Keith Olbermann talks Donald Trump, Fox News Propaganda Machine & John McCain | The Warning Podcast

foreign really pleased today to be able to be joined by Keith olberman a broadcasting Legend uh it's Sports journalism National commentary uh somebody known to everybody hope to have a wide ranging conversation with him uh today but with no further Ado welcome Kito Oberman how are you Keith apparently I'm legendary thank you Steve thank you you are a legendary you are uh you are a three-time winner of an award name for Edward R Morrow yeah an important figure in this country's history to say the least but thinking about Donald Trump sitting down with Sean Hannon how do you evaluate it in this moment trying to contextualize it to explain it I process it from this perspective we're we're quite a ways down the river from where we were eight years ago yeah um if I had knocked you into head in 2016 and you woke up yesterday and you watch that um what is it that we're seeing and importantly how should it be covered because because I think we're seeing something very specific yeah it isn't talked about directly how do you say it well I think what you asked what murrow's reaction would be I think his reaction would have been I told you so um the uh that there was a part of that generation in the 50s that understood because they had seen something that's that where television started in particular and that's what we're talking about that television uh obviously you can extend it to streaming and online anything with a camera this is it broadly included in the concept of television um if you've seen the movie network uh the great uh the great film about what happened of course when a newscaster either goes crazy or gets the word of God implanted in his head and begins to almost speak biblical tongues the it was considered one of the great prophecies uh film from about 1976 and it hinged on one thing happening the news divisions of the television networks used to be sacrosanct in terms of business if they made some money that was great if they lost 30 million dollars a year that was great that was the price that the people who ran ABC CBS and NBC paid for the right to broadcast um Beverly Hillbillies and Captain Kangaroo and the other shows that might not be up to the intellectual level of see it now or 60 Minutes or anything on the news and the The Movie Network hinges on the idea that at some point the networks would say this is crazy we're not going to lose 300 million dollars over 10 years so we can have a reporter standing by at all times at the Vatican it makes no sense and and the day that they made that decision then every decision after that would be monetarily based and they would simply try to get the largest audience and I know it's kind of difficult to explain to people that there was once once television that was based on not getting the largest audience that you were were you were fulfilling some sort of public service but the moment that was turned off this would follow and the reason these guys who were involved in making that picture understood that that was going to happen was that was really the way television began Edward R Murrow did two things he did great broadcasts about the news and documentaries and he challenged Joseph McCarthy in 1954 and he also did a weekly chat show in which they would put a camera in somebody's house and with meticulous rehearsal move one of these giant you know car sized cameras throughout somebody's home while they all mentioned you know things that they they had rehearsed as cues for which camera to pick and what they were going to talk about totally rehearsed totally non-journalistic and yet it was presented as if it were journalism and Walter Cronkite who is used as often as Murrow is now as this avatar for a different world in news used do a show called you are there in which CBS newscasters and actors combined to recreate historical events you know like Julius Caesar is stabbed you are there and as some guy playing Julius Caesar and standing next to him is Walter Cronkite with a microphone going how do you feel after being Stan 51 times by a Roman senate cullings and acting and making up the news and within the context of that everybody said okay we know this is not real he's not being but the point was that was where news started on television and a lot of people pulled it back and went we we shouldn't do that anymore we should keep Walter Cronkite over here we should not have him doing the news with actors it was like Shatner singing yeah the same variety it was but as if you were saying right here is here's 17 time Award winner Emmy Award winner William Shatner who's the greatest singer of all time these guys who produced that were the one same some of the same people who made the movie network and they weren't predicting the future they were just reminding us of what the past was like and that's what this has become it is now and I mean I was involved in decisions like this at MSNBC and I was involved in them at ESPN and I tried as often as I could to push back against them and not make them the priority but the idea that you were a success based on how many hours you brought in would have been alien to Edward R Murrow and it is you know the natural extrapolation from that point in which you said television news is going to be like anything else on television it's about selling refrigerators or whatever um the the end result of that is an interview that's not an interview by a journalist who's not a journalist um who is presenting himself as in some way asking questions when in fact he's just feeding cues to to a former president who's trying to seek the office again I mean it is it is back to the original propaganda uh possibilities that that were in the device the moment the first one was switched on in the 1930s and that's that's the problem because they used to self-regulate and self-censorship when it came to television was a good thing and I would have much rather worked in a television world where nine tenths of what I said would not have been allowed just like you can't say that because now we've got to put on some other idiot to say the exact opposite and