NOTE TO MY OLD FRIEND BOB IGER: SELL ABC NEWS - 12.16.24

hands away from Trump's mouth stood at attention. Some of them at Trump's table put their hands over their hearts as the people who stormed our capital intending to take over our government and kill our leaders, saying words the actual meaning of which they cannot possibly understand. Per the Wall Street Journal, one of those who stood up and put his hand over his heart during this travesty was

Mark Zuckerberg. Presumably this was the visit during which Zuckerberg in part helped to provide the answer to the question where has all your money gone? The answer is it has gone to Trump's inaugural committee. Zuckerberg, the Facebook clown, gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Jeff Bezos, that's blackmail me once. I'll fight you. Blackmail me a second time. I'll do whatever you want. Jeff Bezos. He gave Trump's

committee one million dollars. On Friday. Sam Altman of Open AI was almost did us the favor of killing off artificial intelligence gave Trump's committee one million dollars. Bank of America has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount. In twenty seventeen, that amount was one million dollars. Goldman Sachs has confirmed it is giving Trump's committee an undisclosed amount. Google's Sundar Peacheye dined with trumpet Mari Lago. I wonder

what Trump called him. PITCHI bought Sergey Brinn's influence with him. Sergei Brinn is why this idiot Nicole Shanahan has money. She's his ex. She became RFK Junior's running mate political running mate, as opposed to his FaceTime masturbation mate or his actual spousal mate. The next day, Tim Cook of Apple or has Trump in his dotage has called him Tim Apple went to the same patio at which Zuckerberg put his hand over his heart during the sedition. Anthem

and Tim Cook dined with Trump last Friday. No word of donations, but the New York Times reports that Trump and Tim iPhone Boy discussed fighting the fine with which European regulators have hit Tim FaceTime. The fine is two

billion dollars. And now ABC News has settled with True because George Stephanoppolis said on air that judges and Juries had quoting George found him Trump liable for rape unquote when literally the judge said, the verdict did not mean that Egen Carroll quote failed to prove that Trump raped her, as many people commonly understned the word rape unquote, and Trump sued A million in Trump's legal expenses and a fifteen million dollar donation from ABC to Trump's presidential foundation

and museum. I expect the Trump Presidential Museum will feature a life sized model of Trump's ego. It will thus be twice the size of the sphere in Las Vegas. And of course, in the saddest and most egregious of these, the saddest of these from Mark Bennioff, chief executive of a company called Sales Force. He gave Trump Times Person

of the Year award. Benyoff also owns Time Magazine. He posted the cover of Time magazine and wrote of quote, a time of great promise for our nation and prosperity for everyone with Trump getting the award, and he did not write that the Time magazine Person of the Year award is your annual reminder that owner Benioff has yet defined a sports gambling website willing to buy the magazine's useless brand name from them. In any other world, these

would be bribes. These, whatever you call them, are not necessarily illegal, certainly aren't unprecedented. There certainly is no evidence that similar or at least parallel ones have not been made to democratic presidents elect, nor to presidents elect in the twentieth century, nor even in the nineteenth. But these

are slightly different. These come with unspoken promises from these worthless, greedy, voracious billionaires to not lift a finger nor make a sound as Trump prepares to pillage this country morally, financially, culturally in the next four years or however much time

he has left in his worthless, greedy, voracious life. As I mentioned previously in this series, the point of corporations is to absolve a moral people of any criminal or ethical responsibility for the worst of human actions, so that investors can get more money and not have to worry about what laws they or others might be breaking doing it, But this parade of the pathetic to mar Lago, this succession of ninth rate alfreed Krupps to kiss the ring

of a tenth rate fewer. This is as much about symbolism and acquiescence and reassuring him that the necessary financial component of fascism, including the financial component of media fascism at the Washington Post, on Facebook, even at ABC, that it will all be ready to salute whenever he decides to pull the switch. It's like Romney having dinner last time to beg to become Secretary of State. It cannot

be erased, and it must not be forgotten. Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Sergei Brynn, Sundar Piche and the Bush leaguer who actually bought what used to be Time magazine. Remember them, and simply deny them your dollars wherever you can. Boycotts are impossible and ineffective, and inconvenience you way more than they inconvenience these men, for whom the acquisition of unnecessary wealth has replaced in importance

actual human life. But every time you do not give them your money, you will be protesting this nauseating subservience, even if you are the only one who knows you have done so. Two caveats here. You will notice I have not even mentioned Elon Musk and as The Wall Street Journal made a point of noting when they played the January sixth insurrectionist choir version of the National Anthem and everybody stood and Mark Zuckerberg reportedly put his hand

over where his heart should be. They didn't tell Zuckerberg in advance that it was the January sixth insurrectionist choir version. On the other hand, I wonder why anybody thinks it would have made any goddamn difference. Let me revisit the ABC News News. On March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, I was ushered into the small office of a vice president at the ABC television series The Wide World of Sports.

