IF TRUMP WAS A FOREIGN AGENT, WHAT WOULD HE BE DOING DIFFERENTLY? - 3.13.25

against NATO. Sacrifice countries to the Russian dictator. Push a ceasefire in Ukraine that serves only to give Russia thirty days to refortify its troop positions, threaten our forever. Allies like Canada and Mexico. Cut off humanitarian aid worldwide enough to start killing people via disease outbreaks in the same month. Start dragging our citizens and legal immigrants off the streets and out of their homes and hold them in communicado

in distant concentration camps without trial prior to deportation. Try to break the constitution to hold office to avoid prison indefinitely. Blackmail the owners of the major media companies to support him or at least destroy their own news outlets. Violate every law, and make sure all the prosecutors and all the judges are loyal to you and not to the law. Decapitate not the excess in government, but the people who

know how to stop plane crashes and epidemics. Turn the agencies over to every con man, an idiot and loser and lunatic. You could find roll back human rights on the failed economic policy of eighteen ninety four that the professor must have been talking about the one day he didn't cut class in college and burn all governmental records.

Give a lie an item veto to a compulsive liar, drugged up foreigner who literally blows up everything he touches and finally take a one hundred million dollar bribe I'm sorry, contribution in public during a live infomercial for the Druggies self driving self detonating cars, right after announces he's going to treat attacks on the dealerships as domestic terrorism, even though the last president refused to treat an actual attack on the Capitol and an attempt to overturn an election

by the current president as domestic terrorism. I mean, what else could a foreign agent vent on destroying America who somehow rose to ultimate power in America do besides that, other than maybe start shooting people on Fifth Avenue. The then paranoid idea that the country, maybe the presidency, was in the grip of, or about to be, in the grip of, a foreign AI agent, was the dominant conspiracy theory of American politics from nineteen eighteen through the nineteen seventies.

It gave Richard Nixon a career, It gave Bobby Kennedy a career, gave Joe McCarthy a career, and Joe McCarthy's henchman, Roy Khane a career, And thus it gave Roy Cohnes

henchman Donald Trump a career. And when they weren't destroying America by claiming other people were destroying America, you could turn to the movies where the Manchurian candidate about a joint Chinese Russian operation to brainwash Key Americans and thus put a stooge in the White House came out in theaters in nineteen sixty two, and The One Hundred Days of the Dragon, in which the Chinese perfect a way to change any person's appearance into that of almost any

other person and thus put a body double in the White House, came out on television in nineteen sixty three. So even if you haven't thought about this, you have been exposed to the idea of what more could a foreign agent do? Then Donald Trump is doing now to destroy America. By the way, if you didn't see the original Manchurian Candidate, they remade it in two thousand and four. Though if if you didn't see the original and you got the plot of the remake, you are a better

person than I am. The problem with the plots, both imagined by politicians and those imagined by Hollywood, is that they are far too complicated. They certainly don't need to be that complicated. The Liberals had been converted by Russian propaganda in the thirties, Time to go off in the fifties in the movies, they used mind control and hypnotism. On television, they used a drug that turned your face into putty like Trump's, only it could be turned back

to la human Again, way too complicated. Everybody from Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer to McCarthy to the author of The Manchurian Candidate, Richard Condon, never stopped to think that truly all you would need was cash. I always like to speculate that those who caved to Trump. From Lindsay Graham to Jeff Bezos to Mark Zuckerberg have been blackmailed. But that's not really necessary, at least not in the non financial sense. Like the fella said, nothing is more

easily frightened than a billion dollars. I mean, ask Disney and ABC, asked Comcast and NBC, Ask Warner Brothers, Discovery and CNN. Why waste all that time and effort to brainwash Sergeant Raymond Shaw or to create a Chinese puddy faced body double for President William lyons Selby when all the Raymond Shaws and William lyon Selby's of real life you could ever want are available for sale and at popular prices. Throw in just enough insanity and Trump has

that in spades. And now the added element of Trump's obvious heroin level addiction to revenge, and you've got your foreign agent or good as a foreign agent in chief. I mean, hell, what if Trump is so crazy that his addiction jones demands that he takes revenge against those

who hurt him the most in his life. That would be the American voter in his three elections one hundred and sixty nine million, four hundred and sixty three thousand, two hundred and eighty two votes have been cast against Trump. That's a lot of people to avenge yourself against. Why try it one at a time? Why not just wipe

out the United States. But even as much as this strays from my first point, it still all fits because you can post mortem the man who is intent on destroying this country, and the sooner you do it, the better. But the baseline is still going to be the same. One of the two or three noble characters in the movie, the Manchurian candidate John mcgiver playing Senator Thomas Jordan, sums up my thought here and incidentally gives the attentive viewer of the film the ultimate easter egg. This is the

entirety of the plot. When the actual foreign agent, the wife of the idiot to be installed as president in the movie, asks Senator Jordan if he will try to block her husband's nomination to the ticket, he says, would I block you? I would spend every cent I own and all I could borrow to block you. There are people who think of Johnny as a clown and a buffoon, but I do not. I despise John Iceland and everything

that iceland Ism has come to stand for. I think if John Iceland were a paid Soviet agent, he could not do more to harm this country than he's doing now. Given that the movie script is sixty three years old, there's not very much to be changed there. People who think of as a clown and a buffoon. I despise Donald trump trump Ism. If Donald Trump were a paid Russian agent, he could not do more to harm this

country than he's doing now. The one other thing conspiracy theorists and the writers of political science fiction failed to see in the fifties and sixties, and thus failed to put into their plots, was the maddening reality that those who suspected or who saw that might as well be a foreign agent president would actually have to stop him.

