Earlier this week, new CNN President Chris Licht made his first on-air talent hirings, naming former NYPD spokesman and CBS News correspondent John Miller as the network’s Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst. During his Countdown with Keith Olbermann podcast Thursday, the host said Miller’s hiring should “set your hair on fire”.

“I have known this John Miller, who Chris Licht just hired as CNN’s new Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst for 44 years. He has had the kind of career you probably think of if you ever think of my career,” Olbermann said before listing off Miller’s stops during his media career.

“When he was starting as a reporter at Channel 5 in New York — just as we were all converting to color TV — I was an intern on the assignment desk. I swear, I’ve known him since 1978. I actually made phone calls for John Miller on a couple of his stories in 1978, when I didn’t need to shave more than once a week. And his act was the same in 1978 as it is in 2022. He was a cop jock-sniffer. He was the teenage kid at home in New Jersey with the police scanner radios who would then show up at the crime scene.”

Olbermann then detailed controversy surrounding Miller, including his involvement in the skepticism from the NYPD about a rape victim in 1994, saying she wanted to gain publicity for a gay and lesbian rally. Miller was later forced to apologize. He also is accused of lying to New York City Council in March of this year after saying there is no evidence the NYPD spied on Muslim communities in the city after 9/11.

“John Miller — Chris Licht’s first hire — CNN’s new Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst and cop apologist was so wrong, so offensive, so Islamophobic that the Mayor of New York Eric Adams, himself an ex-cop, contradicted John Miller publicly and apologized and said ‘What we did was wrong’.”

Olbermann’s comments on Miller came after saying he thought Licht “ate glue” while the pair worked together at MSNBC.