that's that's just gonna you know nobody's gonna watch that at all we're going to lose 60 million a year instead of 30 million a year that was a much better system than what we have now do you think do you think that Donald Trump is being covered appropriately In This Moment no not at all I think any any attempt and every major news organization the actual ones including the ones that position themselves as liberal or let's say this they don't fight that designation Washington Post will say well we're not we're not one way or the other but if you call them you know if you said the Washington Post is conservative there would be 16 op-eds in the Washington Post explaining why they're not conservative right there would not be so many email op-eds if you call the Washington Post liberal they object less to that term um even then to have this have had it beaten into their heads for 25 years now uh by the ghost of Roger Ailes fair and balanced fair and balanced fair and balanced until this meaningless catchphrase which does not represent either truth nor reality becomes the goal it's like well sure uh the Trump uh Trump talked about death and destruction but uh here's why that could be a bad thing for Joe Biden and and and there is in every article there is some contextualization that these news organizations have trained generations of reporters and editors to look for as a kind of fig leaf for whatever it is they want to say rather than just saying okay every time in American history that journalism has actually contributed to something that saved the country helped the country helped the country grow organized and unify the company the country in time of War any time that this has happened in any form of Journalism any medium whatsoever there's always been some realization that there are two different things at play there are facts and then there is truth and these are two different things entirely and the the uh the desire to go for facts instead of Truth is is the problem with Trump you know Trump says whatever that's a fact he said it um is it true probably not if you say just the one thing and you do not say the other you have failed and 99 of the people covering Trump and every other politician fails to do that second part which is to me you know a capital offense within journalism you should not be allowed to be a journalist if you do not see the difference between a bunch of facts and truth because facts is stenography you know he said it well it's true that he said it the the New York Post operates on this uh insiders say and then they'll have somebody say a quote the quote has been said probably by somebody to whom they have read the quote and therefore it is a fact that someone said the quote about what's going on at CNN what's going on at the New York daily news what's going on of the Los Angeles time what's going on in Broadway whatever it is they have created the quote somebody has read it aloud therefore insiders have said that doesn't make it true it just means it's a fact now now you've talked about every type of consideration that you can think of that goes into that story to try to justify well he didn't mean that except for one possibility which is never in any of the stories which is taking him literally maybe he means what he says yeah why is it that that there seems to be a reluctance to say that he's calling for political violence in the United States well it's difficult for me to address that other than theoretically because I always say that I always point that out as do I and I and I think it's as clear as day without without without hyperbole yeah um the problem is this this is the other situation that that is inherited from the good old days particularly of Television journalism but I think it's true generally of Washington and political reporters in every field it seems to me they only understand about three or four templates for stories if it has never happened before it can never happen you know I I used to I used to say well again particularly with Trump I had a long sit down when I was still talking to him with Chuck Todd we had dinner in 2016 and I explained to him what was going on in the Trump campaign because it was clear to me he didn't get it and what the appeal was and what those words meant and he was just the the condescension and the well that would be treason wouldn't it this kind of just sort of um laughing me out of the out of the room uh attempt was really indicative of my point they that Washington reporters are trained to recognize a couple of stories and nothing else and it can't be that there would be somebody who would rise to the presidency of the United States with absolutely no loyalty or adherence to the concept of democracy whatsoever nor to the concept of uh non-violence nor to the concept of the peaceful transfer of power and yet this man has done all these things and they still do not perceive that as the primary descriptive of who he is or what he represents and and it's it there's still to some degree I criticized the the current president for the same thing when you get to that job you are not getting to that job president of the United States or host of Meet the Press or host of this week or whatever else in politics that there might be or editor of the latest leading you know online uh news organization from Washington you're not existing in the year 2023 this gets back to what we're talking about about Bill white and Phil Rizzuto and and Frank Messer from this from the 70s and 80s you joined that job and for you that you're sitting next to crank Messer you know and Bill white and you're whose ever role you're taking for you as you step in in 2023 there's a part of you that's still 1978 because that's when you saw it and that's what you understand and that's what you're trying to achieve and of course Joe Biden goes in and he's not he doesn't want to deal with the fact that democracy has been you know seriously wounded is still bleeding the day he takes office he wants to go and fix the economic problems and the and the and the misfit Connections in society and he wants to deal with those and of course he does because he wants to be John F Kennedy he's