They never thought we would hesitate to stop him. Well, we are at another one of those moments in which the Democrats have the road plock to at least slow Trump down, and Chuck Schumer finally came out yesterday and said Senate Democrats are going to use it. But I, having been burned a few times this month, will believe it when I see it, because some of them may not use their power because they'll look mad. Please don't

put it in the newspaper that we got mad. House Republicans passed the let Elon Musk do anything he damn well pleases, and stop anybody trying to even investigate him bill, the one they dressed up as a continuing reservation to fund the government for six months and prevent a shutdown. They would need eight votes from Democrats in the Senate to get around the filibuster and make this law. They

could still get them. And if you say, how in the hell would that be possible, how in the hell did ten Democratic congress people to censure another Democratic Congressman, Fetterman said he would vote for it because if you want the guy in the government who most looks like a foreign agent, foreign as in from the planet of the cannimates, it's him. Plus you will never convince me he has fully recovered from his stroke. So that's only

seven more cowards required besides Fetterman. Those seven and Fetterman don't really have a strategy as to what to do about Trump. They just want to make themselves look good. They are all potential Fettermans because they too are here to serve Man. The irony is even the Democrats, who are prepared to do the right thing, are scared of being blamed if there is a government shut down while the Republicans are boasting about making a government shut down.

They are scared because the Republicans theoretically have raised the stakes. Oh knows, if the government shuts down, Elon Musk will have to fire more government employees and that will be the fault of Musk or Trump. No, sir, it's the Democrats you're doing it. See if you can follow the lack of logic here, the Republicans are not only shutting down the government building by building, room by room and

desk by desk, but they are glorying in it. They built a clause into this continuing resolution to protect Elon Musk as he fires more government employees. They already are shutting down the government, but the Democrats are afraid. If the government completely shuts down and the Republicans say the Democrats did this, the Democrats won't be able to think of a believable answer like, I don't know, the goddamn Republicans already shut the effing government down. What the effort

you talking about? Will Flitzer? So here's an idea when Senate. Democrats, any Democrats you at home, when you get add about a government shutdown, do what MAGA does. Change the topic and yell. Remind the questioner that the bill eliminates any chance of the House or the Senate or anybody else overriding Elon Musk killing the government and many people who rely on the government to stay alive. He is being authorized to kill them by remote control and taking the

cash out of the government. It actually codifies him doing this. It is a backfill house and Senate measure confirming him as stoned apartheid. Clyde in Chief say something like again, just off the top of my head, if Elon Musk were a paid Russian agent, he could not do more

to harm this country than he's doing now. Christ I do surprisingly have little shoots of hope for you, little crocuses popping up from the march permafrost in media, of course, they are popping up through the new piles of manure.

Gavin Newsom's next career, because he doesn't have one in politics anymore, which began with a podcast in which he interviewed the anti semi Charlie Kirk, has now proceeded to a new interview of the horrible and by the way, so out of date lunatic that I really thought he was dead already homophobe Michael Savage knee Wiener, and Gavin Newsom's next podcast guest will be Steve mannin because Governor Newsom didn't like being one of the favorites for the

Democratic presidential nomination. He apparently always wanted instead to try professional suicide. Speaking of podcasts, the loathsome Rom Immanuel now has, which he appears to be devoting to telling Democrats to stop defending trans athletes and transgendered people and woke issues like you know, democracy, and just concentrate on food prices. Rom Political Reports is running for president, to which I ask,

of what country now? The good news Oliver Darcy reports that the White House Correspondence Association's mealy mouthed non response to Trump pushing around the Associated Press was so mealy mouthed that even some members of the White House Correspondent's Association have sat up and taken notice. Association President Eugene, don't bother me. I'm about to be a TV star.

Daniels was excoriated by membership on a conference call, and he evaded nearly all of their questions, but there is now a move a foot to depose him and to put somebody else in as president who will make some kind of response to Trump before Trump simply cuts to the chase and bans all reporters from the White House, or from the Eastern time zone or from the country. Even more impressively, CBS, Yeah, that's CBS, the un spelled

CBS has found its hind legs. Turns out late last week that company, which was on the verge of completely caving to Trump over his blackmail lawsuit about the sixty minutes interview with Kamala Harris, instead filed two motions to dismiss Trump's amended complaint against them. And then on Monday, CBS went to the FCC and its new chief Goebbels. I think that's his name. Might be wrong, it might be Brendan something. It's hard to keep track of all

these people. CBS demanded the FCC drop its inquiry into the Harris interview, which is after all, an utter fascist, pro Trumpist political revenge bullshit investigation, because it quote says, CBS completely disregard Yards both the letter and the spirit of the Commission's news distortion policy, CBS News, you have unsuspected depth for the first time in at least a decade.

Edward R. Murrow would be proud, speaking of which I had the pleasure of attending the first preview of George Clooney's new play good Night and good Luck on Broadway last night, and Murrow would probably have been proud of it too, because it is, like Clooney's movie version of twenty years ago, now, a play about Edward R. Murrow

that is not entirely about Edward R. Murrow. It is also artfully and helpfully updated with some creative license, not just to the present time, but almost to the present minute. The loudest sound all night was the booing that shook the Winter Garden Theater when a video montage bridging what terrified Murrow about television in his famous nineteen fifty eight speech on the subject from that Time to Today ended. The last clip in the montage was a shot of

Elon Musk deafening rabid booing entirely deserved ensued. Other updating was done more subtly now. In both versions, Clooney has emphasized the tragedy of Don Holland Beck the CBS newscaster who was driven to suicide by a right wing TV critic in the Hearst newspapers named Jack O'Brien, who persecuted Holland Beck as an alleged communist who slanted the news.

