Countdown with Keith Olbermann

EPISODE 220: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Mark Meadows has flipped. There’s no other possible conclusion. The news has been coming for weeks. Per ABC, Meadows testified to the Jack Smith Election Grand Jury and to the Jack Smith Documents Grand Jury. And 20 members of the Trump Secret Service detail - past or present - have been subpoenaed to testify in Washington, while we begin to see what the third Smith Grand Jury in Miami is all about and how it might but Trump on trial there and not Washington. And this all explains both why Bloomberg reports "Trump representatives in recent weeks have asked for recommendations of Washington-based counsel with trial experience…” and why Trump returned yesterday to stochastic terrorism. He made social media posts demanding that his thugs "fight" to prevent his indictment, just as he told the crowd on the Ellipse in Washington on January 6 to "fight" the certification. Dismiss Trump and his animal-like cunning and destructive skill at your peril and OUR peril. What you think you see in him is as bad as you think it is. Or worse. Always. Always. On January 6th. Yesterday. The Truth Social posts were made in hopes of getting somebody to attack Jack Smith or Merrick Garland or someone. The Trump thinking is not complex: "This other creature is in my way. Destroy this other creature." B-Block (17:32) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Chris Licht does it again! ANOTHER presidential town hall - and how you can get one. And when is the parade for CNN Media Reporter Oliver Darcy and will he be riding in the front car or in the metaphorical hearse in the back? (21:29) IN SPORTS: Don't delude yourself. The PGA golf tour did not "merge" with LIV Golf. It sold itself to the Saudis, after a year of talking about Saudi blood money. It's despicable and it will either be prevented, or it will destroy the sport in the country. And Jacob deGrom is probably out of baseball until Opening Day 2025. Who didn't see that coming? (26:59) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: It's condescending, proselytizing Harris Faulkner of Fox - and her pronouns are D,U,M,B. C-Block (32:20) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Speaking of a great pitcher like Jacob deGrom, I actually once covered for one of the great pitchers of all-time, a jerk named Roger Clemens, because while he almost got in a fight with a fan during the World Series and I got it on tape, it truly wasn't his fault. So I suppressed the tape and cost myself a job.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 219: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) BULLETIN: Trump is again attempting to foment a violent coup against the government of the United States and in so doing confirming that he is about to be indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith and whatever charges Smith has ready he should bring them before his Grand Jury now and urge a judge to detain Trump without bail. “It’s about Election Interference” Trump wrote at the start of a social media post at 8:12 Eastern Time this morning, which ends “They are using the DOJ and FBI against me to Rigg the 2024 election. They’ll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look fair. Nothing about these fascists is fair or honest. FIGHT!” The word “fight” is in capital letters and followed by an exclamation point and it is clearly not directed at his attorneys. He followed up two minutes later with quote “Election Interference. Don’t let it happen.” Again – that instruction to prevent his indictment or arrest was not directed to attorneys or family members or anybody else. It was directed to his mob – just as it was directed to his mob on January 6th. It is not political speech, it is not dissent, it is not protest, it is not free speech, it is stochastic terrorism. And the word that elevates this from Trump’s usual psychopathic communications is quote “fight” unquote. It should send cold chills down your spine because he used that word in its various forms SIXTEEN TIMES in that incendiary speech from the ellipse that sent the gang into the Capitol and sent democracy teetering on the edge of destruction. “We fight,” he shouted. “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country any more.” And now, in literally the days before his indictment for stealing this country’s – and other countries’ - nuclear secrets and our military’s war plans for attacking Iran, he has used his social media account to again attempt to incite insurrection – and more immediately to somehow prevent the Department of Justice from indicting him for mishandling classified documents, for obstructing justice, possibly for destruction of evidence, suborning of perjury, and – though they won’t do this – for these posts today. (7:40) The remainder of this podcast is the