Episode description

SERIES 2 EPISODE 146: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN

A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Sure, the split legal decisions in New York courtrooms matter. Trump got a brief reprieve in the business fraud case ($500 million bond reduced to $175 bond, he gets an extra 10 days grace; but his son said even a $15 million bond was almost impossible) but the Stormy Daniels election hush money case starts as scheduled April 15.

But in the span five hours, Trump posted a psalm he claimed to have "received" from somebody in which he was compared to Christ, and said that he would have to sell his "babies" due to Judge Engoron, and he announced to an uncomfortable crowd of reporters "You can’t have an election in the middle of a political season."

He's NUTS. Besides which, I always thought he'd decide he was not Jesus but Napoleon.

RFK JR'S NEVADA OOPSIE: He celebrated getting enough signatures to be a Trump stalking horse on the ballot there. Then somebody noticed that your petitions have to mention just not the presidential candidate but the VICE presidential candidate. And he's not announcing who that is until today. He has to refile all the signatures. Hopefully the likely Veep, the ex-wife of the founder of Google who wanted a divorce settlement of a billion, can front RFK Jr the cash.

THE CONTINUING RONNA McDANIEL DISASTER: No, Maddow didn't stop it last night. She could've stopped it last week, or last month if she'd stood up and threatened to quit when her bosses overruled her - live on the air - and reversed her dictum that MSNBC would not carry Trump speeches live.

And no, MSNBC's president did NOT say McDaniel won't appear on the network. And no, Chuck Todd didn't put himself at risk by speaking out. And no, don't even get me started about Joe Scarborough. 

In the old days we used to have a more direct way of stopping such subversions of journalism. I threatened to quit, on the spot, at least twice. Rachel did it at least once. Scarborough used threats on a regular basis. Brokaw did it. 

Ultimately the problem is: people paid big salaries to make essential decisions about the coverage of an election that will decide whether or not we still have a democracy next January, thought she was a GREAT HIRE. And nice as the protests from Todd and Welker and “Golly I hope they reconsider” Scarborough were, bluntly, the moment the hiring of Ronna Romney McDaniel was announced, MSNBC anchors and producers and writers, and NBC NEWS anchors and producers and writers, should have literally walked off the job. Gone on strike.

Because it comes down to this: the hiring of Ronna McDaniel didn’t represent some kind of political balance. It conceded – STIPULATED – that there can be some kind of balance, some kind of yes-but, some kind of bothsidesism, between the reality of the 2020 election, and election deniers and the Trumpist cult. She IS the flat earther, the climate change denier. She might as well be Q from Q-Anon. She is reality, trying to appease hallucination and mental illness in hopes of making… more… money. Her presence as an NBC News employee LEGITIMIZES the election deniers and the conspiracy theorists… and Trump. It is an act of journalistic self-defenestration and – for the future democracy in this country – an act of self-immolation.

B-Block (30:50) IN SPORTS: Shohei Ohtani makes it worse: nobody has explained the money transfer to the bookie. Now the NBA has a burgeoning scandal: the fringe player who everybody placed "prop bets" on (33:40) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: The sad post-mortem for Flaco the Central Park Owl, and farewell to Bill Jorgensen. (50:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Rece Davis isn't actually one of them but his dry sense of humor created another mini-sports wagering mess at my alma mater. Now we know what Jeff Yass bought Trump with. And Charlie Kirk wants to use machine guns and whips at the border.

C-Block (57:00) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since I've asserted that the NBC News/MSNBC protest over Ronna McDaniel is tepid compared to the Him-Or-Me ones we had in the 2003-11 era, I'll tell you everything I know about them. It stars Tom Brokaw, John McCain, Scarborough, Michael Savage, Chris Hayes, Maddow, me, and a cast of thousands. Pull up a chair: it takes 27 minutes.

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