Holland Beck really was as good and as influential as Murrow and Cloney have made him out to be, and in fact, his signed photo hangs above this microphone as I record these commentaries. At one point, Clark Gregg, who is superb as Holland Beck, refered on the collapse of his personal and professional lives. He says he woke up that morning feeling as if somebody had hijacked the last three years, and that, among other things, all the sensible

people had moved away. The laughter of surprise and self recognition was spontaneous and unanimous as it died down, greg as Holland Beck added to Europe, and now the laughter was louder. I would be remiss if I did not mention again that video montage of television news. In the play, dozens of newscasters, good and horrific and everything in between are shown, and at one point there is a brief clip of one newscaster who is probably identifiable to only

a handful of us in that theater. The newscaster was from WKRC in Cincinnati, and as when I knew him in the eighties, KNBC in Los Angeles. His name is Nick Clooney, George's father. As to the stage craw As to the play itself, it is a technical and logistical masterpiece, with more moving sets than if Broadway tried to make a musical out of Star Wars, all of them at once.

I actually feared the possibility of Murrow's studio colliding with one of the giant one hundred foot high descending video screens which suddenly appear and show him giving Murrow's commentaries live as he recreates them on stage. They really have tried also to recreate the film, but a live film, and in many parts they've done it better, complete with vintage clips of McCarthy and Milo Radulovich and others. They have largely succeeded in this effort, and certainly, given that

this was the first preview, they will get better. But of course, the point of a Murrow play in the year twenty twenty five is that Murrow took risks that were in his time, as great as any risk any broadcaster, any politician, or any public figure could take today against Trump. To the service of that point, Clooney and his team

managed a third update to the present day. As Murrow giving his nineteen fifty eight speech to news directors in Chicago about the future of news, about the future of television, about wires and lights in a box. He tells that audience and tells the audience in the theater that the real question isn't what unbridled power will do to us. We've seen that, It is what are we willing to

do about it? This serves as a reminder that we begin to lose all chance of stopping Trump and the fascists when we begin to cooperate with them or find silver linings in their crimes. I can't think of anything I agree with with this, Mahmod Khalil, from beliefs to tactics. I have looked at this movement and thought it is

doing more harm to itself than anybody else could. But when we start allowing these trumpest bastards to kidnap Green card holders with American wives off the streets of major American cities because they are non violent anti Semites, or they don't like Israel, or they're protesting American policy. And because Trump's whores say they are somehow connected to Hamas without offering any proof other than Trump ran promising to do this. You elected him so he can do it.

Then when we start doing that, we've already lost the country because the next person to be dragged off will be the one on campus protesting Trump. If Marco Efing Rubio, whose grandfather was ordered deported from this country sixty years ago because he violated immigration law, only the order was never enforced and Grandpa was later declared a paro lee. If Marco Rubio has a case against Mahmud Khalil, go to a grand jury and get him indicted, you bastard.

After al Rubio is a lawyer in the same way he is a Secretary of State because somebody else said he is, and you know, somebody else said he is. That's fine for the definition of lawyers and Trump whorees and Trump poor cabinet members, but it is not enough to arrest somebody, even somebody we think hurts this country

with words. Because if we can start doing that again like we did a century ago, when we did it to people like Emma Goldman then or now my mood Khaliliel, we can start simply doing it to all anti Semites, in which case I demand that Ice kidnap and detain Candace Owens, Charlie Kirk, all the fundamentalist senators and congressmen who only support Israel because they want all the Jews converted so they can have their big rapture thing, and all other anti Semites in this country, like that guy

in wa Washington and Florida who quotes Hitler. It said Hitler did good things and has Hitler's speeches or at least did long ago on his bedside table. That Trump guy. This is the new criteria detain Trump without trial. Also of interest, here the new souvenir Major League Baseball cap with the logo that spells out a vulgar Hispanic term

for women's breasts. And there's no question of it. Now there is an organized campaign to try to make Stephen A. Smith into a doesn't make you laugh presidential candidate, mostly by insisting he's too modest to ever be a presidential candidate. That's next. This is countdown. This is countdown with Keith Olberman.

Stell ahead on this edition to countdown a story that fits with the winner of Today's Worst Person's dishonories, part of the saga of how I went from sports simple things to politics not so simple things, and why that may not be as good an idea as it sounded at the time, coming up in Things I Promised not to tell first, Believe it or not, there's still more new idiots to talk about. The roundup of the miss Grants, morons and Dunning Kruger Effects specimens who constitute today's other

worst persons in the world. Here are the nominees the Bronze Worse major League Baseball and it's merch partner New Era. They've done it again. The two companies have put out another set of grotesquely bad novelty caps using the team logos. Well abusing the team logos. These are called overlaps. No, they don't have your laps. Overlaps your cost forty five dollars, and overlap does not mean overlap between baseball logos and anybody having thought about what the new product would actually

look like. No, the caps have the team or city name on them, with the team logo like superimposed atop it. Like it would say Yankees, and they don't have the NY. The Yankees interlocking logo superimposed or overlapping where they get the name overlap from. Needless to say, these caps look like a series of automobile accidents. Boston the Red Sox Big Red be logo on top of the word Boston, so it reads bobon, which makes me think of bubonds

and bubonds as in bubonic plague. The interlocking SD of the San Diego Padres over the word padres that one reads pass deess airs an unfortunate one. The H of the Houston Astros plus the word Astros reads ass hose as big h os ass hose, or maybe as hose

because that's much better sounding. And worst of all, the Texas word mark of the Texas Rangers has their big T letter logo overlapping it, so it's spells out te tas, which, if you know your colloquial Mexican language, is a word in Spanish translating roughly to a vulgarity for women's breasts. That one has been removed from sale, but you can still buy as hose your price forty five dollars amount of time they actually spent thinking about these forty five seconds.

Lebrons worser. If at first you don't destroy yourself, try to try again. Darren Batty fired as a Trump speech writer the first time after CNN revealed he had attended a conference starring white nationalists. He's on the ropes again. Now he's acting under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. CNN has now found tweets of his that wed deleted.