original June 6 2023 edition as originally posted. SPECIAL COMMENT: The whiny visit of Trump lawyers to beg Jack Smith not to indict their client so he wouldn't yell at them again turns out to have actually confirmed ONE important fact. We can't be sure Smith has already decided to indict Trump on the stolen documents. But we CAN be sure he has NOT decided NOT to indict him - otherwise there would've been no need for the meeting. Others are thinking that way too: Trump's lawyers, trump, The Times, The Post, The WSJ, and CNN all think we are at the end game. And - a leak about leaking water? Isn't this where we came in with Trump? From draining the swamp to draining the pool, Jack Smith has been pressing the guy who helped move the classified document boxes about how he drained the Mar-a-Lago club pool and managed to flood the room where all the security video logs were kept. If that isn't a callback to about a dozen other plot points I don't know what is! B-Block (20:04) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: How can you apologize and make it worse? Ask Chris Licht! By lying during the apology, getting support only from those at other networks, and finally being accused by a tabloid of fudging the only feel-good part of your story. The weight loss wasn't 5 AM workouts: it was Ozempic. (29:48) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A Nebraska lawyer wasted taxpayer money trying to silence a state legislator on an anti-trans bill because the legislator has a trans child. Elon Musk's newest conspiracy theory: the advertisers are out to get him. Can't we take Twitter away from him? And Congressman James Comer's whistleblower and informant and secret FBI document? They are all just a rehash of the Rudy Giuliani crap that didn't even fool Bill Barr in 2019. C-Block (35:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Lilou, in the Bahamas, needs neurological help (36:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The most fun moment in one of those old "SportsCenter" Commercials? The Alexi Lalas one, where I got to pretend I was John Belushi, smashing a guitar in "Animal House."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 218: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:42) SPECIAL COMMENT: The whiny visit of Trump lawyers to beg Jack Smith not to indict their client so he wouldn't yell at them again turns out to have actually confirmed ONE important fact. We can't be sure Smith has already decided to indict Trump on the stolen documents. But we CAN be sure he has NOT decided NOT to indict him - otherwise there would've been no need for the meeting. Others are thinking that way too: Trump's lawyers, trump, The Times, The Post, The WSJ, and CNN all think we are at the end game. And - a leak about leaking water? Isn't this where we came in with Trump? From draining the swamp to draining the pool, Jack Smith has been pressing the guy who helped move the classified document boxes about how he drained the Mar-a-Lago club pool and managed to flood the room where all the security video logs were kept. If that isn't a callback to about a dozen other plot points I don't know what is! B-Block (15:00) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: How can you apologize and make it worse? Ask Chris Licht! By lying during the apology, getting support only from those at other networks, and finally being accused by a tabloid of fudging the only feel-good part of your story. The weight loss wasn't 5 AM workouts: it was Ozempic. (24:48) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: A Nebraska lawyer wasted taxpayer money trying to silence a state legislator on an anti-trans bill because the legislator has a trans child. Elon Musk's newest conspiracy theory: the advertisers are out to get him. Can't we take Twitter away from him? And Congressman James Comer's whistleblower and informant and secret FBI document? They are all just a rehash of the Rudy Giuliani crap that didn't even fool Bill Barr in 2019. C-Block (30:45) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Lilou, in the Bahamas, needs neurological help (31:51) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The most fun moment in one of those old "SportsCenter" Commercials? The Alexi Lalas one, where I got to pretend I was John Belushi, smashing a guitar in "Animal House."