This man was the product of Ithac College, and so as a senior at Cornell, I had a vague connection to him. We at least knew similar bits of geography. He had started life as a sportscaster who actually did on air work on a couple of Upstate New York TV newscasts. And then there was the real reason I

was actually in there with him. His wife had been an assignment editor at the local New York TV station I had interned at the previous summer, though we were not there Simultaneously, he and the missus and my friends from the local station all warned me this gentleman would not have a job for me, nor even any job leads, just advice.

he made about thirty one million a year ago. And on three separate occasions he has been my boss and all of my boss's boss. And oh, by the way, he divorced the wife I knew, and married the model and sportscaster and newscaster will Obey but that's another story.

And Bob now is the boss of all the bosses at ABC News, which just settled an apparently winnable case against Trump because they were offered the fig leaf of not paying Trump damages per se, but making a quote donation to his presidential museum, which could easily just be

an empty warehouse or perhaps a sinkhole somewhere. And on March twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, bobb Iger, whose unique experience on air and with economics was already evident he was in charge of budgeting for Wide World of Sports, did give me great advice, the greatest advice I have ever received, which I have repeated a thousand times over. In brief, Bob said, if you want to be on the air, be on the air. Do not do He

said what I did. I was offered a job as a sportscaster in Syracuse for ten thousand dollars a year, and I was also offered a job as a production assistant here at Wide World of Sports for ten five

hundred dollars a year. And I figured I could live at home with my folks and stay in the city and move laterally at work, And now I make one hundred thousand dollars a year, and I still want to be a sportscaster, and to do that, I now have to quit this job and move me and my wife and my kids to Syracuse where they are now paying eleven thousand dollars a year for sports casters, and I have priced myself out of my dream. If you want to be on the air, Keith, be on the air,

take the job in Syracuse and suck it up. Brilliant advice, truly, And now, after forty five and a half years, I would like to repay Bob Eiger and give him my advice. Sell ABC News to somebody who actually cares about the future of news and the future of journalism and the future of this country. Because you guys at Disney ain't it anymore? What do you think you bought for yourself here?

Bob Trump's gratitude? Trump somehow remembering you fondly or at least neutrally the next time ABC News does something he doesn't like, like say, accurately reporting how many people show up to his inauguration, or how many insurrectionists he pardons, or how many people died during the migrant roundups into the migrant concentration camps. Even if Trump can still remember, you think he will remember, or that all the mini

Trumps will. The New York Times now reports based on four sources at the magazines in question and email evidence, that the lawyer for Pete Hegseth made litigation threats before The New Yorker and Vanity Fair published articles about his conduct after an appearance on MSNBC in which she called Cash Patel a quote delusional liar unquote. Former Trump staffer Olivia Troy was threatened with a suit by Patel's lawyer. No word if MSNBC was threatened. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson

of North Carolina and Nude Africa Fame actually sued CNN. Trump, of course, sues as frequently as he overeats. He has a lawsuit going against c News about a Kamala Harris interview nothing to do with him. He has a live threat for suits against The New York Times. He has a libel suit pending against the board that gives out

Pulitzer Prizes it honored work that criticized him. Trump's complain about law fair and weaponizing government against enemies is to me, not about the morals or legalities or appropriateness of any of that. It's that he wants to be the only one allowed to do any of that, and so in this environment, ABC News just handed him a win. The headline on this isn't the donation to some campaign or possibly museum. It's Trump awarded fifteen million dollars from ABC

after lawsuit. That's the way it's playing around the world. I don't know that my old acquaintance, Bob, asked.

for anybody else in the world. Also, how do you damage his reputation? The Media Law Resource Center reported a few years ago. Now, Trump and his companies have been involved in at least four thousand lawsuits dating back to nineteen eighty four at least, and the media law RESORTCE Centers. Susan E. Sager concluded that Trump quote and his companies have never won a single speech related case filed in a public courtot He or his extensions have sued for libel.