going into into him it's 1963 or 1961. and to this day the people who are getting in prominent roles in television are trying to be the persons that they admired in 1990 or 1980 or in 2000 whatever it was and and they will not see that there are new realities and there are are things that don't fit the templates that were true for Walter Cronkite and that's that's the essence of the problem this can't there's still a lot of this can't be happening in involved in the coverage particularly of trump and and others I think there's a fundamental issue uh first when you talk about Walter Cronkite I mean even Walter Cronkite wasn't Walter Cronkite when you when you apply the standards right that that people apply today um but look this this moment in time I I think fundamentally you have a former president of the United States who if he could would he kill to achieve political power absolutely um would he abuse police powers and lock up political opponents for sure would he torture them if he could would he make them disappear there's no restraints and and I think there's a total absence of coverage around the psychology of who Donald Trump is who is supporting this uh who are his chief lieutenants what are people getting out of it there's a total dearth of explanation about the danger about the rhetoric and inevitably where all of this leads um I predicted in September of 2020 that there would be violence because there's no other and for somebody who denies the outcome of the election right um you know both Nicole Wallace and I were deeply involved in 2004 through the night you know on the phone with the John Kerry campaign um arranging the call ultimately to the president and you understand this is a serious moment and I'm the person who plays the phone call from John McCain to Barack Obama you have an appreciation that you're playing this small role in the continuity of the peaceful transition of power that's gone on uninterrupted in the country since 1797 through Great Depression uh through Civil War this is this is how it works um and that that be up ended because of this man's ego and then metastasized to where it has gotten to that we have pushing on um pushing on the ceiling of a critical mass of people that have a total indifference to the continuity of our fundamental way of life uh that is our Birthright and is and has been given to all of us through immeasurable and profound sacrifice it's quite a thing to behold at a at a cosmic level but but secondarily at a at a fact level that nobody seems to be able to extrapolate and to say that we just had an event where six people are killed in a school but another AR-15 former president of the United States doing grievance over here violence over here I very much believe the fuse is lit we have a predictable event ahead which is some Act of political violence whether it be small to medium or catastrophic in total numbers but people will sit on television sets and they will openly wander how could there have been an act of political violence yes triggered by and adherent of somebody who then all of a sudden denies that in fact they were inciting political violence it's a remarkable level of almost societal or television gaslighting I don't I don't know what to call it even well I'm sure we think about it well I I I'll go back to what I said and expand upon it a little bit everybody who steps in front of a camera or sits down to write something that is going to be read by a lot of people on these topics is to some degree doing a thousand impersonations and then somebody said uh well you're the original and novel sportscaster I went no I'm not everything that I have done has been done by somebody previously I'm just doing it in a different recipe with different combinations and it's I think this is reminiscent because even in saying that it wasn't original James Thurber said something like that in 1927 and he was just explaining all the writers that he had read from the 1880s onwards from whom he stole something and there's a positive to that which is then the the the the redesigning the recipe makes for new broadcasters writers whatever reporters as as every generation goes through the American experience but the the the problem with it is is that again you are doing impressions of people who lived in a world in which none of what you just said was true and therefore when you do your impression when I sit and do the you know one 100th of my work which is actually reminiscent of Murrow or 1 100th that is actually reminiscent of Phil Rizzuto these men did not ever deal with a Donald Trump or anybody else who was willing to overthrow the form of government which has ruled this country since the Revolution and therefore you you have to you have to make that part up for yourself and I don't know how many people covering the news are capable of making that up for themselves and yet you like to think that putting all the components all the wisdom together um is is going to be enough to let somebody respond to an entirely new situation in American history and yet it clearly isn't and I think people are are often in a bubble of their own education uh it what I benefited from was being in sports where there's a final score and that's it and you there is a final it is not a 60 to 12 NFL final score means the team with 60 points not only one but one huge and there's no debate about that and in politics you can argue all you want and say well it's a moral Victory here and it's this that and the other thing what I was able to do I think was to be able to apply areas of of non-politics to politics and the people who enter it and have always been covering politics don't really see and don't really have at hand any other set of values and particularly don't don't understand maybe the works of fiction I am you know my political training is as much uh The Manchurian Candidate as it is the making of the president 1960. I mean you know I I I literally did a a class with with my that history Professor I mentioned in high school just about the making of the press president at the same time I was watching The Manchurian Candidate putting that in the back of my head like what would happen if that