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 217: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: As reports swirl, we seem to be on the verge of SOMETHING from Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Grand Jury. It is reportedly to reconvene this week after a month off. And DOJ is reportedly set to meet with Trump's lawyers. And now a new question: would DOJ make at least a token plea deal offer to him? A LOT going on. (7:29) SPECIAL COMMENT: Having learned nothing from anything, Just to convince the RNC to give the network a Republican Presidential Primary debate, CNN is reportedly ready to partner with a far right website - and even have one of its propagandists co-moderate the debate WITH a CNN star ON CNN. And NBC is also prostituting itself to get a shot at a Republican debate, sending Lester Holt to try to talk them into it. And we continue to have fallout from Tim Alberta's profile of CNN CEO Chris Licht in The Atlantic. Actually, it's less fallout and more an autopsy because Licht would have fared better if he'd gone into the Atlantic OCEAN. There is soooo much to discuss, but not too many possibilities as to what might happen next. As Burt Lancaster says to Tony Curtis in "Sweet Smell of Success": "You're dead, son. Get yourself buried." B-Block (35:50) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: "When I took over ‘Meet The Press’,” said Chuck Todd on Meet The Press as he announced his own firing FROM Meet The Press, “it was a Sunday show that had a lot of people questioning whether it still could have a place in the modern media space. Well, I think we’ve answered THAT question and then some.” He's self-aware to the last. And Lauren Boebert caught in a huge lie: she didn't fail to vote on the Debt Ceiling in protest; she just didn't make it in time - and it's on tape. IN SPORTS: the ultimate fan protest in a replica uniform and the Mets with a novel Hall of Fame induction (46:10) WORSTS: Marine LePen DOESN'T prove her French party wasn't associated with the Russians, Elon Musk's lawyers make a court filing that essentially disproves "The Twitter Files;" And a "comedian" goes on NewsMax and makes what she thinks is a joke but is actually a 150-year old racist trope about fried chicken. C-Block (50:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Lola in Miami (51:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: The day my ability to tolerate Chuck Todd for one more moment snapped like a dry twig during a drought and I could no longer bear to even be in the...same fantasy football league as him.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 216: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) BULLETIN: It's the Smoking Gun, and it's still smoking! After the drama of the original revelation of the "Bedminster Tape," a further shocking bit of news. The Guardian reports that on the tape Trump is heard lamenting that he DID NOT declassify the Mark Milley Iran document. This ratchets up Trump’s self-incrimination. “For several minutes of the audio recording, the sources said, Trump talks about how he cannot discuss the document because he no longer possesses the sweeping presidential power to declassify, now out of office, but suggests that he should have done so when he was still in the White House.” Thus on the tape he discusses the document… that he says… he cannot legally discuss. Trump is on tape, not just ADMITTING that after he left office he KEPT classified top secret MILITARY plans for an American war on IRAN but BOASTING he kept them, AND describing the details of the American attack strategy, AND attributing the document to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND describing it to at least four people none of whom had the requisite security clearance to even know the document existed, let alone hear any of the details, AND saying he would like to share those details with them, AND then acknowledging he couldn’t because even an ex-president can’t just declassify whatever he wants, AND acting as if he is holding the top secret document in his hands as he’s talking about it, AND the conversation took place not at Mar-a-Lago but at his golf course in Bedminster New Jersey, AND the recorded conversation took place in July 2021 before Trump returned ANY of the documents he stole, AND two of the other people were there working on the autobiography of Mark Meadows, AND one of the others was his former White House press aide Margo Martin, AND Trump knew he was being recorded, AND the story of the meeting appears IN the Meadows Autobiography, AND this may be the tip of the Trump Tapes iceberg. Quoting CNN’s exclusive: “During the summer of 2021, sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as he held conversations with journalists and biographers.” And this tape is in the hands of… Special Counsel Jack Smith. Apply every cliche you can think of: this is a Smoking Gun inside a weapons depot filled with nothing BUT Smoking Guns. And that bit about tapes is just the tip of the iceberg because this isn't just "The" Trump Tape. It's The FIRST Trump Tape. B-Block (27:31) IN SPORTS: The Dodger disaster continues. They folded to the pressure of "The Catholic League" (which is one loud guy named Bill) and uninvited a Nun Drag group supported by actual Catholic Nuns. Since? Dodgers rightly attacked by LGBTQ community and local fans, so they reversed and RE-invited. Now