I will leave out the name of who he's referencing here because it'll be way funnier if I do it this way, Beatty wrote, quote, forget Wainwright Park, that would be a scandal once twisted into a rumor that this mister X of ours was gay. Forget the foam that would be foam parties at gay bars. Forget the war promotion and the Neocon sugar daddies. Forget the low IQ, forget the twenty sixteen primary. Mister X is tough on China and good for military industrial complex, So be a

good dog and vote for him. Another tweet about mister X, if a bunch of DC wants try to reinvent mister X as a nationalist, but a respectable one who promises tax credits to Black Lives Matter supporters. That is tough on China. Will you be a good dog and vote for him? And lastly, what happens in the cabana stays in the cabana hashtag, Well, mister X. The guy I'm calling mister X, but Darren Beatty of the State Department did not, is, of course, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of

State and Darren Beatty's current boss. Only the best people, but our winner the worst. David Smith of the British newspaper The Guardian, speculating on the twenty twenty eight American presidential race. Mister Smith is the Washington bureau chief of the Guardian. He attended college and Leeds in England. He was the Africa correspondent for the paper. He moved to Washington in twenty fifteen. He got married at the Boat House in Central Park, and he still doesn't have a

clue about the country he now covers. He has devoted an entire column to well, just read parts of it and then I'll notate or i'll translator answer quote. Stephen A. Smith was asked by co host Elissa Farrick Griffin what he makes of hypothetical polls that show him among the leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination in twenty twenty eight. Actually it shows him last on the list of contenders for the presidential nomination in twenty twenty eight at two percent.

This wasn't some name, you're none a knee poll. This was pick from this list. He finished behind Tim Walls. But the premise of this attempt to make people stop laughing at Stephen A. Smith president is he's fresh and different. We don't want these people we've been nominating lately. And I Tim Walls, who is as not as fresh and as not as different as you can possibly get, has fifty percent more support than Steven A. Smith in a closed poll. I mean, if Bozo were on this list,

he would have finished like fifth. The charismatic sports news host has become an unlikely force and a party that needs critical friends and fresh ideas. Unquote name one name, one fresh idea, Name anybody to whom Steven A. Smith in politics is a critical friend. Quote Despite or because of his lack of political experience, Smith is emerging jing as an unlikely force and a Democratic party badly in

need of critical friends, fresh ideas, and blunt truth. Telling look, this is like the fiftieth story about this nonsense, and it uses the idea of critical friends and fresh ideas twice in one article fifty stories. At least, I would guess Stephen A. Smith has forty nine supporters for president, also emerging as an unlikely force two percent in the poll you're quoting. That's not a force, that's a margin

of error. And if that phrase ever applied better to anybody that I've ever met, I don't know who could be. Maybe Joe Scarborough quote. The idea of him running for the White House remains wildly speculative, you bet your ass, but speaks volumes about a shift in the US media ecosystem and a blurring of the lines between culture, entertainment and politics. No, it doesn't. It's something to write about while you're killing time until the actual dimensions and areas

of the twenty twenty eight campaign emerged. I mean this time. In the two thousand and eight Republican campaign, Rudy Giuliani was the leading Republican by a mile. He got one delegate. Also, he's a sportscaster. He's a sportscaster known not for breaking stories, nor news, nor providing insight, nor being funny, nor being informative, but for killing time, for taking a situation where one word would do, and using say, twenty seven and forty three of them. That is not a blurring of the

lines between culture, entertainment and politics. That's a blurring of your vision if you try to watch him too long. Quote. His fans include Kurt Bardella, a media relations consultant and democratic strategist who watches First Take That's the show Smith's son religiously. Bardella said, he's out there with passion and charisma, and he provokes emotion and converse and debate. He's become the singular most influential person in all of sports. Well,

it may be in basketball. The NFL people will cat ESPN kind of kind of laugh at him. I mean, I've heard them. I don't want to embarrass them and use their names if it's anything else like baseball or the Olympics, or god forbid, anything lesser than those levels sports, golf, tennis, stuff like that. His biggest insight so far has been the phrase, we will be right back to talk more NBA.

That's what he knows about the other sports. Quote more from this Kurt Bardella rather than just dismiss it or make fun of it or ignore it, Democrats would be wise to study what makes him so successful, because there is nobody in the Democratic Party that is as relevant a voice on a day to day basis as Stephen A. Smith. Kurt Bardella, who used to be a Republican, has to show on News Nation, the right wing outlet that pretends it's some sort of voice of consensus. Some of its hosts, No,

it's a scam. No, it's the nick at night of TV news, where you go after you get fired, and they're just there for the paycheck. Some of them seem to think they are actually representatives of the great American middle. News Nation is where Andrew Cuomo praises Donald Trump and Bill O'Reilly. News Nation is where Kurt Vardella praises Stephen A. Smith. Quote. Smith's eloquence and in your face style could be appealing

to voters in this political moment. Unquote. Now Here in this story, the other mister Smith of the Guardian has actually broke some news Smith's eloquence and in your face. This is the first time the words Stephen A. Smith and eloquence have been used, not only in the same sentence, but in the same twenty four hour period volume Yes, grand eloquence, Yes eloquence. I don't think so. Seriously, What the hell's going on here? A man who's resilience I admire.