what would that look like in real life and I and I just I have to say this since you mentioned it I wrote an email to the new chairman of NBC in January of 2020 predicting what January of 2021 would look like and it was you know four options none of which were Trump loses and leaves I just our best case scenario is that it's such a decisive victory that when he tries to hold office by some illegal means uh he will not find anybody to support him because it will not it will be both the both humiliating and likely to result in their arrest if they try to defend him and unfortunately it was close enough that he was able to drag people down that path with him let me let me be clear let me be clear about I don't I don't think Chris Christie deserves any any credit um at all he's in New Hampshire um doing the groundwork uh you know thinking obviously uh that he's going to run for president which I think is ridiculous but he did say something that is that is that is deeply true yeah um and it's and it's this he just said like this isn't going to end well yeah right this is an end is a disaster and that just struck me and just that that of course that's true right there's a Trump's not going to have a quiet and wherever wherever this goes I bet a lot of money on that where so so my so my question is where does this how does this end do you do you think do you think he makes it through and is the nominee of the party again of the Republican party uh again I would love to delude myself and give you a flat no to that because that's actually not only is that the best case scenario for the Republican party and the nation but it actually is a double positive because I have no doubt that if he doesn't get the Republican nomination he will run in some way for some period of time he might drop out but he'll run as a third party candidate because he cannot he cannot allow himself to lose to lose is to admit you are not uh God on Earth which is at the heart of what he believes what they've all believed what what all the tyrants and would be tyrants have believed is that they are one of uh you know the most generous interpretation is they're one of a series of superhuman people uh Paul Pott Hitler Huey Long uh a couple of sports people whose names I'll oh out of it who had the same attitude towards things uh they they cannot you know to for for him to admit to himself that he lost and to acknowledge it publicly uh I really think he would then melt like the witch in The Wizard of Oz and I I almost mean that literally now now this is there's no way there's no way around it he will he will kill others or have others killed now admitting that he he lost and so if he does not get the nomination then hopefully he would proceed with a third party party run and and and ruin things for whoever went up against him um from the Republican side but I I do think he will get the nomination and and you know that oft attributed quote to many non-named senators like you know we have to come up with a better non-name Republican Senators we have to come up with a better strategy than waiting for this guy to die I I don't know what the better strategy is one of the great flaws in my career is that I traditionally was the person who wound up having the conversation um about the craziest stuff right um you know we're in that moment where you just kind of look to the right you look to the left and you know someone better you know better say something here and what I what I'm astonished by with Donald Trump is that is that nobody no and I'm nobody yeah look look at them and and to the right to the left and said you [ __ ] lost yeah you lost yeah you lost more people voted for the other guy and that there's not anybody right that that that that that would do that and in the whole of the party the whole of the party one in a two-party system less than five people yeah in an elected office you know in federal office it's it is it is remarkable very dangerous and doesn't doesn't portend well I suspect for for 2024 particularly when you look at DeSantis to me and Beyond it looks like uh he looks like a double a quarterback from college he's just he's just not a pro ball player at the end of the day yeah that's I think that's becoming rapidly evident and he's just he goes he goes on the Howard Dean pile many uh admirable or at least notable uh qualities but they do not apply whatsoever to I mean it's not just a double a quarterback it's a double a quarterback playing basketball I mean that's how far away from it he is there's not those are not skills designed for the national stage the problem ultimately is this I use this analogy on the podcast the other day uh I am through marriage and adoption a distant cousin of Mike Tyson Mike Tyson's father almost literally he did adopt him was the trainer Custom Auto Custom Auto's niece Geraldine was my aunt Jerry she married my my uncle okay so we are when I mentioned this once to Mike Tyson his eyes lit up and he went cousin and it was and we are we are whatever eighth cousins um Donald Trump came into Mike Tyson's life after custom Otto died and one of the Great accomplishments custom Otto had was to keep Mike Tyson the boxer on his meds except for the like two weeks before he would fight and he took him off his meds gradually and wean him very carefully and then let him loosen the ring and then after he knocked the guy out in a minute 12 the first thing he would do would be like open your mouth Mike and then the pill would go right in the mouth and they'd gear him back down where he was fit for society and after cuss died Tyson and Don King I'm this is almost yeah no I but Tyson was then approached by Don King and Donald Trump and Don King said you deserve more money and Trump said why are you taking these these pills that make you so sad and depressed and interrupt your sleep you're the champ you can do whatever you want and so Mike Tyson went with Trump and King and stopped taking the medication and the next thing he knew he was in jail for rape and for assault and for another rape and in a tattoo that covered half as space because this man said gave him license to do whatever he wanted to and to not do whatever he