they've been attacked by a pitcher for The Washington Nationals who has called for fans to boycott the Dodgers, and their own star twirler has announced a Christian Night at Dodger Stadium - evidently BEFORE the team was ready to. (36:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Someone claiming to be the wife of a serving marine says the president needs to be "executed publicly." Elon Musk paid $44B for twitter. One of his co-investors now says it's worth $15B. And disgraced disloyal ex-General Mike Flynn has found a new calling: SELLING SPERM. C-Block (40:50) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Bentley was rescued by a clueless group which stuck him in a luxury kennel and he has to be ransomed! (41:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I never wanted to do politics. Then one day I went from interviewing Chris Kattan on MSNBC to anchoring the 1998 State of the Union AddressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 215: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) BULLETIN: It's the Smoking Gun.  Trump is on tape, not just ADMITTING that after he left office he KEPT classified top secret MILITARY plans for an American war on IRAN but BOASTING he kept them, AND describing the details of the American attack strategy, AND attributing the document to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, AND describing it to at least four people none of whom had the requisite security clearance to even know the document existed, let alone hear any of the details, AND saying he would like to share those details with them, AND then acknowledging he couldn’t because even an ex-president can’t just declassify whatever he wants, AND acting as if he is holding the top secret document in his hands as he’s talking about it, AND the conversation took place not at Mar-a-Lago but at his golf course in Bedminster New Jersey, AND the recorded conversation took place in July 2021 before Trump returned ANY of the documents he stole, AND two of the other people were there working on the autobiography of Mark Meadows, AND one of the others was his former White House press aide Margo Martin, AND Trump knew he was being recorded, AND the story of the meeting appears IN the Meadows Autobiography, AND this may be the tip of the Trump Tapes iceberg. Quoting CNN’s exclusive: “During the summer of 2021, sources say multiple people were making recordings of Trump as he held conversations with journalists and biographers.” And this tape is in the hands of… Special Counsel Jack Smith. Apply every cliche you can think of: this is a Smoking Gun inside a weapons depot filled with nothing BUT Smoking Guns. And that bit about tapes is just the tip of the iceberg because this isn't just "The" Trump Tape. It's The FIRST Trump Tape.   B-Block (18:52) IN SPORTS: The Dodger disaster continues. They folded to the pressure of "The Catholic League" (which is one loud guy named Bill) and uninvited a Nun Drag group supported by actual Catholic Nuns. Since? Dodgers rightly attacked by LGBTQ community and local fans, so they reversed and RE-invited. Now they've been attacked by a pitcher for The Washington Nationals who has called for fans to boycott the Dodgers, and their own star twirler has announced a Christian Night at Dodger Stadium - evidently BEFORE the team was ready to. (26:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Someone claiming to be the wife of a serving marine says the president needs to be "executed publicly." Elon Musk paid $44B for twitter. One of his co-investors now says it's worth $15B. And disgraced disloyal ex-General Mike Flynn has found a new calling: SELLING SPERM. C-Block (32:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Bentley was rescued by a clueless group which stuck him in a luxury kennel and he has to be ransomed! (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I never wanted to do politics. Then one day I went from interviewing Chris Kattan on MSNBC to anchoring the 1998 State of the Union AddressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 214: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: Now it's a CONSPIRACY to obstruct justice - within Mar-a-Lago and within the larger Obstruction. After two reports Tuesday, it's clear Trump may have had a team of aides and a box-moving guy who were literally playing hide-and-go-see with stolen classified documents, shifting them from place to place, and trying to burn the security video OF them shifting them from place to place, in order to keep the FBI from finding them, in order to keep the DOJ from getting them, and in order to prevent even his own lawyer from knowing about them. The newest stuff: The Washington Post reports that guy who helped Trump valet Walt Nauta move the boxes full of stolen classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is now suspected of then trying to find