He was fired by ESPN, he fought his way back there. He's now going to make twenty million a year from them. A man whose company I have enjoyed because he and I went to a Knicks game once. We said almost nothing to each other, just watched and tried to understand what we were seeing. But the twelve things he said to me were insightful and cogent. A man who beat the TV system. He keeps going around saying he's not running for president. His agent, Mark Shapiro, one of the

great and this is a compliment. Huckster showman of all time. Mark Shapiro says he's not running for president, and week after week there's another story about him running for president, and all of a sudden, I'm thinking this is Richard the Third refusing the crown and adding the word however to it. Only Stephen A. Smith is also doing things like complimenting the horrible anti semite Candice Owens on a podcast his own podcast, and attacking all the Democratic candidates

and getting pumped by a guy on News Nation. I have only spent four years of this century exclusively in sports, But I was one of the most prominent figures in TV sports, certainly for the last decade of the previous century. And then I was one of the most prominent figures in TV political commentary while also being a prominent figure in the world of sports for the first fifteen years of this century. And guess what, I am not qualified

to run for president. Not qualified, even with how far the bar has been lowered, I know how much I don't know. I would not vote for me. This whole thing seems to be some sort of attempt to build for Stephen one quality I think even he would have been. He's never been publicly accused of humility. Oh, he's a good guy. I didn't really want to be president. Well it's a great strategy, I guess, especially if you're not

going to be president. It'll help his nonsports podcasts unless he keeps having people like Candace Owens and Charlie kirk On as guests. I mean, there's still people out there who think Trump gave up his business and gave back money to become dictator. But political journalists grabbed this third rail idea at your peril. You look stupid when you talk about it. And by the way, I know he hasn't had Charlie Kirk on yet yet he had Candace

Owens on. Charlie kirk is a step up from Candace Owens, especially when, like The Guardian, the headline to the David Smith article reads, quote you ready democrats are reeling? Is Stephen A. Smith the way back to the White House? No? David Smith and the Guardian No two days worst persons in the world to the number one story on the countdown and things I promised not to tell. And the further I get away from the day I left NBC, the more I realize that almost everybody there and many

who are still there, was crazy remains crazy. It is a nest for aggressive ingratitude and the rewriting of history to make sure that everybody who is a success did it all on their own, sprang fully grown from the ground, and nobody owes anybody anything. And those are the good parts.

Then there are the really crazy people, the ones who are are in charge of covering the election, the ones who laid the groundwork years ago for the bottomless pit that American news media has fallen into, particularly the curse that will, if not corrected, kill us all both sides ism Chuck Todd disease, sadly, Katie Turrer disease outside of the NBC, Chrystalizid disease, Ryan Lizzid disease, New York Times,

at this Ohio diner disease. It started with the scumbag Roger Ayles at Fox News, It migrated to ken Starr and the Bill Clinton prosecution, and it then became, after the sufficient number of refs were worked, the we can't dismiss these sleeze balls on the right because even if they are sleeves balls, they have public support. We need

every viewer we can get. It's a declining marketplace. Instead of saying what American News once said to the sleeze balls of any party like Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin or any of the others, which was screw you, We're gonna write or broadcast about your perfidy every day until you die, they looked at ken Starr's read thin persecution of Bill Clinton and said, well, no, they've found nothing in two months, in six months, in two years. But what if they find something later and it turns out

we opposed them and we were wrong. We'll get killed by right wing media and our fascist bosses like Bob Wright, ken Starr and his thugs who went after Bill Clinton played the American news media, especially TV news, like the proverbial two dollars banjo. No news in the Clinton Lewinsky scandal,

no problem. A quick phone call Alisa Meyers at NBC or any of several correspondents at CNNABC or CBS, or anybody at Fox, and suddenly there was breaking news and another alleged victim ready to do a tiery on camera interview which had already aired a dozen times with clips on every network before anybody realized the alleged victim hadn't actually alleged anything. It was putrid, but worse, it was profitable.

And if you questioned it, if you said, this isn't journalism, the other networks, the other newspapers, the others invested in this story. A real time twenty four to seven soap opera would go do any length to attack you. And what would your own network do? Hell sir, That's why I wanted to tell this story in full, I haven't before. Almost by accident, I had become the face of the star Clinton Lewinsky story on cable news early in nineteen

ninety eight, and one day I had enough. I decided to get out, and the reaction at NBC News was to try to prevent me from leaving. It was going to be a hostage situation, to literally threaten my career, my income, my future, my family, to try to force me to keep working there, to keep pushing whatever Ken Starr was cooking. Until you were in the middle of that, you can never really imagine what television executives will do for ratings or money. I think sometimes they are worse

than politicians. By that point, I had been in TV for sixteen years. I was already thirty nine years old, I had some gray hair, I'd already been through the grinding machinery of local news in Boston and Los Angeles. I had already made my mark on SportsCenter and moved on. I thought I had seen it all, ha ha, dumb me.

I had not, however, seen NBC News president Andrew Lack nor had I imagined that he would actually have ready to go at a moment's notice, an employee who would be willing to try to blackmail me literally threatened to bankrupt me and my parents and put them, as Lack's employee phrased it, quote on the street. This was in

the spring of nineteen ninety eight. As I said, I had decided I didn't want to do the nightly show anymore that was devoted to covering the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky story, whether there was any news about it that day or not, and especially since the network was devoted to portraying the Clinton Lewinski story as the worst thing to happen to America since the Civil War. The problem was the shows I did for Andy Lack's MSNBC in

nineteen ninety eight. They were making millions of dollars a week in profit, and the rest of the network was losing money. It had I've never had ratings before. I wanted to do something else, something else, anything else, fifty percent Lewinski, fifty percent, something else inside NBC. Failing that outside NBC, stay in New is, go back to sports, do it in New York, go to Los Angeles, anything except the show as it was constituted. So, through his personnel,