didn't want to and that's what Donald Trump has done for America for a portion of America are you a failure in your life no you're not you have had the system rigged against you do you hate a group and and use that how do you bring that back I don't I don't know I don't know if you have to wear you have to fight that and fight it at every turn until those Generations pass away literally I think that's the likeliest outcome I don't think there is I don't think you have you can't have political re-education camps and you're not talking about some sort of small minority that can be ignored you're talking about something that approaches 30 40 at sometimes 50 percent although I think he's lost you know a lot of that in the last eight years but it certainly approached 50 of the country and you just there's no way to convince them or to educate them about how wrong they are and how dangerous what they are representing what would Ted Williams say to those people what would Ted Williams Ted Williams would would say I didn't give up four years of my effing career as the effing greatest effing home run ball player of effing time for you guys to have to have the effing troops around the effing president when he takes effing office and you know if you're not going to listen to me I'm just gonna I can use this bat for other things Ted was a very practical guy and I don't I mean I think that would a lot of people would have that same solution and I I really you know I think we saw that and I you know we've we've mentioned we've had conversations in in uh circumstances uh online and off this this venue that we're in now about John McCain I think John McCain's message was beginning to be that uh to Donald Trump and his supporters and it it we needed somebody like that from that side of of uh the political spectrum and uh in addition to the great loss that he was to so many people personally one of the great tragedies you know there's several deaths of the last 10 years that could not have come at a worse time and his was among them um we really needed somebody who just didn't at this point give a [ __ ] anymore and was going to dedicate themselves to preventing Trump from destroying America and there aren't enough people like that because the other thing is force 30 years people on the ultra conservative side in this country were raised on Rush Limbaugh and a bunch of Rush Limbaugh clones who were told you know they were told by him that the Liberals were inherently evil and they weren't they weren't Democrats they weren't liberals they were Communists or whatever else they were and they were fixing the system and here comes a man who says that's right I was you know I'm that I'm the representative of the of the victims of the fixed system and we're all that and here I am and and we can take back our country and the message is not just to the pop people who voted for him but the people who worked for him because that is as you know that that offer of power it's like what what means uh are acceptable if the end is you're you know you're the president um or you're next to the president you pointed out I think quite eloquently and in a way I hadn't thought about it before that the the important positions in history are when you have lost a presidential election and you are part of that process ensuring that this goes on seamlessly and there must be a pride in that that the rest of us can only dream of um but but but there's there's fewer and fewer people who value that as opposed to saying well I don't care who the president is I'm the secretary of state therefore it's okay that it worked out this way and the other side's probably been doing it too and you try to figure out where that all started and how we unravel it I don't know I really don't I don't know what the solution is other than generations of us and many generations to follow will have to be vigilant at all times going forward against these people because the inclination will be you know here is a way we can be powerful without having to be virtuous and we can be powerful without having to have the most votes and we can be powerful without having to have any accountability for any crimes and as long as that option is there lots of people will take it in any field of life and with the amount of money and power that the that government now affords the victors it's it's that temptation is going to be there constantly speaking of John McCain I was in Vietnam last week and in Hanoi and um you know in Vietnam it's one of the youngest countries uh by mean by mean age in the world uh it's the first generation that was born after 1980 uh that has been born in peace in a thousand years and and to be in Vietnam and and sitting swimming with with my 17 year old son in the South China Sea literally watching looking at the spot where the Marines came ashore in 1965. so the country was lied to by a generation of politicians uh around a war that I'm convinced would not have been fought had John Kennedy lived um uh that that we live with the repercussions of it today but the Deep warmth of the Vietnamese people towards Bill Clinton uh John Kerry and uh John McCain you know two of the three in different different political parties right um you know they were on different sides of the peace movement home played different different roles in that time but but their ability to come together created the modern era of Vietnam which is one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world uh a key strategic Ally uh against China and the South China Sea and I'm I'm swimming with my son he goes to me is what's out there in the in the ocean I said well that's the parasol Islands Out Over the Horizon and and the Chinese um in the Vietnamese and the Taiwanese and the Philippines in the Filipinos all claim it right right so so we're at a flash point in this in this beautiful in this beautiful spot but while it was there went out to me lie um The Village uh where the massacre took place case and spent some time with some of the survivors of that welcome into their homes very modest places wood structures next with a next to the homes with a with a cow there uh is some vegetables in the garden one