Rachel Maddow personally stepped in to block former MSNBC host and her one-time mentor, Keith Olbermann, from getting her coveted primetime slot on the liberal network.
MSNBC has been searching for her replacement ever since she went on hiatus and Olbermann thought he had the inside track on the gig.
However, Maddow stepped in to shut down the idea despite Olbermann offering her a “f*ckton of money.”
“I offered to have her production company ‘produce’ the show,” Olbermann said.
“Would give her some proxy control and a f-ckton of money but she and former MSNBC boss Phil Griffin refused.
“I do not expect to continue negotiations with the successors to this management team,” Olbermann added before insulting management and sealing his fate.
“Management is worse than asleep at the switch.”
“Keith Olbermann is MSNBC’s only hope after their disastrous decision to pay Rachel Maddow eight figures not to work. There’s no one else,” a longtime TV news executive told Fox News.
“How embarrassing for MSNBC that they’re still giving Rachel veto power over hosts who don’t pass her ideological litmus test,” the executive said.
“Cesar Conde keeps surpassing himself as the weakest executive in network television.”
From The Daily Beast:
Maddow’s rejection of Olbermann as her replacement is especially noteworthy considering the role he played in turning her from an Air America radio host into his protégé as an MSNBC regular and eventual star voice of the channel.
While the pair were friendly during Olbermann’s glory days with the network, their relationship has soured in recent years.
Olbermann may have gotten a laugh at MSNBC, however, when this weekend the network became the internet’s “main character” for a day after The Rachel Maddow Show was forced to delete a tweet and issue a groveling apology boosting a claim from Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, that Adolf Hitler didn’t kill “ethnic Germans.”
This week’s Source Material newsletter reveals that MSNBC almost brought back Keith Olbermann to replace Maddow—until Rachel stepped in to kill it. https://t.co/oyyrQ0zMji
— Andrew Kirell (@AndrewKirell) March 15, 2022
My old boss @KeithOlbermann thinks there’s a case for military detention of Tulsi Gabbard and Tucker Carlson, adding, “Trials are a sign of good faith and patience on the part of a democracy.” https://t.co/DGWOOMgzyK
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) March 14, 2022
