Podcaster Keith Olbermann said Monday that MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell tried to take his job as host of Countdown while he was caring for his dying father. Olbermann made the comments on his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast.
Olbermann hosted the TV show from 2003-2011. According to Rolling Stone, Olbermann was suspended by the network in 2010 after donating money to three Democratic candidates for Congress. He reportedly agreed to part ways with the network many months after that, but speculation still abounds about whether he was fired.
Olbermann said he took a week or two off following his father’s death in 2010. Theodore Olbermann succumbed to complications from colon cancer.
“Then came the day when I went back to the office full-time and my assistant grabbed me,” Olbermann said. “Both hands on my wrist and said you did not answer my emails, for God’s sake do not ever leave me alone with Lawrence O’Donnell again. He’s a son of a bitch and he treats me, and every other person who isn’t a producer here like dirt.”
Olbermann stated that his assistant then revealed that O’Donnell was trying to get him fired from “Countdown.”
“If you think he (O’Donnell) is nuts, one of your assistant producers is in on it with him,” exclaimed Olbermann. “I have to admit, even now, of all the things I went through at that very, very strange place, MSNBC, even now, this story still shocks me.”
Olbermann said the senior producers of Countdown consisted of a guy that booked satellite transmissions for MSNBC and a former daytime guest booker.
“Another was an old friend of mine who had been blown out of ESPN in a sexual harassment lawsuit, porn link, email scandal and was headed back to college to start his career all over again until I asked that he be hired and then promoted,” said Olbermann.
Olbermann said before he could start digging for answers about why O’Donnell wanted him fired, the network announced O’Donnell’s new show called The Last Word. Olbermann said two of his senior producers followed O’Donnell to the new timeslot.
Olbermann added that the real-life saga was documented in the American TV series The Newsroom written by Aaron Sorkin.