Vice president, Elena Nackmanoff, an otherwise fairly pleasant person. There came a message from Andy Lack in May of nineteen ninety eight. If you go see our personnel consultant, a woman named Deborah Byrne, and you talk to her frankly,

we will consider letting you leave NBC immediately. I went first off, Elena Nackmanoff told me on Friday afternoon, June fifth, nineteen ninety eight, some of us understand where you're coming from, about the madness of covering this scandal every night like this. So you're the good sport, a war winner for doing this today, Keith, you'll like Deborah Byurn. She's a certified social worker, and she's done great things for us. She saved a lot of people who were in trouble. I

don't mean ethical crises like yours, Keith. I mean people who were passed out drunk at their desks. I didn't stop to ask her, which she thought was worse. In any event, Elena walked me through a labyrinth of hallways at thirty Rock in New York to the office of this Deborah burn She was a bespectacled, bent looking woman of about sixty with badly dyed hair and a fiercely aggressive handshake. She was not big, but frankly, I was not convinced I could take her in a fight if

it came to that. And from the get go her manager suggested it might come to that. I am not an employee of NBC or MSNBC, and I'm not beholden to them. Deborah Burn began loudly and too quickly. I work on a contractual basis, meaning I don't get ten percent of anything, and I don't get money for attracting more business. It was clear whatever money they gave her,

it did not go to office decorps. There were a dozen filing cabinets, no windows, two lamps, her high back chair, a metal desk, and the plain wooden chair at its side on which I was instructed to sit. I'm not here to be critical of NBC or MSNBC or Andy Lack. I'm not here to be critical of you. I'm an impartial observer and I'm simply here to help nackman off. The talent vice president was still there, and Burn turned

to her for the record. Elena, I need you to describe the company's position about Keith's employment Keith, Elena said, understands that if he chooses not to work for NBC as NBC wants him to work, he will have to face consequences. Now, this was a slightly changed story from the one Elena Knackmanoff had given me even minutes earlier. The one she had given me in her own office.

Gone was the good sport a war winner crap. Obviously, she said, We're not going to release you from your contract, Keith. If you want to be on the beach for the next two years plus whatever remains after that, so be it. That's his contract status. Deborah with a crisp thanks. Deborah burn now dismissed the vice president of NBC News who left.

Burne produced and opened and improbably large folder with my name on it in improbably large letters, so I could see they had a folder on me ostentatiously shuffled quickly through one hundred assorted documents, got to a blank form of some kind, and asked me to describe the circumstances that had brought me into her office. I explained I

was asked to come in. I also explained my conviction that I had made a complete mistake going into News in the first place that I missed doing sports, and on top of all that, there had now emerged this new kind of news, which I felt was against my personal ethics and beliefs about what I should be doing, or in fact, what the media should be doing. I threw in the word pollution a couple of times. Very grand of me, I thought. She didn't look up at me.

Once all of media is becoming polluted in the way you've described. She yanked off her glasses and staring at me, not with anger, but with annoyance. You should learn how to live with it. It'll be a lot easier for everybody if you just do that. You're not a child. Grow up. Maybe next time you'll learn to read the contract before you sign it. I had to fight a smile. This wasn't some sort of counselor. This was Andy Lack's enforcer. She'd be threatening to break my legs before we were done.

They might bring in Brokaw to narrate it. I did read the contract thoroughly, I said, suppressing my laughter. This isn't about the contract. This is about my morals and nobody else's morals, I said, not NBC's not mister Lax. Just mine. I don't like the way the news industry is handling this story. I have no delusion about being able to change the news industry. I don't even feel it's my responsibility to try to change the news industry. This is about my ethics and my incorrect choices related

to TV news and TV sports. Now, she put her glasses back on. She wrote some notes. She chuckled as she wrote them. You may indeed miss sports as you put it, and you may feel that sincerely, but it's nonetheless an adolescent fantasy. And as to the pollution of the media, that's also part of this fantasy world you live in. You're grown up now, and you have to live with the consequences of your actions. You heard what Elena said. If you try to break this contract, NBC

will punish you severely. This is David and Goliath here, Keith, and you're just not seeing it. I started to reply something about how I had come down there as there's a gesture of compromise that there quest and then she shouted me down. You'll have to learn to compromise. She emphasized the word as if I had not only not just said it, but as if she had just invented it. This is what the company wants, this is what the audience wants, and you signed the contract. That's your responsibility.

I've been an NBC employee for twenty years, and they're very big, and they're very successful, and they just won't sit idly by. This will be David and Goliath, and I'm very sorry to have to break it to you, but you are not Goliath. I asked her why she had just said she'd been an NBC employee for twenty years. Two minutes after telling me that she was not an NBC employee, she looked at me. She snickered. She wrote

that down too, Otherwise, she just kept talking. Television viewers are fickle, and if you're off the air for two years, it'll be real difficult to get back on. People will forget you. That's the real world now. Deborah Byrn paused and looked over at nothing over in the corner of the room. I have a daughter who isn't realistic, she suddenly whispered, just like you, lives in a world of her own. She judges others and moralizes to them too.

She's tall like you too. It's difficult for parents to have to look up at their children and discipline them. Your height has always made it difficult for your parents to discipline you. Thus you remain headstrong child. The defeat in her voice was total and as disturbing as that, and this whole line was getting I really did think somebody was gonna pop out from between those filing cabinets to tell me I'd been punked, or that this was

a remake of Candid Camera or something. I patiently explained to Deborah Burn that I had not been born at my current home of six three and a half inches, that in fact, my mother was taller than me until I was probably twelve thirteen years old. That my father was still taller than me until I got to college. But your mother is short, she blurted, with great satisfaction.