The architecture critic of the Chicago Tribune have sued for libel. An author who wrote Trump Wasn't a billionaire have sued a former Trump University student, Une Vision, because it wouldn't carry one of his shows after he called Mexican's rapists. He sued Bill Maher over a joke wait, Bill Martell's jokes. He sued unions organizing against him. So ABC News gave in.

And unless there's a secret rider in this in which Trump has sworn never to file another suit against ABC nor harassed the company, all this will mean to him is next time he wants to threaten ABC News or any part of Disney, it will fold. And then there is the chilling effect at ABC News, at all the ABC stations around the country, at all the newsrooms associated with ABC, at ESPN, at every company ABC and Disney own, but specifically at ABC News I worked there, wants to

do a special one off report for Nightline. I worked two and a half years there as a commentator on radio and as Paul Harvey's backup. I am grateful that I am doing this podcast now rather than either of those ABC series, and that dark gratitude and the fear your people, Bob have created inside their own newsrooms is part of the process by which freedom of the press

and freedom in the nation dissolve. My advice offered again in gratitude for your advice in nineteen seventy nine, Bob Sell ABC News to somebody who still cares onto the subject of the Batman. Special guest villains, or if you preferred, Trump's cabinet nominees. They were all at the Army Navy football game Saturday, along with Daniel Penny the quote Subway good Samaritan unquote, and Russell Brand check his ticket, Dave Portnoy from Barstool Sports, Darry to look me in the eye, Dave,

and Joe Mansion was there. I'll let you rank them specifically. Cash Patel has new problems. Cash Pateel insists he had a key role in the Department of Justice investigation into the Benghazi mess. In twenty twelve, that, quoting him on a podcast, I was the main Justice lead prosecutor for Benghazi for a while. The New York Times reports sadly no, it says Patel quote has both exaggerated his own importance

and misleadingly distorted the department's broader effort. According to public documents and interviews with several current and former law enforcement officials familiar with the matter, Politico described Patel's job on the Benghazi case as quote grunt work. Quote turns out the lawyer helping RFK Junior staff out the Department of Health and Human Services once petitioned the government to revoke

its approval of the polio vaccine. You're probably not, but I am old enough to have been in the first grade with a kid who had a leg brace from having gotten polio. There is a sitting Senator and a sitting congressman right now who contracted polio as children. Polio is not gone. It is waiting for someone, someone evil like Robert F. Kennedy Junior. May he burn in hell. There are new problems for Hegseeth, for whom this is turning into hell on Earth. Besides the drinky assaulty problems.

CNN notes that in a book he wrote, they wrote this year, heg Seth said the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell was a quote gateway and a quote camouflage as part of a quote Marxist unquote agenda to deprioritize combat readiness. Heg Seth insists he did not and does not oppose the repeal and all this is quote false reporting, which, if he really believes that, raises far more important questions like or not Pete Hegseth can remember what he did earlier this year, and if not, why not. But Trump

likes his hair. We just don't know if there's anything under his hair. Tulsey Gabbard. Meanwhile, maybe soon finding out. As my old Sports Center colleague Larry Beale used to say,

Aloha means goodbye. The Hill reports that would be Director of National Intelligence is taking on water at her meetings with Republican senators, quoting one of two senate Republicans and other sources, quote, she was proving to be a little shallow, like a house member talking at a hearing, and not someone who needs to provide the president's daily intelligence briefing. And from a separate source to this publication, a Senator, they say, quote, I've heard that she's not very well prepared.

I've heard not great things, Senate GOP members said, describing them as bs sessions. The Hill also quotes a GOP aid she's got some work to do if she wants the job. The more she meets with serious people, the more they'll see there's a competency deficit.

On the other hand, I'll do it for free. That's Next, This is countdown.

And no, by baseball crisis, I do not mean the recent spectacle of New York Yankees fans hating on Juan Soto for signing with the New York Mets and claiming he showed no loyalty and just went where the money was, as if that had not been the creed of the New York Yankees since the year nineteen twenty. I mean baseball's playoff crisis coming up. I will tell you this

full story. The other night, as I was falling asleep, it came to me, this crazy playoff structure, in which the best team in the game has been eliminated in three of the last four years in the first round, is broken and I alone can fix it. I am giving away for free the way for baseball to get out of its el stinko playoffs structure. Next in the countdown, Sportsball Report.

to standard time in October or November. So, as you're probably aware, Trump has posted the republic Look Party will use its best efforts to eliminate daylight Saving time, which has a small but strong constituency. But shouldn't exclamation point daylight saving time is inconvenient and very costly to our nation.