man you know had lost a leg had lost an an arm had been been severely wounded and and the thing that uh they talked about uh when when you when you're sitting there as an American they wondered why um William Cali never came back so he could be forgiven you're high in the spirit of of reconciliation and the American who stops this um this major Thompson uh Doug Thompson uh points his guns at the Americans who were killing the Vietnamese and told his door gunner he said get ready to kill them all if they don't stop and he ended the he ended the massacre and and Hugh Thompson I said Doug a moment ago Hugh Thompson he had this quote he said about doing the right thing he said don't don't expect anyone to ever say thank you for doing yep and and that's the truth about you know I think all through history people that have stood up you know attempted to do the right thing have been lonely voices we know some of them but most people who do it pay a rather high price and so in this moment in time um when you have a former president um you know who still commands the the mechanisms of one of the two political parties who's threatening violence you know the the willingness of people to to stand up and call it out even if their their conduct you know through my judgment or yours has been abhorrent over these last years becomes becomes really important in this moment because I really think we're on the edge of something getting much worse well I mean bluntly uh with anything in life if you don't like what somebody else is doing there are two choices one is they can keep doing it or the other one is they can stop doing it and if they stop doing the thing that you think is dangerous or wrong you need to reward that and if they keep doing it you need to not reward that so if there's somebody close to Trump who turned around and you know said well here's like I mean you know whatever else Michael Cohen has or has not done uh he was one of the people who turned around uh the the the the history of Watergate is always worth studying my my dear friend John Dean did not did not have his Epiphany where he unraveled the entirety of the cover-up uh solely because he knew it was the right thing he also did it to avoid prison he had mixed motives that's okay that's still what he did still made him a hero because if those tapes had not shown up he might have been totally ruined for life but he did do the right thing whatever the cost was and whatever the motivations were and you're absolutely right in this circumstance but just as we have political reporters who do not have the imagination to see things that have not happened before if none of us and and most of us even in politics but none of reporters were prepared for this world of trump ignoring every guard rail and every righteous thing in American history we also don't have any templates for the person who stops that within the Republican party or the conservative movement or Maga or whatever just stops and says this is insanity and I'm going to I'm going I'm in a position to to throw this thing totally off course the way Dean through Richard Nixon of course the way various people through Joe McCarthy off course um they they don't really have a template there's nobody to to in whose footsteps you are walking to do what is necessary at this point and I and I worry that it won't happen because again on the other side of it is that Temptation in which not doing the right thing brings you the better reward here's the other thing I wanted to ask you about and it's this Rubicon that I feel like we we have crossed and it concerns Fox News and it concerns the magnitude of the of the misconduct and this is this is what I think is historic about it I can't think of another instance when the misconduct has been discovered it's clear it's irrefutable and the response has been go [ __ ] yourself we're gonna we're gonna give we're gonna keep doing it yeah right they're they're not stopping and and I'm and I'm scratching my head thinking when has that ever been the case right that that's that that's been the response the arrogance was appalling and I said in the context of for example Bill O'Reilly who you famously feuded with but compared to what you have now I mean we're talking about the good old days seriously right I mean it's that there I cannot think not father Coughlin um not the America first movement of the of the 1930s that has been caught as directly as clearly as pre-medicatedly lying well uh for a specific seditious purpose aimed like a poisoned dagger at the Democratic heart of the country I I can't think of another example that's worse or more corrupt can you well not in a media sense I think and that this this will sound ridiculous but to some degree it's the the Confederacy is comparable to Fox News or you know within the context of it happened here uh the 911 plotters are at that level too and uh the the the I've always I mean I've said this early on and people were appalled at the thought that Rupert Murdoch had done more damage to this country than Osama Bin Laden had and there was no question about it no credit there's no question about it because no whatever the the the personal damage and and the deaths and I had a person in uh three of the four planes in each of the towers so it was a personal thing for me too but there was is there there was no change in America that resulted from that no true change as opposed to the change in America that has been wrought by Rupert Murdoch and I think you're right that in terms of History we don't have precedence and I'll go back and hit this over the head one more time the problem with that is that people then don't know who to emulate and do not know which moment of History to try to recreate and do not know whose footsteps to walk in and are asked to do things that have not been done before and instead of going back and saying you know the the founding fathers to whom we attribute such wisdom and whose words so many people particularly on the conservative side want to you know walk in in bronze and never change one word of even though the entire world has changed a thousand times since then which they would have appreciated and spoke