Keith Olbermann's new online talk show has caught social media's eye thanks to his furious tirade against President Donald Trump on Thursday. Olbermann left a job at ESPN to focus on his YouTube show this week, and in the second episode, he called the president a "terrorist." More shockingly, however, Olbermann called for a wide range of Trump's "enablers" to be "prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society."
Olbermann pulled no punches on the Trump administration in his new monologue, calling for everyone even remotely connected to the president to be criminally charged for complicity in his actions. To Olbermann, that included not only White House officials, but judge Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Mike Lee and Attorney General William Barr, to name a few. He even called out 17-year-old alleged murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin last month, killing two. Olbermann's monologue did not sit well with Trump's supporters online.
"He, and his enablers, and his supporters, and his collaborators, and the Mike Lees and the William Barrs... and the Mike Pences, and the Rudy Giulianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society while we try to rebuild it and to rebuild the world Trump has destroyed by turning it over to a virus," Olbermann said.
This was the crescendo of a 15-minute long video, in which Olbermann made references to the most recent actions of Lee, Barrett, Barr and others earlier on. Still, some said that the implications of this tirade went too far, even for critics of the president.
Olbermann began his career as a sports broadcaster before turning to politics on MSNBC from 2003 to 2011. He returned to sports after that, but dipped his toe back into politics when Trump won the presidency in 2018. Olbermann was hired by ESPN in early 2018, but this week he announced that he was resigning to focus on political commentary. For Olbermann, that has taken the form of an independent YouTube show.
Some warned Olbermann that his comments on Thursday made him sound "as extreme" as Trump and his supporters. Others cheered the anchor, and called on other public figures to come out just as strongly. Even his supporters were clearly awed by the extremes in his rhetoric.
Supporters of the president took this monologue personally, apparently fearful that if Olbermann got his way, they would be liable for all of the president's actions as well. Here is a look at how the conversation played out.