I need descriptions of your parents, of their personalities, for my diagnosis, and please stop giving me your obviously prepared answers. I was still trying at this point. I started to describe my parents. She cut me off. Father passive, of course, this time I actually couldn't stop laughing. I said that was not my father at all, that he usually did what he damned well pleased. This annoyed Debora Burn. No, he's passive. I can tell I'm a professional Keith. He

didn't stand up to your mother, did he. He never told her to grow up or act her age? Did he? That means he was passive. I could see her writing the word passive in block letters on one of the forms in which she'd been putting her notes. She's done detached this page theatrically. She stuck it into the large pile of documents on the top of the thing, and she grabbed a fresh page from a stack to her right. What about your parents' finances, I explained, they were both retired,

so you take care of them. I began to answer that they were both extremely independent, when she cut me off again. I said, so you are responsible for them financially, don't evade me. My amusement at this obviously deranged woman now began to be overcome by anger. I swallowed both the anger and the amusement, and I explained I handled their finances, so you're their sole financial support, just as Elena and Nachmanoff's report to me indicates. I thought, so,

so you're the superstar in the family, are you. I began to try to bring us back to this planet. When Deborah Byurn rose in her chair and leaned in toward me and tell me, Keith, what exactly will your parents do for money? What will keep them from being out on the street when their precious superstar is blacklisted

from television? This purported social worker who worked for NBC or didn't work for NBC, or maybe both, depending on which minute it was, went into detail about the threat she was now making on behalf of NBC News MSNBC, Andy lack Lanna nackman Off, and our corporate parent ge. Even if I simply quit the Clinton Lewinsky Show, indeed quit television, NBC would declare that my contract was still in force. It would suspend me, It would not pay me. It would then sue me for the salary it had

already paid me. Then it would sue me for the money it had spent on promoting the show. Then it would get a co order extending my contracts indefinitely until the suspension ended, and then it would suspend me some more. Let that sink in, she said, first time I ever

heard that phrase, Let that sink in. And then she didn't even pause for a second to let me let that sink in Instead, she burst out with this, the greatest of all the non secutors on a day of non sequiturs, you have what I would classify as a

Howard Stern kind of personality. Well now I was back to actually biting my tongue to keep from laughing at the image of a bunch of therapists at a conference somewhere, dryly discussing the parameters of the Howard Stern kind of personality, Dogmatic, unbending, presenting absolutely forceful opinions on the air that no one is permitted to disagree with. Imagine going on a date with Howard Stern. I tried not to. All he would be doing would be talking about himself. It would be unbearable.

You're like him on the air, and I can see that who you are on the airs who you are in life. Of course, I've never seen your show. I don't have cable. Ever been married? I recovered from these non sequitors quickly enough to explain that I had not been married engaged again, No, I thought I might be about to be. Ever had a long term relationship of any kind? I told her I had, Oh, really, how long term? I answered? Eleven years? And when did that end?

I calculated it had ended four years previously to the month, in fact, and you haven't had an eleven year relationship since,

I explained to her as pleasantly as I could. While I looked to see if there were any emergency exits, or calculated if there might be a window somewhere outside that I could throw myself through to get out of the building as fast as possible, I explained to her as pleasantly as possible that I didn't know any way of squeezing an eleven year long relationship into four calendar years, so that I answer here would have to be no. I told you to stop giving me prepared answers right

then again, she switched tones and topics. How much do you drink? She demanded. I said, I almost never drank. She dropped her pen and stared at me again. Well what does that mean, I said, I believed I'd had four glasses of wine during the current calendar year, and it was June. She took the glasses off and leaned in as far as she could without again rising from her chair or falling off it. Well, then, how much

drug do you do? Told her, I'd never used drug or drugs stronger than alcohol, And before I could criticize her grammar, she got red and angry. Then what's that smell on your breath? Look, you just don't get this. Do you look at my telephone? Keith, and I did as instructed. I looked at an ordinary a black telephone, although given her manifest insanity, for all I knew she would shortly reveal it was a direct line to Elvis Presley.

If I didn't want a black telephone and I have a black telephone, I'll just have to make the best of it, won't I, I said. I thought she was holding up very well under the strain of that disappointment. I instantly regretted the snidness of that remark, because it was just gonna make things worse. And then, to my astonishment, she sat back in her chair, ran her hand through her hair, and almost whispered, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. The pause in the storm did not

last long. You're seeing a therapist, it says here you've been discussing these so called ethical issues. I said, we've made a lot of progress. Well, you can't resolve the work matters without getting at the core problems, which are obviously personal and family related, not to mention the alcohol and the drug. So talking about work with your therapist is probably not going to solve this to the satisfaction of NBC. So I will need to talk to your therapist.

And I want you to sign a here and now permitting me to do so, unless that is this therapist of yours is working towards making you adjust to the facts that you signed this contract and this is your job, and this is the real world, and this is David and Goliath, and that's all there is to it. And you're on the air tonight at eight o'clock, and that's it now. She paused and stared off into space again,

like when she mentioned her daughter. When I was in my early twenties, I was traveling from Smith College to Montreal by train. She suddenly announced My meeting with her went on for two hours. It featured threats against my parents, It had her yelling at me, it had her accusing me of using alcohol and drug And yet this was the only point where I really considered trying to make

a break for the door. The Montreal Canadians hockey team were on that train, very drunk, very happy, very boastful of their conquests during their trips to the various cities of their hockey league. In one of them, I suspect, giving your fantasy world interest in sports, you may have heard of him, Boom boom, Jeffreyon. He came over and tried to pick me up. I nodded robotically and began to wonder if I suddenly leaped from the wooden chair and did run out of her office, would she continued

to tell this story anyway after I left. We didn't talk of such things then, not in the nineteen fifties. A married man, an athlete, a tall athlete. Now, of course, if I was a reporter and this happened, I'd have to report it. I'd put it on the news. That's just the way the world has changed the real world,

that is. Keith. I suggested that at every news organization for which I had worked, the code had been the same that unless an incident involved the law, or it diminished a player's ability or availability in a game, we in fact didn't report it. Like at ESPN. I related a story similar to her own that had occurred in Miami at the past World Series in nineteen ninety seven. Well, she resumed indignantly. You might have gotten away with that under an old contractor in the sixties, where hippy like

you might have fit in. But this isn't the sixties. This is the real world of today, and you won't get away with that kind of attitude under this contract or any other contract in the future. You could even go back to your precious sports and you'd soon find out about the real world. Don't kid yourself, it'll be David and Goliath. I said that the decision not to report the story in Miami was made under this contract by executives from NBC Sports. And now she sat bolt

upright and slammed her glasses back on her face. I can't get this done in just one session, you know, Deathly afraid that she was about to recite another memory from the glorious days of rail travel, I agreed to return the following Thursday, knowing full well, as I said so, that I would never come back to her office, even as a hostage or in a body bag. Well, I don't know about you, she said, as she opened her door.