First off, it's savings ufing idiot daylight savings time. Yes, eliminate daylight savings time, so it starts getting light at like four am in June and there will never be another sunset later than about eight pm, exactly what everybody in the country wants. And when I say everybody, I

mean nobody. There are a couple of theories here. One is he posted this just to divert attention from his truth leak in which one day last week he claimed he won the election based on the word groceries, which he invented, and the promise to reduce the cost of growth series, and then one other day last week he made an admission that he has actually no idea how

to reduce the cost of groceries, which he invented. The likelier explanation is that Trump is too stupid and has deteriorated too far to realize that he is calling for the end of daylight savings when he actually wanted to call for the end of standard time. The problem now, of course, is that he will now have to admit he got it wrong or changed his mind, and he cannot do that because his brain is broken and he is infallible. So we might wind up eliminating all daylight

savings time because this guy is crazy. By the way, I have hated that day that we go back to standard time since I was a kid. But I was a kid so long ago that I was there standing outside waiting for my school bus at seven forty am, in the middle of the energy crisis. Winner of nineteen seventy three seventy four, when it was pitch black at seven forty am. It was not only the most depressing thing I ever experienced, certainly to that point, way more

depressing than getting dark at four pm. And by the way, it starts getting dark later. As of what this is the sixteenth, seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty Saturday of this week, this is the worst week of the year. Then it starts getting darker later. Anyway, it was way more depressing when we went on daylight savings time in the winter. We stayed on it that winter in a well meaning but ultimately disastrous attempt to cut back on energy costs

during an energy crisis. While I was standing at that bus stop, literally dozens of other kids were getting killed walking to school in pitch black darkness or waiting for their school buses. Half a century of reflection on this and the answer to what to do about daylight savings time and the terrible month ending December twenty first, and the depression and the danger of too much darkness too early in the day, the answer of what to do about this has come to me, and it is leave

it exactly the way it is now. Yes, for this month, it's really bad, and it gets worse every day. On the other hand. In the summer, when almost everybody can enjoy being outside after work for up to four hours, it is glorious to have light so late. And unless you've waited outside for a bus at seven forty am in utter darkness, you will never know. How imperfect as it is, the current system is the best option. Don't

change it either way. We live with it. It does get dark earlier in the United States, and it will get dark earlier no matter what time we call it.

For a decade on CNN, Van Jones has been saying earnestly, with deep conviction and the most sincere performance of fake sincerity imaginable. He's been saying the stupidest things pretty much started with although this was not the first example, but his first all star announcement came early in twenty seventeen that Trump, in a speech to Congress, a kind of first State of the Union address, trump had just truly

become president. I guess Van said this because Trump had not shot a guy during it or messed his diapers

while saying it. These statements continued unobated through the assassination attempt, when Van Jones cried on the air and told Democrats to embrace Republicans to show we were all Americans, while Trump was already figuring out how to exploit the event by demanding that American owed him now and everybody should drop all criminal cases against him, even though he was a trader, and then he was fund raising off of it,

used it to get elected again. But Van Jones wanted me to hug him, hug this fan and now more from Van Jones. There are a few more cynical, more dishonest, a few more ugly in their soul speakers than Sarah Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, just as her soul as father was governor of Arkansas. Later Trump's most virulent and angry, dyspeptic press sect Terry. She looked always like she just

swallowed a mouse hole. She spoke at the Republican National Committee and made a tasteless ageist joke comparing her four year old son huck to President Biden, and Van Jones said after the speech on CNN, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she was incredibly compelling to me. She told personal stories that landed. It was moving, and it was powerful. She gave the

speech of the night unquote. And now Van Jones has gone on a podcast and eliminated all doubt, the podcast in which Van Jones praises the smartest man in the world Trump.

the House totally agree for the popular vote. He has a massive media ecosystem bigger than the mainstream, built around him and for him, and a religiously religious fervor in a political movement around him, and he is best Buddy is the richest person in the history of the world, and the most relevant Kennedy is with him. This dude is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on earth and in our lifetime. And we're still saying, well, how was this card?