out from the Mar-a-Lago IT guy how you could get rid of security video at, say, Mar-a-Lago, showing, hypothetically, a guy who helped move boxes full of stolen classified documents. And not just that but that Trump’s primary Mar-a-Lago lawyer told Jack Smith’s Grand Jury that HE was told to search for the classified documents the DOJ and FBI wanted IN a storage room. And when he asked if he should search anywhere else – like in Trump’s Office – he was “steered away” and “waved off” and Trump’s office, of course, is where the FBI ultimately FOUND the MOST sensitive of the documents when it came back a month later. Meanwhile the Debt Deal is going so disastrously internally for the Republicans that when he sought support for his argument against passing it, radical Texas goofball conservative Rep. "Chip" Roy quoted... ME. B-Block (18:52) IN SPORTS: The Dodger disaster continues. They folded to the pressure of "The Catholic League" (which is one loud guy named Bill) and uninvited a Nun Drag group supported by actual Catholic Nuns. Since? Dodgers rightly attacked by LGBTQ community and local fans, so they reversed and RE-invited. Now they've been attacked by a pitcher for The Washington Nationals who has called for fans to boycott the Dodgers, and their own star twirler has announced a Christian Night at Dodger Stadium - evidently BEFORE the team was ready to. (26:52) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Someone claiming to be the wife of a serving marine says the president needs to be "executed publicly." Elon Musk paid $44B for twitter. One of his co-investors now says it's worth $15B. And disgraced disloyal ex-General Mike Flynn has found a new calling: SELLING SPERM. C-Block (32:40) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Bentley was rescued by a clueless group which stuck him in a luxury kennel and he has to be ransomed! (33:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I never wanted to do politics. Then one day I went from interviewing Chris Kattan on MSNBC to anchoring the 1998 State of the Union AddressSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 213: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT:  Joe Biden has still won the debt deal but now there is the chance that not only will Kevin McCarthy will lose it, but so will Joe Manchin. That putrid, unreliable, self-aggrandizing, self-inflating, fraudulent, sheep-in-sheep’s clothing Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has managed to stick the permitting legislation for his favorite project to accelerate the end of life on the planet from catastrophic climate change, the good old Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline. But Senator Tim Kaine is moving to remove the good old Mountain Valley Pipeline from the deal, since it's “completely unrelated to the debt ceiling matter” and of course it IS completely unrelated to it, and Kaine will file an amendment to get it cut the hell out of the bill. Because if President Biden would like to piss away the good will of averting a default that never should have been in play but Democrats in the House slept through the lame duck and Democrats in the White House apparently didn’t know about the 14th Amendment until a couple of weeks ago… and if President Biden would like to piss away the triumph of his victory over McCarthy, and if President Biden would like to piss away the early signs of a significant poll bump – Biden 46-44 in the Echelon Insights national poll, Biden 47-43 in the Clarity national poll, just out last night, and if President Biden would like to piss away all that, the way to do it is to umbrella this albatross of the Joe Manchin’s Integrity Memorial Pipeline into the Debt Deal. Plus: MAGA Chip Roy on the House Rules Committee is now pretending there is a secret deal for only unanimous votes to move bills like this onto the floor, and another MAGA Dusty Johnson is politely calling him a liar. Oh and, sorry, but the three-opponent-vanquishing hero of "Concession," Tom Wambsgans? The show's auteur says, no, he was NOT named after the three-opponent-vanquishing hero of baseball's 1920 World Series, BILL Wambsganss. Sorry! B-Block (16:05) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: These really ARE postscripts. Not just more from the Wayback Machine but the story of how I GOT my first prestige job as a sportscaster on a top New York radio station just after my 21st birthday: the way everybody else does - by hanging around that station at 5:15 in the morning the day their sportscaster happens to call out sick. C-Block (38:40) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Given today's headline, this is a good time to revisit the very FIRST Special Comment in this series: it involved fossil fuels, Joe Manchin, and the need to push Biden at all times. Also, a bad Howard Beale impression.