's rules, but very good at creating new ones on the spot to protect Joe Scarborough and Chris Licked and their friends. I'm banning Melitze's for many further appearances on MSNBC, I said, Phil, he's a contributor to my show. You are suspending my contributor who has driven hundreds of thousands of viewers to countdown at MSNBC. And I don't have any say in it. You are owned by Joe Scarborough and Chris Licked. What you now have to worry about is whether I tell this story on the air tonight or I just wait and tell it later. Phil now got conciliatory because he was scared again and said it could be just a suspension if I cooperated. So I called Marcos. He said he enjoyed his contributions to Countdown. He also did occasional appearances on the old Ed Schultz MSNBC show, and he said if there were a chance at resuming them, he preferred to at least try that. So Marcos and I went along with Griffin suspending Marcus Melitz's and to my knowledge, Marcus Melitzus has not been seen on MSNBC since. I wish I had better notes on some of my conversations from the two thousand eight nine, ten eleven era about those conversations with the hosts and the producers of the other shows like Schultz and Rachel Maddows Show, and even Chris Matthews and Hardball. I must have heard a variation of this statement a dozen times from these people. Guess who was in Griffin's office explaining that such and such as Joe's friend and Phil really needs to make sure we lay off him Chris Licked. It was usually an expletive in the middle between Chris and Licked. I remember one of my producers at the MSNBC A version of Countdown telling me that one of the other producers told him that Licked had gone to NBC News President Steve Cappus with an actual list of Republicans that Matto and Olberman needed to stop criticizing because they were Joe's here's the word again friends, and we were hurting morning Joe. What's amazing is that, setting aside the issues of unrevealed torrid love affairs, when CNN fired its nine PM host Chris Cuomo, president Jeff Zucker, and senior vice president Alison Gallas, they fired them in essence because they interfered with CNN content and practices in order to do favors for people who were their friends, or, in Cuomo's case, their relatives at MSNBC interfering with MSNBC content and practices to do favors for friends. It was seemingly the only reason Chris Licked had a job. So CNN got rid of left wingers for a terrible violation of journalistic ethics, and then hired his president, a right wing henchman who had committed exactly the same journalistic ethical problems, and who, for his act, the first one of his career at CNN, killed off the only national television show that regularly held up Fox News, News Max and all the rest to the world to show that they were the threats to democracy that they are. This is CNN, so necessarily the Thurber will be a little truncated tonight because I'm about out of reading material, as in I can't talk much longer. But one of his fables is doubly important. Right at the moment when I was negotiating to leave MSNBC without anybody suing anybody else, we finalized all the arrangements in the middle of the last show except one. NBC did not want me to read this particular therb or fable, and I had to switch to another one because they felt in planning to do so, I was attacking them, possibly because I was attacking them. The piece like Mongoose is the starting point of my relationship with James Thurber's daughter Rosemary, and his granddaughter and his publishers. It was my dad fatally sick in the hospital, to whom I would read Thurber every night, who suggested I should read Thurber on the TV news show. I thought he was crazy. I told him if I did that, I'd probably hear from his literary trust. But I did it anyway, and so I read the piece like mongoose, and I heard from his literary trust, because at the moment I read this story, Rosie Thurber was on the horns of the proverbial dilemma. A British publisher wanted to put the piece like Mongoose in an anthology for school kids. It is placements like that which keep an author alive. But that publisher wanted to remove one word from the story, and Rosie was now torn edit her father's work or don't publish her father's work. Unbeknownst to me, she and her daughter, Sarah, we're both countdown viewers, and we're watching as I read the piece like mongoose. Sarah and then called her mother and said, I think you've got your answer right there. Not long after, the British publisher, probably a coincidence, changed its mind about exercising the word amen. The word, by the way, is mongoose. Sexual, which is a perfect creation of the perfect James Thurber. And the complaint from NBC was about the moral to the story, which I will not read first and without any other pointless ado the piece like mongoose, Like James Thurber. In co Brick Country, a mongoose was born one day who didn't want to fight cobras or anything else. The words spread from mongoose to mongoose that there was a mongoose who didn't want to fight cobra's He didn't want to fight anything else. It was his own business. But it was the duty of every mongoose to kill cobras or be killed by cobras. Why, asked the piece like mongoose, And the word went around that the strange new mongoose was not only pro cobra and anti mongoose, but intellectually curious and against the ideals and traditions of mongoose is um. He's crazy, cried the young mongoose's father. A sick, said his mother. He's a coward, shouted his brothers. He is a mongoose sexual, whispered his sisters. Strangers who had never laid eyes on the piece like mongoose remembered they had seen him crawling on his stomach or trying on cobra hoods were plotting the violent overthrow of Mongoosia. I'm trying to use reason and intelligence, said the strange new mongoose. Reason is six sevenths of treason, said one of his neighbors. Intelligence is what the enemy uses, said another. Finally, the rumors spread that the mongoose had venom in his staying like a cobra, and he was tried, convicted by a show of pause, and condemned to banishment. Moral ashes to ashes, and clay to clay. If the enemy doesn't get you your own, folks, may I've done all the damage I can do here, and actually a little more. No extra charge. But this is where I ask you to rate and review the podcast. Fib tell them it's outstanding, and you listen to it twice. The Countdown theme is from Beethoven's Ninth Arrange, produced and performed by Countdown musical directors Brian Ray and John Philip Chanelle. All orchestration and keyboards by John Philip Chanelle, guitarist, bass and drums by Brian Ray and produced by t k O Brothers. That's John and Brian and me. The other Beethoven selections have been arranged and performed by no horns allowed. Our sports music the Alderman theme from the ESPN two show Alderman, written by Mitch Warren Davis, courtesy of ESPN, incorporated musical comments here and there by Nancy Faust, the best baseball stadium organist ever, and our announced here today was my friend Larry David. Let's countdown with this the nine days since Donald Trump's first attempted coup against the democratically elected government of the United States. A new episode Monday morning till then. I'm Keith Alderman. Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Alderman is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.