they should do a roundtable. I think Chuck Todd and Solissa and Van Jones should do a podcast every day just to give me more material. Even after that, still not the worst persons in the world. Our winners for that honor. Today wis ten ten Wins Radio here in Fun City. You may recall it is New York City's last surviving all news radio station after owners Odyssey inexplicably shuttered the good one WCBS in late summer. WIS now bills itself as New York's top news station, which is

inarguably true since they killed off the other one. It has also used such new and laugh out loud funny IDs as the most important station for the most important listeners in the universe, or something like that. But WIONS has not made this list for any of that nonsense. In the last week, as you've probably heard, drones may or may not have been spotted over New Jersey and other areas vaguely considered part of the metropolitan New York area. I guess drones in New Jersey, how redundant any who

buy New Jersey listeners. WIS has interrupted its regular programming, which is thirty five percent commercials, thirty five percent traffic reports all by the same person, twenty five percent news about Arianda Grande and other pop stars, and five percent actual news. It has interrupted that wheel to introduce what it actually bills as Drone Watch twenty twenty four. I cannot reduce this sounder as we call it in the business,

for copyright reasons. Also, I have a reputation for actual news that I have to protect, so I will not reproduce what they are playing Onions, but there's music, and there is an announcer saying, with this combination of authority and dread in his voice, Drone Watch twenty twenty four, Drone Watch twenty twenty four. It's like something out of The Daily Show. I was actually listening for ten minutes

to WIONS yesterday and they played this sounder twice. There is no indication that WIONS has adopted this ironically or self mockingly, in which case it would actually be cool. They are leaning into drone Watch twenty twenty four, the way they and every other station radio television in this country trot out storm Watch twenty twenty four whenever it

you know, rains, Drizzle Watch twenty twenty four. The most disturbing part of this, perhaps is that it is just two weeks until New Year's Day, and I'm thinking these drone sightings more likely two percent drones and ninety eight percent aircraft landings as seen by people who actually have chosen to live in towns with names like Nutley, New Jersey. These will continue into the New Year, at which point they will have to send their guy back into the

Wins studio. Wins Radio in New York where the drone watch never stops. That's go Watch twenty twenty five, two days other worst. What'side?

here's a ballgame. In the four years since the COVID shortened season of twenty twenty, baseball has had twenty four division winners. There are six divisions. There's six division winners a year. It's been four years. Winning your division is supposed to be the point of the regular baseball season, and it's supposed to mean a lot going into the playoffs. These are the teams that have worked all year, and they are supposed to be given a leg up, an advantage.

It gives you home field advantage in the playoffs. It gives you time to rest your pitchers, particularly after the incredibly grueling one hundred and sixty two game regular season. You have to run through the tape to win your division, so you should be at the top of your game, and you have to do that so you don't get stuck with the dreaded wild card games, in which now you may not play a home game in the wildcard round. You have to go to the better teams stadium and

play all your playoff games. There twenty four division winners in the four years since COVID, and fourteen of them have lost in their first playoff round. That's fourteen have lost and only ten have won. With the supposed advantage of all advantages going into the playoffs, I think we have a big enough sample size here. They've screwed this up.

You are literally better off not winning your division than winning your division, and whatever you do, do not become the team with the best record in baseball in the regular season, we've had four of those. Three of them, including the twenty twenty two Dodgers, who had one hundred and eleven wins out of one hundred and sixty two games played, tied for fourth most wins in any season all time. The three of the four best record teams in baseball in the last four years have been wiped

out in the first round. The playoffs now prove only one thing. Season means almost nothing, especially if you've won the division. Now why is this the case, Well, principally, the theory goes, it's because Baseball has rewarded the division winners by giving them four or usually five days off between the end of their regular season and the start

of their playoffs. The wild card teams and the worst of the division winners, the one with the worst record of the three division winners in each league, they have to play like with one day off, and then, of course, that means the pitchers are rested and ready to go after five days rest. Turns out that's not the case. Pitchers get rusty in five days, they get out of rhythms. They have to now plan to pitch not in five days, but in perhaps nine days or ten days. The hitters.

If a hitter is hot, he's not going to stay hot with five days off, And there's no way to have a practice or a simulated game that can keep you sharp in that time off. You can't. If you could guess what, more than ten of the twenty four division winners wouldn't have lost in their first playoff round. So it's not working. And yet this is the only thing Baseball has been able to figure out how to reward its divisional champions. And again a little aside here

for the history of the game. It used to be that the regular season determined the two teams in the only playoff round, the World Series, from the eighteen eighties when they first experimented with this and did it spottily up to the year eighteen ninety, and then when it was resumed in nineteen oh three and became official in

nineteen oh five. You won the American League Championship, that was the regular season, You went to the World Series, and you faced the winner of the National League Championship.