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 212: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: I’d like to congratulate Joe Biden on kicking the asses of Kevin McCarthy and Donald Trump in the debt ceiling deal. More over, I'd like to thank Speaker McCarthy for writing President Biden’s first re-election campaign ad for him. Reporter: “Mr. Speaker, How would you describe your interactions with Biden during negotiations?” McCarthy: “Very professional, very smart. Very tough at the same time.” Voice Over (Announcer): “President Biden. Even the Republicans think he’s very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time!” Voice Over (Biden): “I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message because you heard him: I’m very professional, very smart, very tough at the same time.” Voice Over (Announcer): “Paid For By Biden-Harris 2024 and the Committee to Make Trump Eat Spit.” B-Block (11:52) Hey, it's Memorial Day. I'm OFF. Can't you TELL? Rather than re-purpose previous podcast components, here's stuff you'll either want to listen to, or not want any part of. Cool. It's your day off too. These are old newscasts and sportscasts and we start with one I had completely forgotten: a commentary for the United States Radio Network in 1985 in which I bash a football team owner named Donald Trump. And then three newscasts when New York radio station WNEW ran out of newscasters and had to have their 21-year old backup sports guy do drive time! C-Block (27:53) An assortment, beginning fittingly with Memorial Day 1987 when I filled in for Brent Musburger on CBS Radio. Also in here, the day George Steinbrenner fired managers for the second time in the same year in 1982 (on WNEW) and a series of college broadcasts from WVBR at Cornell from 1979.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

EPISODE 211: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:43) SPECIAL COMMENT: The Washington Post's choice of its headline was the Mar-a-Lago workers moving boxes full of classified documents the day before the Justice Department stopped by to pick up what they’d subpoenaed, but that’s not THE headline in the story. THE headline in the story is really startling and could be the biggest in this week-long festival of leaks, this waterfall of sources-saying because this leak the Post DIDN’T think was the headline suggests Jack Smith has witnesses who saw Donald Trump commit not just obstruction of justice but espionage. “Prosecutors…have gathered evidence indicating that Trump at times kept classified documents in his office in a place where they were visible and sometimes showed them to others… (they) have been told by more than one witness that Trump at times kept classified documents out in the open in his Florida office, where others could see them… and sometimes showed them to people, including aides and visitors,” unquote. So that’s literally espionage. Ten years or a fine or both. Per count. 18 USS Code 793 “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information”paragraph “E.” Keeping classified documents is one thing. But having “unauthorized possession” of any document relating to the national defense and then being that guy who “willfully communicates, delivers, transmits, or causes to be communicated… to any person not entitled to receive it” is the point at which the option to not prosecute for espionage has typically ended. Also: the Ron DeSantis Twitter disaster has been explained by tech experts. It's not tech, it's - what else - the cheapness of Elon Musk. Plus the judge not only throws the book at Oathkeepers culprit Stewart Rhodes but tells him to his face that he's not a "political prisoner" and most importantly of all, warns the courtroom and the nation that we could have another January 6th. And the TPM website decided to work backwards in its files on Rhodes and find where he made his national TV debut. You may not be that surprised by the answer. Lastly just for laughs: Trump gets the year wrong and Junior tries to insult DeSantis but winds up saying "Trump" instead.  B-Block (15:28) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: I lament what my invention, MSNBC, has become. Once we were liberal skeptics, calling out lies and pressing Democrats to earn our support and do what's right. Now it is a place where if NBC decided tomorrow to go right wing, all most of the hosts would need to do would be change names or dye hair and they'd get away with it. Because it's now about them. Happily, seven years ago this week Lawrence O'Donnell confessed he and the current crowd had "broken" my invention. C-Block (35:05) Sam, the two-year old female in NYC (36:05) FRIDAYS WITH JAMES THURBER: My father's favorite Thurber story, the amazing saga of Thurber's 4th Grade Class and the other students who had been in it for decades: "I Went To Sullivant."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.