directly too but they were they they were doing things that had not been done before and there were few there were a few role models for them and they had to then they had to show not just the courage of going against what existed time but going against the history of of almost all of uh how people were governed and we're in a similar situation now and with with media expanding and with AI now coming into this conversation about what you can you know what words you can literally put in somebody else's mouth hi I'm Bill Clinton please watch Fox News I mean that that's that that extra added nightmare to the extant nightmares is it keeps me up at night too but I I just you know the my my uh my warnings about Fox News uh were always thought to be some sort of you know bid for ratings and I mean I there was a Infamous meeting in 2009 in which the chairman of General Electric GE wanted to take MSNBC off the air because in response to my criticisms of Fox News and O'Reilly O'Reilly went after GE and its chairman Jeff immelt claiming that GE was building parts for IEDs in Iraq which was literally true some of the IEDs in Iraq used 1954 GE television tubes that were bought in second-hand stores in in Baghdad or Tehran and so it was not actionable you could literally say oh GE made these parts and it turned out that Jeff ml's mother was a Bill O'Reilly viewer and so she would see this and she called him and said why are you building bombs to build to kill Americans and his response was to take MSNBC off the air if anything further happened to him that was where we were in 2009 because even the concept that this this hour I think righteous criticism of Fox News uh was making this man a hundred million dollars in profit every year was not enough for him to stand up and say Mom shut up or as I suggested to him how old is your mother and he went to she's 92 and I said so she's not a big powerful woman and he went no I said well why don't you just send a couple of GE employees over the house and yank the cable out of the wall taking a little something out of the page of how they dealt with Martha Mitchell and her phone calls well just get the phone out of the goddamn wall that'll stop it at least for the rest of today and he he looked at me like I was insane I said is that any crazier than taking MSNBC off the air because you don't like what somebody said about you on Fox News you want some advice on how to beat Fox News I've been doing it pretty well let me give you a couple of pieces of advice but that's where that's the the that's the danger of it is that there are resources available and there always have been to stop entities like Fox News we're seeing this now with the Dominion lawsuit is that courage and a little cash can go a long way against people who have in fact been not been challenged in this way throughout their history nobody you know literally the people who create who complained about Fox News in the 90s and the 2000s were you know me and a bunch of people on air America and you know uh uh what's his name David Brock and Media Matters and then you know some comedians and that was it and if we'd all had money behind us I mean help we had money behind us now we could take them down uh pretty quickly I think and certainly with with the damage that Dominion has done to them so I I have I have sadness and hope at the same time which is that if money and the and the sort of knife fight quality that is available to a lot of conservatives Were Somehow applied to liberals and Democrats it might be a much more fair fight but the sad truth is that the Republican and conservative politicians have always been better at the public political combat than the Democrats have been and and therefore we're in the situation we're in now with with both the Trump and Fox News and everybody to the right of Fox News as well right last two questions for you um you've got to tell me the the they don't watch Alderman story I will all right I'm going to tell you this I'm gonna tell you this story talk to so John McCain John McCain got really pissed pissed off at me two times right that that rank above that rank above all others and and the first was and I was I was putting these positions right I was Mr no and the first time was we were in we were in Las Vegas and he was the presumptive Republican nominee and and he announced he was in a gutter the floor of the casino to play craps and uh so you can't you can't you can't go down to the casino right like you're off the off the Retirement Village Bus right to throw to throw dice like no chance and so about an hour later I got a call that he had ordered a dealer and a private cable to his to his suite and I I canceled it and he and he was he was not happy about that better idea second second occasion was you know he would call typically you know several times through the night but he would call after your show and he would say he goes do you see what [ __ ] olberman said I said no I said I I imagine it wasn't good right and I said what are you watching that for I said put on put on ESPN and uh and and he would and and I so I unplugged the TV and removed it from his suite there was no TV and um you know what the [ __ ] is my where the [ __ ] is my TV I know you did it and uh and and I did but um you know look you know in a presidential presidential campaign I was I was talking to this uh a democratic um he's now a senator but he was thinking of running for president and uh and he says to me and sometime in about 2018 is there anything I should read and I said read up on your Marcus Aurelius uh read up on your read up on your stoicism um and it's a you know it's an important it's an important aspect you know to stay calm stay steady you know when you're in that when you're in that zone when you're in that League because the criticism's gonna come as it as it should let me just throw one thing in for the record the irony to this with McCain is that my concern in 2008 was not about John McCain until the Sarah Palin Choice that's when he lost me but my concern up to that date was I did not know I believed and said this that I did not think that this nation this form of government could survive another