Baseball had gone through the sixties where there were ten teams in each league, and even finishing ninth or tenth meant that the final few games of your home season might be attended by as few as five hundred fans. This is in my lifetime. I was at Yankee Stadium in I guess it was nineteen sixty eight. Then they were in the middle of the pack. I think they finished fifth or sixth, and I could hear the players talking in the dugout from my seats in the stands.

In any event, they then went to a series of divisions. First it was two divisions, East and West in each league, and their champions, having played most of their games against the other teams in their division, their champions met for the National League pennant National League East versus National League West, and then that team advanced to the World Series. I never was a fan of this, but the all alternative

of having twelve plays teams that was far worse. So you had a final fourth essentially in baseball, and almost always the worst thing that could happen was the fourth

best team in baseball won the World Series. As baseball has expanded from sixteen teams to twenty teams, to twenty four teams, to twenty six teams, to twenty eight teams, finally to thirty teams, we have the situation we have now where we have to figure out how to work three divisions and a bunch of wild card teams together in the playoffs and give the advantage that winning the

division is supposed to impart. Baseball doesn't have it. That's why most of them have lost after winning the division. And this is where my solution comes in. The reward for a team that wins its division should not be time off in which to get rusty. It should be a win in the postseason. What I am suggesting is, if you win the American League East in your first playoff round, you go into it having already been credited with a win before the first game is played. I'll

say that again. You win the division on the day off, you are credited with a win. You then play what amounts to a best of six series against whichever team you're paired whichever wildcard team you're playing, or other division winner, or however you want to work it out. But if you've won a division, you should get an actual, tangible, big ticket bonus for winning the division. So you're playing essentially a best of seven series against a wild card team.

You start before the first pitch is thrown, leading this series one to nothing. You only have to win three more games to advance. The other the wildcard team, the one that didn't win the division, the one that gets effectively punished for not winning the division, they have to win four. It's literally like a racing handicap. You put it against the team that didn't do as well. So if you won your division, you are, say the New York Mets, and you are going to face the Philadelphia Phillies,

a wild card team. You start the series and hopefully that series starts with maybe two days off after the regular season, not five. You start that series leading one to nothing. Then they can play six games. But the Phillies to win have to win four games because they have none going in. They haven't been given a credit for one they didn't win their division. The Mets only have to win three. So here we now eliminate the chances of a divisional winner being blown out because they've

lost three games. You have to beat the divisional winner by beating them four times in the first round. And right now, the first round most of the first rounds are best of five, not best of seven. You eliminate that entirely. You make it best of essentially six, and baseball has an additional playoff game to sell to the advertise here some in the networks, you're welcome. Will baseball

do this? I don't know. Does it solve all of baseball's postseason problems and my many, many, many, many, many decades worth of complaints.

wrong with the first round. So there it is. You win the division that counts as a win in one game in your first round of the playoffs. There will be no additional charge for this genius idea to the number one story on the countdown and my favorite topic, me and things I promised not to tell, And hoo boy,

they're all still at it in cable news. Huh, still hoping they'll wake up tomorrow and it'll be two thousand and five again, and everybody watches one of the channels, and hundreds of millions of dollars are just waiting to be made, and our industry.

important thing that journalism demands. How can we still protect this company's profits. I say this not merely because I know most of the people running the mainstream media organizations.

But because these conversations have already happened, and they happened long ago, largely because the first not white guy president was elected just seven years and two months after nine to eleven, we forget how seriously and terrifyingly we already have teetered on the edge of full fledged fascism here after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Nine to eleven happened between my two tenures at MSNBC, but I returned a year and a half after it happened, and by then the place I went back to work had already hired a sort of Alex Jones prototype radio host named Michael Savage, and it was slowly trying to build him into the host of a weeknight show. Savage was a homophobe plus an equal opportunity bigot. His real name was Michael Wiener, and all you need to know about him is that he was a Wiener who pretended

he was a Savage. What happened to him when they tried to stick him into primetime and what he said that led to his firing and the blowing up of the lets out Fox Fox News plan of the then NBC chairman and CEO, Bob Wright is a great story. I will relish telling you in a moment, but first a little context to this. MSNBC and Fox Nudes launched within weeks of each other in nineteen ninety sive and for a while, in fact, until I left MSNBC in December nineteen ninety eight, we were ahead of Fox in