But I'm exhausted, I told her. Indeed so was I, which was rather un fortunate, because now I had to go Doe two live hours of television. Yes, I guess you do. She suddenly stared at my feet, then quickly up at my head, as if she were estimating what size I took in caskets. But you're so much taller

than I am, so you'll recover more quickly. MSNBC had arranged a car service to take me out to the studios in New Jersey from thirty Rock, and I spent the entire trip writing all this down, pages and pages of notes and quotes and boom boom Jeffreon and my own height at birth. And I called my therapist on my phone, and I asked her if there was a New York state number that I could call to complain about a certified social worker who seemed to be certifiable

and who had just threatened me. She gave me a number I called while still in the car, and they said they had no record of any social worker named Deborah. When I got to the MSNBC studios in Seicaugus, New Jersey, now the home of MLB Network of all things, I went to my little office. I picked up a small microcassette tape recorder that I kept in the desk there and I went in to see my executive producer, Phil Griffin.

I explained how this woman Burn had threatened me, and I mentioned that I'd called the state Social worker hotline and appeared that Deborah Burn was operating without a license. And as I did this, I kept flipping that mini cassette machine from hand to hand until I was sure Phil Griffin had gotten the implication. Completely phony on my part, But like James Jones says in Field of Dreams, there are rules here. No, there are no rules here. My

executive producer buried his head in his hands. Needless to say, the Deborah Burn thing had blown up in NBC's face. They went into a full fledged panic at the news that she was not registered as a certified social worker. And it turned out that was a clerical mistake. It was her own clerical mistake. She was registered, but she was registered only under her maiden name. But for the next few weeks NBC was completely on the defensive about me. Soon they were promising to make me Tom Brokaw's air

Apparent if I would only stay. I said, yeah, but it says in Brian Williams' contract that he's Tom Brokaw's air apparent. The executive in question laughed and said, no, Brian only thinks it says in Brian Williams contract that he's Tom Brokaw's heir apparent. It can be you stick with the Lewinsky story, oh and layoff ken Starr, and

I have to think that one through too long. If they could make poor Brian think that he was the heir apparent when he wasn't, they could make me think I was the heir apparent when I wasn't as well, and that price laying off ken Starr, that was a

non starter. The stalemate continued for a few weeks until, as I have related here previously, a friend in the Sports division revealed that NBC had lied to me to get me to sign my contract with them, that I was not being paid as they had told me, primarily by the News division, but by the Sports division. I then met with Monica Lewinsky's first lawyer, Bill Ginsburg, to discuss suing NBC over such illegal negotiation tactics. Ginsburg thought just leaking the fact that we had met would spring

me sure enough. About six weeks later, Leanna Akmanoff suddenly called my agent told her they were willing to sell my contract to Fox Sports in Los Angeles, yippie. So do not doubt what television executives are willing to do to protect their ratings and their profits even in the event of full fledged fascism. And do not doubt what a zelot with even minimal skills at medium manipulation like Ken Starr can do to the news you watch or

hear or read, even after he's dead. Also, most relevantly now, as CNN's talent faced the prospect of conforming to the right wing party line, or suddenly finding themselves with a conservative co host, or finding themselves unemployed. There's one more MSNBC story to tell that is relevant. I went back there in two thousand and three and we did pretty well. And then in twenty ten they began to pressure me to change my tone and to add in more diverse voices.

And they did not mean women or members of minority groups, or people like i'd hired, like Rachel Meadow. They meant conservative, diverse voices. That's when I began to pack my bags to leave, and a few months later I left, and then four years later they asked me to come back as long as I agreed to have a conservative co host. I passed. But here's the problem. I don't know anybody else pressured in those ways who has also passed, Not

at CNN, not at MSNBC, not anywhere else. Do not doubt what some television talents are willing to do just to remain. I've done all the damage I can do here. Thank you for listening. I swear I had that conversation with that woman, I swear to God, and it went on and on and on and on. Brian Ray and

John Phillip Chanel, the musical directors of Countdown. Once she started talking about getting hit on by Boom Boom jeffreyon of the Montreal Canadians, I really thought it was being recorded for use on some ESPN show or NBC Sports show or something. I just to this day. Brian Ray and John Phillip Shaneil, the musical directors of Countdown Arrange, produced and performed most of our music. Mister Chanel handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass

and drums. It was produced by Tko Brothers. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever Nancy Faust the sports I'm getting choked up over. This is the Olderman Thief from the ESPN two written by Stephen A. Smith, No written by Mitch Warren Davis Curtis VSPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my friend Larry David. Everything else was as ever my fault Larry

David for the Democratic nomination. That's countdown for today, just four hundred and ten days. Ten days until the scheduled end of his lame duck and lame brained term, unless Musk removes Trump sooner or the actuarial tables to The next scheduled countdown is Monday. As always, bulletins as the news warrants, remember impeach Trump. It will not work now. It will, however, win the Democrats the midterms as long as there are midterms. Until next time. I'm Keith Olberman.

Good morning, good afternoon, good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.