Republican president which is kind of prescient because we almost didn't and we may not we still may not so I had great personal affection for him in fact knowing what I know now if it had been him versus Al Gore in 2000 because I worked for Al Gore later a well-intentioned man who just turned things over to the wrong aides and Associates um if it had been McCain versus versus Al Gore in 2000 I would have voted for McCain I think that I think that when you when you look out ahead I think the thing about John McCain more than anything else you know politically he wasn't perfect he wouldn't have liked to have been deified um he'd be the first person to tell you he had a lot of a lot of flaws but he was he was fearless and he just he just would not have tolerated the fealty and the acquiescence uh to Donald Trump he just he wouldn't have understood the total Instinct towards a lack of defiance right you know McCain would have processed it through the prism is it you know no one no one's going to tell this guy to go [ __ ] himself no one I guess it's me and and um it's just it's a it's extraordinary when you when you think about the amount of attention the amount of time you know that Donald Trump is consumed of the nation right since 2015 15 you know it was somebody who grew up in the tri-state area that you know Donald Trump you know could be the president of the United States that after having lived through the Trump presidency he could be the nominee again and it's almost certain to be an electoral catastrophe yeah um should Donald Trump be the Republican nominee um but you know the danger of course is that you know the way you get elected president is by being one of the two finalists in the in the race and that's too close given what the stakes are yep uh I met him first in 1983. Trump and I came out of this it was at a Convention of a New York sports team owners and I remember interviewing him and Steinbrenner who I knew well and I think it was uh Sonny Werblin was there from the Knicks and the Rangers and at the end of this I turned to my cameraman I'm 24 years old and having interviewed this man and I just turned my cameraman and went pointing at Trump I said what the [ __ ] is wrong with this guy and you sit back and you go do you want to go back in time for one moment I would go back and lean in on myself and go follow up on that thought bye and that would be my entire time travel experience but you said you had one last thing you want to do I was there are you optimistic for the future uh I am uh I'm I'm optimistic because I don't know what other choice there is in other words there's two things there's one thing you just mentioned that I smiled at that uh that McCain at some point said uh I guess it's gonna have to be me who there's nobody else going to tell this guy to to to to to attack Syria to go go [ __ ] himself I guess it's gonna have to be me I was a fairly uh I mean my ESPN career was in the background I had already uh done that I had established myself in that field I had gone into politics took a deadbeat show on a deadbeat television network and made it the highest ranked thing that wasn't highest rated thing that wasn't on Fox News and was now anchoring election night on MSNBC but I really hadn't stuck my neck out at any point and then uh Donald Rumsfeld started talking about a VFW meeting in 2006. started talking about how uh anybody who opposed the Bush Administration or the Iraq War was confused used morally or ethically and I sat there reading this story waiting for my plane to take off at LAX and going now where is the liberal comment on this where is the response from John Kerry where is somebody with a platform to say something about how much [ __ ] there is in this statement and I went oh wait I have a platform and I wrote the first of my commentaries literally because I said that same thing which is isn't somebody else going to tell this guy to [ __ ] off and I would I said oh I guess it's gonna have to be me and my hope is I do not think um as much as I appreciate that quality and and like to think that it's a special one since I had it and uh as you mentioned Senator McCain had it and a few others I don't think it's Unique to us I think there are still people and I think there are a lot of young people who are saying right now I guess it's going to have to be me who steps up against this and I have great hope for them because there are two things that they deal with that we do not they are not bound by by everything that we've been through in our political and non-political lives and careers um they're not that old they are not that worn down by it they are not that you know uh fed into the templates that I mentioned before and the other thing is this future that they see is is a much Starker series of choices than we ever saw they know very well that they have to get some American leadership in terms of to whatever degree climate change is a threat to mankind it is a threat and if it is natural we still have to deal with it that's one of the great things about the climate change debate it's like we're going to do if it's not if it can't be stopped by reducing carbon emissions we have to stop it in some way because where I'm sitting here in New York will be beachfront property in 20 years one way or the other we got to do something about it now there's a real there's a real lack of imagination in this country because there's a real lack of travel about how dirty the sky is how dirty the air is and in various parts of the world and that's us and the younger the younger people see that as if we don't do this now we're all going to die in 2060 or whatever it is and I have some hope that a lot of them are going to say yeah I know I've been raised under generation after generation which the only only attribute is how much more money you make I think I think or how much power you wield I think there are people who will be making that well I don't see anybody else around here putting out this fire I guess it's going to have to be me so for that reason and that reason alone I am optimistic Keith olberman good to be with you thanks for the time my pleasure Steve all the best foreign [Music]