many time periods, though CNN crushed us both. Then Fox ascended, then came nine to eleven, and then Bob Wright thought he saw his opportunity. All you need to know about him is that after he left the position of running NBC, he became a contributor to Fox Business. At MSNBC, Wright gave Oliver North his own show and Laura Ingram her

own show. He had given a program to Alan Keyes, a Republican who somehow managed to lose Senate races in two different states and washed out three different times in Republican presidential primaries. His MSNBC show consisted of him giving speeches. Though he was alone in a studio with no audience. Alan Keys could not break himself up his habit of

spraying the room with his eyes. The viewer at home would see him looking off camera to his left, then looking at the camera, then looking off camera to the right. He went back and forth like a sprinkler. I remember once looking at him and yelling at the TV, hey, hell over here, I'm the one in the middle. Bob Wright also brought in Joe Scarborough, long before Scarborough knew how to disguise much of his fascism. Bob Wright fired Phil Donahue, although to be fair, that was really more

about money than it was about politics. But he replaced Dona Hughes's show with what was supposed to be a high speed, slightly right laning newscast produced by a Fox News refugee. It was called Countdown with Sam Donaldson, and needless to say, the right leaning idea went horribly horribly wrong after they changed it to Countdown with Keith Olverman.

MSNBC's lineup was remarkably unstable at that time. I had hosted its eight pm show from October first, nineteen ninety seven, through the beginning of December nineteen ninety eight, and then I left to go back to sports and baseball at Fox. Then the eight pm hour was hosted by John Hockenberry for three months then Ali North got his shot a month later. They started having rotating liberals co host with Ali North in April nineteen ninety nine and it became

North and Paul Bagala. That was five shows in five months. In May they cut North and Begala to half an hour. In June they canceled them and replaced them with a half hour Ann Curry documentary. In early two thousand, Curry was expanded to an hour, but then in May Curry was replaced by Lorie Doo. In August two thousand, they

started their version of Dateline called MSNBC Investigates. In September, they cut that show to four days a week and launched a vanished white Woman of the Week show actually called Missing Persons with Diane Diamond, which they canceled after one episode, and then they put MSNBC Investigates back on. Then they canceled that a month lay to make room for a newscast with Forrest Sawyer. Then after the uncertainty of the two thousand election, they refocused that as Decision

two thousand with Forrest Sawyer. In January two thousand and one, they canceled Forest Sawyer and put MSNBC Investigates back on for the third different time. Then in July they moved The News with Brian Williams from nine pm to eight pm. Then the next September they moved Brian to CNBC and instead launched Phil Donahue's show in the eight pm MSNBC slot. Then in March two thousand and three they off Donahue. They started Countdown originally with Lester Holt, Pat Buchanan and

Bill Press. Then after the war started and there wasn't anything to count Down two anymore, they hired me to host Operation Iraqi Freedom, and after one week of that show they launched Countdown with Keith Olruman. That's twenty different shows or formats in four years and four months. So Bob Wright's next primetime ideas, and you gotta give him this much. He had a lot of primetime ideas and

virtually all of them made it onto TV. His next set of ideas was a primetime lineup of me doing the News at eight, then Score Barborough at nine, then Jesse Ventura at ten, and then this Michael Savage character. They began this plot by giving Savage his own show an hour every Saturday afternoon. On March eighth, two thousand and three, everybody agreed it was crap. On radio, Savage sounded kind of threatening, I guess, a kind of red

meat fascist. But on TV taking calls from viewers in a tiny, little cramp looking studio somewhere in the Bay Area, he looked small and whiny and cavetchy, and he was wearing a bad tupei and a suit that was far worse than that. When I was negotiating my return to MSNBC in two thousand and three, I got the executive in charge of Primetime to put it in my contract that Michael Savage would never appear on my newscast in any form unless it was an obituary, open and shut.

But then on Friday, April twenty fifth, two thousand and three, I came into work. We were about a month into the show, and there in the computer rundown of my newscast was a pre recorded Michael Savage commentary. As soon as he saw I was in the office, the executive producer they had hired from Fox, a cross eyed chainsmoker named Dennis Murray, pushed his way into my office and said, we have to run a Michael Savage commentary. There's also

a mandatory Matt Drudge SoundBite. This is per Phil Griffins. So don't think you can call Phil to get it dropped. He's not in New York. He's not reachable, and he left. I called my agent. I told her the story, and I'm matter of factively asked, if they don't drop it, I have to walk out, don't I mind you? She had just exhausted herself negotiating my extremely unlikely return to MSNBC.

