Don’t turn on your television if you want reassurance that the sky isn’t falling or, in the case of Keith Olbermann, don’t go on YouTube.
On Sunday during a conversation about the reports of Russian hacking, CNN’s Brian Stelter said: “Is this something of a national emergency? And are journalists afraid to say so because they’re going to sound partisan?”
Writer Julia Ioffe was not afraid to sound partisan and responded, “It does feel we are on the verge of something potentially awful and Trump seems to be taking us there daily with some of his cabinet picks, some of his statements.”
Stelter defended critical coverage of this remark by saying Monday, “I asked my guests the question — didn’t state it as fact.”
Later on Monday, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes would state it as fact. Hayes hosted a town hall event in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with Bernie Sanders and afterward he tweeted, “Thanks for watching and thanks to the people of Kenosha for coming out. I think a huge part of understanding the the national emergency we now find ourselves in is listening to an engaging with our fellow Americans. I get that it can be maddening. But it’s necessary.”
GQ special correspondent Keith Olbermann, however, takes the cake when it comes to freaking out over news reports that Russia interfered in America’s election to get Donald Trump elected. To open up his YouTube show Monday night, he said, “We are at war with Russia or perhaps more correctly we have lost a war with Russia without a battle. We are no longer a sovereign nation, we are no longer a free people, we are victims of a bloodless coup.”
Stelter found Olbermann’s freak out compelling, and tweeted, “Olbermann tonight in his latest essay for [GQ Magazine]: ‘The nation and all of our freedoms hang by a thread.”