She didn't flinch. Of course, you have to walk out, but first call Philip Griffin's office and tell him you're leaving. Give him a chance. It'll help when you sue them. It was breach of contract. I find dramatic, life changing and potentially costly stuff like that is usually way easier if you have the high moral ground. So I called Griff's office. His assistant said he was in Washington and meetings and could not be reached. I said, well, you

should reach somebody there. Tell them I just called a car to take me home because my contract says you can't put Michael effing Savage on my newscast, and somebody just did nice working with you all. And tell Phil to give me a call. Sometime sometime was three minutes later, Griffin, who frequently panicked outdid himself on this call. You would really walk out, buddy, I said, it was in the contract. I was putting my pens and books in a box

as we spoke. I told him he was repeating himself. Finally, he said, okay, okay, okay, buddy. Can you look at the commentary and find me a reason, a reason that isn't about politics why it shouldn't run. I said, you mean, like video quality, or racist language or something. Phil Griffin's voice brightened. Yeah, good, racist language or something that'd be great.

I said, even for racist homophobic crap. This thing makes no sense. He just keeps saying George W. Bush is right, because George W. Bush, because he's right. He looks small and whiny and convecchy, and he's got a bad tupe in a worse suit. We wouldn't run this as a SoundBite in his obituary. And the lighting is terrible and he's dressed as a brown shirt. Apparently that was enough. Phil Griffin ordered the piece dropped from My show. I think they ran it on Scarborough Show at nine pm.

In fact, I think I might be wrong. They ran two or three Savage commentaries on Scarborough shows. I know they intended to God knows. I never watched Scarborough Show. Happily, this was about the time Michael Savage ended his own TV career. On Saturday July fifth, two thousand and three, show fifteen out of a series of Chex's Notes fifteen, Michael Savage was on the air live on MSNBC when a caller baited him about gaze. Savage replied, quote, so

you're one of them sodomists. You a sodomite. The caller said, yes, Oh, you're one of them sodomites, continuing the quote. You should only get aids and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you consume me, you pig, you got nothing better to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have nothing better to do today. Go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trick and noses. End quote And Michael Savage. And by the way, that quote that I just read that was way better than the

commentary i'd him record for Countdown. Two days later, on Monday, Eric Sorenson the president of MSNBC, and he was president of all the boring things Bob Wright didn't want to be bothered with. At MSNBC. Eric Sorenson fired Michael Savage. Sorenson, for whom I worked in Los Angeles in local news and who consulted on my show on Current TV as recently as twenty eleven, took me for a drink because he needed to tell somebody what happened next after he

fired Michael Savage. As soon as the Savage firing was announced, Sorenson said, the phone rang in his office and it was Bob Wright, the chairman of NBC. Did you have to fire americ? Wright asked in his nasal long Island accent, and Sorenson said he answered, yes, I literally had to. I had to fire him. Remember the clause in his contract there are forty phrases he's not allowed to use on the show. It literally says, if you say any of the following forty things, you will be automatically fired

for cause and get no money. Remember what number four on that list is. Number four is quote, I hope you get AIDS and die unquote. And then he said, I hope you get AIDS and die. Bob, I literally had to fire him. I had to fire him. It's

in the contract. Eric Sorenson told me. There was a long pause on the other end of the phone, and then Bob Wright said, in anticipation of all that we have seen in television news since all the meetings about what happens if the country goes fully fascist, and NBC and CNN and CBS and ABC all want to protect their profits and do the devil's work, Bob Wright said, after a long pause to Eric Sorenson, who had just fired Michael Savage because it was in the contract, Bob

Wright said, softly and sadly, but Eric, did you.

our music. Mister Chanelle handled orchestration and keyboards. Mister Ray was on the guitars, bass and drums. It was produced by tk Obras. Our satirical and pithy musical comments are by the best baseball stadium organist ever, Nancy Faust. The sports music is the Olberman theme from ESPN two, written by Mitch Warren Davis and courtesy of ESPN Inc. Other music arranged and performed by the group No Horns Allowed. My announcer today is my friend Jonathan Banks. Everything else

was as ever my fault. Countdown Watch twenty twenty four. That's countdown for today, just ninety seven days until the scheduled end of the Lane Duck presidency.

Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.